Lebanon to deploy army along border with Syria

Lebanon’s Cabinet decided Monday to deploy the country’s armed forces along the northern border with Syria, days after shelling from the Syrian side of the frontier claimed the lives of two people and wounded scores more. The Cabinet session, which convened in the afternoon under President Michel Sleiman at Baabda Palace, comes against the backdrop of major security developments, both within and along the porous border with Syria. Incidents along the shared border, which have waxed and waned since unrest swept Lebanon’s neighbor in March 2011, have spiked in recent weeks. Over the weekend heavy shelling from the Syrian side of the frontier led to the death of one and the wounding of five others in the northern Akkar region. In a separate incident hours later, rocket fire from the Syrian side of the border killed an 8-year-old boy, wounding five others. Last week, Syrian forces briefly kidnapped two General Security personnel at the Bqayaa border crossing in the north of the country. Lebanon has adopted a policy of dissociating itself from developments in Syria.