Syria's foreign minister, meanwhile, rebuffed an appeal by the U.N. and the Red Cross to let humanitarian aid reach thousands of civilians trapped in the rebel-held town of Qusair, under regime attack for the past three weeks. The Red Cross said many of the wounded were not receiving desperately needed medical care. The latest confrontation between Lebanon's Hezbollah militia and Syrian rebels, who have been fighting on opposite sides inside Syria, came at a time of increasingly incendiary rhetoric between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the region.
One of the Arab world's most influential Sunni clerics, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, urged the faithful this week to fight alongside Sunni rebels against Shiite Hezbollah and President Bashar Assad's minority Alawite sect, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam. Hezbollah's involvement in the battle over strategic Qusair has also raised tensions with Syrian rebels who have threatened to target the militia's bases in Lebanon, and with Sunnis in Lebanon who support the rebels. Clashes between Sunnis and Alawites erupted Sunday evening in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli, wounding at least 14 people, according to the state-run National News Agency.
This citizen journalism image provided by Qusair Lens which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows Fadi Kerkoz mourning next to a body of his brother Shadi Kerkoz, who was killed in a battle against Syrian forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, in the town of Qusair, near the Lebanon border, Homs province, Syria, Sunday, June 2, 2013. Syrian rebels fought with gunmen from the Hezbollah militia in a deadly clash on Lebanese soil, a security official and local media said Sunday, in the latest sign Syria's civil war is spilling over the country's borders.
Also Sunday, three rockets from Syria struck northeastern Lebanon, a day after 18 rockets and mortar rounds hit Lebanon's eastern Baalbek region, a Hezbollah stronghold. From Saturday night into Sunday, Hezbollah encircled and ambushed Syrian rebels and allied Lebanese fighters whom they suspected of rocketing Baalbek, a Lebanese security official said. A Hezbollah fighter and several rebels were killed in the clashes in a remote area near the Syrian border, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The Lebanese TV station Al-Mayadeen, seen as sympathetic to the Syrian regime, quoted Lebanese security officials as saying 17 fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra, a rebel group linked to the global al-Qaida terror network, were killed in the fighting. The report could not be independently confirmed. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has linked his militia's fate to the survival of Assad's regime, but pledged in a televised speech last month that he would keep the battle out of Lebanon. Hezbollah is the most dominant faction in Lebanon's patchwork of ethnic and religious groups. A backlash against Hezbollah's involvement in Syria and a creeping destabilization of Lebanon could hurt the group's standing at home.
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