By Feras Dalatey, Timour Azhari, Laila Bassam and Mahmoud Hassano<\/p>\n
DAMASCUS\/BEIRUT, March 3 (Reuters) – Syria’s defense minsitry said it reinforced its border with Lebanon, and eight Syrian and Lebanese sources said this included rocket \u200cunits and thousands of troops as conflict spread in the region including between Israel and Hezbollah in \u200cLebanon.<\/p>\n
The sources included five Syrian military officers, a Syrian security official and two Lebanese security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
The Syrian defense \u200bministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the army has reinforced its deployment along the Syrian borders with Lebanon and Iraq as part of efforts to \u201cprotect and control the borders amid the escalating regional conflict\u201d.<\/p>\n
The deployed units belong to the border guard and reconnaissance battalions tasked with monitoring border activities and combating smuggling, the ministry added.<\/p>\n
The Syrian officers said the Syrian reinforcement \u200coperation began in February but sped \u2060up in recent days. The Syrian and Lebanese armed forces did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
The Syrian officers, including a senior member of the military, said the move was \u2060aimed at preventing arms and drugs smuggling as well blocking Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah or other militants from infiltrating Syria.<\/p>\n
A Syrian officer told Reuters that military formations from several Syrian army divisions, including the 52nd and 84th Divisions, have expanded their presence along \u200bthe border \u200bin western Homs countryside and south of Tartus.<\/p>\n
The reinforcements include \u200binfantry units, armored vehicles and short-range Grad and Katyusha \u200crocket launchers, the official said.<\/p>\n
The Syrian security official said Damascus had no plans for military action against any neighboring country. \u201cBut Syria is prepared to deal with any security threat to itself or its partners,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Still, the move has fueled concern among some European and Lebanese officials over a possible incursion.<\/p>\n
The Syrian military officers vehemently denied any such plans, saying Syria wants balanced relations with its neighbor after decades of strained ties linked to Syria’s outsized influence in Lebanon and \u200cHezbollah’s support for the former government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad \u200bduring a 14-year civil war.<\/p>\n
Syria had troops stationed in Lebanon from 1976 \u200buntil 2005 including during Lebanon’s civil war that \u200bended in 1990.<\/p>\n
Hezbollah resumed firing at Israel on Monday more than a year after reaching \u200ca ceasefire to a months-long war in 2024. Since \u200bthat ceasefire, Israel continued near-daily \u200bstrikes.<\/p>\n
Israel this week ordered much of Lebanon’s south evacuated, with tens of thousands of people displaced. Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon’s South and southern Beirut have killed dozens and prompted thousands of people to flee towards \u200bSyria.<\/p>\n
A senior Lebanese security official said Syrian \u200cauthorities told Beirut that Syria’s deployment of rocket launchers along the mountains that form Lebanon’s eastern border \u200bwith Syria was a \u201cdefensive measure against any action or attack that Hezbollah might launch against Syria.”<\/p>\n
(Writing \u200bby Timour Azhari and Feras Dalatey; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Feras Dalatey, Timour Azhari, Laila Bassam and Mahmoud Hassano DAMASCUS\/BEIRUT, March 3 (Reuters) – Syria’s defense minsitry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[100,37,1492,93,1490,1753,95,1491],"class_list":{"0":"post-2067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-syria","8":"tag-hezbollah","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-lebanese-sources","11":"tag-lebanon","12":"tag-security-official","13":"tag-security-officials","14":"tag-syria","15":"tag-syrian-army"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116168794483100291","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}