The army repelled Wednesday a militant attack on its posts in the outskirts of the northeastern town of Arsal near Syria's border, state-run National News Agency reported.

“Militants from the armed groups tried to approach two army posts in Arsal's Wadi Ata and Aqabat al-Jurd, which prompted troops from the 5th Intervention Regiment to fire heavy weapons at them,” NNA said.

The soldiers “stopped their advance and inflicted casualties on them as several of their vehicles were destroyed,” the agency added.

Militants from the extremist Islamic State group and the Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front are entrenched in mountainous regions along the porous Lebanese-Syrian border.

The Lebanese army regularly shells their positions and Hizbullah fighters have engaged in clashes with them on the Syrian side of the border.

The fighters of the two extremist groups had stormed Arsal in August 2014 and engaged in bloody battles with Lebanese troops and policemen.

They eventually withdrew after a ceasefire but took with them over 30 hostages from the army and the police, of whom four have been executed.

Sixteen Lebanese servicemen were freed in a swap deal with al-Nusra in early December.

Y.R.