Militants occupy Lebanese town on Syria border, minister says

Beirut (dpa) - Rebels fighting in Syria are occupying a north-eastern Lebanese border town that is home to thousands of Syrian refugees, Lebanese Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouk said Friday."The region of Arsal is occupied, and our main policy is to avoid being dragged into the Syrian conflict," al-Mashnouk said.His remarks were made days after al-Qaeda‘s Syria branch, al-Nusra Front, released 16 Lebanese servicemen abducted in August 2014 in a swap with the government in Beirut, which released 13 prisoners linked to the militant group.Live television broadcasts of Tuesday‘s exchange showed al-Nusra Front insurgents in full control of the outskirts of Arsal."It is easy to launch a military campaign in Arsal, but we choose not to do so," al-Mashnouk said without naming al-Nusra as the occupiers.He estimated the number of Syrian refugees living in Arsal at 120,000.Lebanon is home to about 1.2 million Syrians who have fled a civil war in their homeland, which is now in its fifth year.Arsal is a mainly Muslim Sunni town, which has been backing Syrian opposition rebels since the outbreak of the uprising in Syria in 2011.