Lebanese soldiers killed at checkpoint
State media confirms three deaths near Sunni-majority town of Arsal close to Syria border amid rising tensions.
Armed men have opened fire on a military checkpoint in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, killing three soldiers before escaping across the border into Syria, according to a Lebanese state media.
National News Agency said two of the soldiers died in Tuesday's attack, which occurred near the town of Arsal, while a third died later in hospital.
The border areas around Arsal are used by Syrian rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad to smuggle weapons and fighters from Lebanon across into Syria, and the region has seen previous clashes between the Lebanese military and Syrian fighters.
In February, four Lebanese soldiers and two fighters were killed in a gun battle near Arsal.
The latest shooting comes as an assault by Syrian soldiers, backed by Lebanon's armed group Hezbollah, continues on the nearby Syrian border town of Qusayr to drive out rebels.
On Monday, four shells from Syria hit Hermel, a region in the north of Lebanon, killing a child and injuring two other people.
On Sunday, two rockets hit the Shiyah district in the southern part of Beirut, Lebanon's capital, wounding at least five people.
Shiyah is a neighbourhood in Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, which is a stronghold of the mainly Shia Hezbollah, whose leader Hassan Nasrallah confirmed on Saturday that his fighters were directly involved in Syria's conflict.
Nasrallah pledged in a speech that his group, which is backed by Iran, would turn the tide of the conflict in Assad's favour, and stay as long as necessary to do so.
The fighting in Syria has already spilled over into Lebanon's second city, the northern port of Tripoli, where 31 people have been killed and 212 wounded in a week of clashes between pro-Assad Alawites and pro-rebel Sunni Muslims.