Man shot dead in Arsal in altercation. Investigation.

A man was shot dead when an altercation escalated in the northeastern border town of Arsal Monday. The state-run National News Agency reported that a man identified as S.S. al-Hujairi shot Ali Khaled al-Baridi with a rifle, critically wounding him. He was rushed to the Al-Rahma Hospital in Arsal and then to Mortada Hospital in Baalbeck, where he was pronounced dead. The area around Arsal was once a nexus of militant control amid spillover from the Syrian civil war, with fighters from Daesh (ISIS) and the extremist group Jabhat Fatah al-Sham – formerly known as the Nusra Front – maintaining a presence there until the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah drove them out in separate offensives in summer 2017. Arsal police are conducting investigations into the incident.