From AP:
DAMASCUS, Syria – Syrian security forces have killed an Arab extremist who was trying to illegally cross into neighboring Lebanon with other suspected militants, Syria’s official news agency reported Sunday.
Two Syrian soldiers also were killed in the clash that erupted after the Arab man opened fire on a Syrian border patrol, according to the news agency SANA. No details were provided on the nationality of the slain man, who was identified only by his initials M.Z. The report did not say when the clash happened or where along Syria’s border with Lebanon it was.
The agency said 34 extremists of various nationalities were arrested after the clash.
Syrian officials were not available for comment.
Security forces searched an isolated house near the border allegedly used by the extremist group where they found passports, identity cards and photocopies of personal documents belonging to various nationalities, SANA said…
Security forces had been monitoring the previously unknown group, calling itself Jund al-Sham for Jihad and Tawhid, for several months and broke it up as it was planning to carry out bomb attacks to destabilize security in Damascus and its suburbs.
During last month’s raid in the Daff al-Shouk suburb of Damascus, Syrian forces seized documents saying the group should fight its holy war, or jihad, in Middle East countries that are run by “despotic regimes,” including Syria, “Christian Maronite” Lebanon where the president is a Maronite Catholic and the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan.
The documents said next on their list should be the “dictators” of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iraq, whose “people have been afflicted by the crusaders.”…