Conflict Incident Report

Hezbollah forces targeted Daesh (ISIS) positions on the northeast Lebanese border near the town of Ras Baalbeck, the Hezbollah-affiliated War Media Center reported via twitter. The outlet said that Hezbollah forces used guided missiles to destroy a Daesh field command center in Shaabat al-Khabiyeh on the outskirts of the town. Several Daesh casualties were reported. The attack comes on the heels of a Lebanese Army operation over the weekend that led to the death of a Daesh emir and the arrest of nine suspected militants in the northeast Lebanese town of Arsal.

According to analysts, the highly planned and coordinated raid marked a potential expansion of the Lebanese Army’s presence along the northern border with Syria. In a statement released Saturday, the Army confirmed that Hasan al-Mallees, the Daesh emir, had been killed in the operation. Mallees had allegedly been involved in the 2014 attack on Arsal, when militants briefly overran the town and took a number of Lebanese soldiers hostage. The nine arrested men were identified as Syrian nationals Fawzi al-Sahli, Alaaeddine al-Halabi, Ahmad Miman, Abdullah Hesian and Mohammad al-Sahli, and Lebanese nationals Wael al-Fleiti, Hussein al-Fleiti, Amin Hmayyed and Mahmoud al-Fleiti.