Along Syria's volatile border, rebels, rabbits, and ambushes

Mr. Atrash wore a grubby dishdasha, Syrian army camouflage jacket, and a red and white keffiyah wrapped around his head. He stroked his grizzled beard with a spade-sized hand as he sat on the carpeted floor of his tiny cinder-block home brewing a pot of tea.

"If you drive further east from here, they [Syrian soldiers] will shoot at you. This is as far as you can go," says Atrash, who has a house in Arsal. "We are very worried that in the next clash, the Syrians will come all the way to here. I want to leave ... what do I do with my goats? They are my livelihood but I can't take them with me."

Syrians: 'Terrorists' thwarted along the border

The plight of Atrash and the few remaining shepherds who stubbornly refuse to leave their homes in Khirbet Daoud appears to be of little consequence to the Lebanese government. The only security presence in the area is a couple of bored policemen manning a small checkpoint at the eastern entrance to Arsal. Lebanese troops did deploy briefly at Khirbet Daoud following Wednesday's clashes but soon left again.

The Syrian authorities accuse Lebanese factions of smuggling weapons into Syria and helping Syrian opposition militants. There have been numerous incidents of Syrian troops allegedly intercepting militants and arms smugglers along the border. Yesterday, Syria's state-run SANA news agency said that the Army had thwarted an attempted infiltration from Lebanon by "terrorists," adding that several of them were wounded before retreating back into Lebanese territory.

Last week, SANA reported that troops had foiled an attempt to smuggle weapons in four pick-up trucks from the Arsal area into Syria. The claim came four days after Naif Aoude, a resident of Arsal, had his own harrowing encounter with Syrian troops while out hunting rabbits one night with friends in the arid mountains a few miles north of the town.

Rabbit hunters caught in ambush

Mr. Aoude's friend, Abdel-Ghani Jebbawi, standing in the back of a white Chevrolet pick-up truck which bounced along a stony track, was sweeping the darkness with a spotlight to pick up rabbits while another two men in the back waiting with loaded shotguns.

The next moment, the night air was filled with the crackle and flashes of automatic weapons fire, the bullets punching holes into the vehicle – and its six occupants. Mr. Jebbawi slumped to the floor, killed instantly, while Aoude, the driver, stamped on the accelerator to escape the ambush.

"I switched off the headlights and drove as fast as I could, but they kept on shooting at the vehicle," says Aoude, lying in bed in his home on the outskirts of Arsal. He was hit by bullets in both legs, the wrist, and in the back. Another man had his jaw shot away, another was wounded in the throat and back. The pick-up truck, parked at a friend's house, was riddled with bullets on the left-hand side and the front windshield had been holed in three places.

Aoude admitted that he never saw the Syrian soldiers whom he said had set up the ambush beside the track which was some three or four miles inside Lebanese territory.

"They were waiting for anyone from Arsal to pass by so that they could shoot them," he says. "The Syrians have a big problem with us because we are helping Syrian refugees."

No one here doubts that the troubles in this remote corner of Lebanon are over, and many fear that clashes and incursions could intensify as the violence worsens in Syria. But the Arsal residents are made from hardy stock. Asked if he would still go rabbit hunting in the hills around the town, Aoude replies, "Of course. The Syrians are not going to stop me hunting nor push me off my land."

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