On Monday, Syrian jets fired three rockets into the Lebanese town of Arsal near the Syrian border. Initial reports are that the rockets hit empty buildings and did not cause injuries. On March 18, the Lebanese state-run news agency NNA reported that Syrian warplanes attacked other sites in northern Lebanon. According to a March 18 CNN article, the escalating aggression comes after three years of conflict within Syria that has sent refugees and militants across borders with neighboring countries like Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq.
Today's actions are not the first time Syria took aggressive action across borders, prompting the U.N. Security Council to voice "grave concern over repeated incidents of cross-border fire which caused death and injury among the Lebanese population, incursions, abductions and arms trafficking across the Lebanese-Syrian border, as well as other border violations."
The UN declaration came after a briefing on conflict in Syria that has been spilling into Lebanon. Lebanon has pursued a policy of non-involvement, but the crisis is coming to Lebanon in the form or refugee arrivals, militants crossing borders and arms transfers to rebels inside Syria.
According to an Oct. 4, 2012 New York Times article, Turkey has already fired on Syria after Syrian rockets killed five civilians on Turkish soil. Rising tensions from Syria's cross-border intrusions could cause more neighboring nations to engage with Syria.
A March 18 Yahoo News article says that Syria claimed to know of a "large number" of militants who crossed from the north of Lebanon into Tel Kalakh, a town in Syria. Syria's foreign ministry has sent the following message to Lebanon: "Syria expects the Lebanese side to prevent these armed terrorist groups from using the borders as a crossing point, because they target Syrian people and are violating Syrian sovereignty,"
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