Syria has deployed a military unit along the northern border with Lebanon after reports of activists escaping into Lebanese territory, reports on the ground said. “The unit did not cross the border with Lebanon and did not carry out any security or military operation,” a Lebanese security source told German news agency DPA. The move came after reports that two Syrian activists had crossed the border into Lebanon's Akkar region reached Damascus, causing the government to bolster its forces along the border in a move to crackdown on activists attempting to leave the country. “The two people were hospitalized in the region,” an activist based in northern Lebanon told the same agency. It all comes as Syria's government-led violence against its own citizens continues, with scores more being killed this past week. The main focal point of protests this week centered in Homs and Idlib near the Turkish border. Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, was quoted saying Syrian troops killed three dissidents on Thursday, in clashes that erupted during a raid in the north-western town of Binnish, in Idlib. “The Syrian army, backed by tanks and armoured troop carriers, launched an assault this morning on Binnish and clashes took places with armed men who were apparently dissidents,” Abdel Rahman said. He added that security forces were carrying out a crackdown and arrests in Homs. “We have reports that 19 people were arrested since this morning,” he said. Syrians took to the streets on March 15 and since then the government has used massive violence to crackdown on their movement, killing at least 3,000, but possibly twice as many, human rights groups say. BM
