The Syrian conflict spread in earnest to Lebanon Monday, March 18, when the Syria Air Force carried out bombing runs over Syrian rebel jumping-off bases inside Lebanon that are used for their attacks on government forces.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the warplanes also bombed Lebanese border valleys used for smuggling men and arms into Syria.
The targets, between one and five kilometers inside Lebanon, were the town of Arsal, where many of the Sunni Muslim inhabitants support the Syrian rebellion, and the outskirts of the towns of Khirbet Younin and Wadi al-Khayl in Arsal’s barren mountains. No casualties were reported.
DEBKAfile can disclose exclusively that Saturday, March 16, Syrian ruler Bashar Assad sent an ultimatum to Lebanese President Michel Sleiman through intelligence channels consisting of three stipulations:
1. Sack Lebanese army chief Gen. Jean Kahwaji without delay. Assad accused the general of refusing to deploy the Lebanese army for cracking down on Syrian rebel bases of operation in Lebanon and so stemming the flow of rebel strength into the embattled country.
2.  The Lebanese president, himself a former army chief, was required to take responsibility for army action to purge the Lebanese border region of rebel forces.
3.  President Sleiman was given 48 hours to order the Lebanese army into operation against the Syrian rebels. When this did not happen, Assad made good on his threat. As soon as his ultimatum expired Monday afternoon, he sent his air force into action across the border into Lebanon.
DEBKAfile’s military sources estimate that the air strike Monday was not a one-off event. Lebanon is probably in for expanding Syria air operations against its territory in the coming days.
It appears that the Syrian ruler timed his war action against Lebanon to coincide with President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel and Jordan, starting Wednesday, March 20. He may be planning further escalation as the week goes on.
According to some forecasts, Assad may be expected to launch attacks on Syrian rebel targets in Jordan as well as Lebanon..
 

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Syrian Warplanes Strike Rebel Targets in Lebanon

Both Rebels, Govt Are Now Launching Strikes Into Lebanon

by Jason Ditz, March 18, 2013
According to Lebanese Army officials, Syrian warplanes fired four missiles into the area along the border, near the Lebanese border town of Arsal. The strike targeted rebel positions, and there has been no report of any casualties.
The attack follows threats by the Syrian military to do exactly this over the weekend, complaining that Sunni border towns have been housing the rebels and demanding the Lebanese military do something.
At the same time, Syria’s rebelshave been attacking targets in Lebanon over the past few weeks as well, meaning both sides have expanded their combat operations across the border to their much smaller neighbor.
Though Lebanon’s government includes Hezbollah and is close with Syria’s President Assad, they have so far attempted to stay formally neutral in the Syrian civil war. This will get more difficult if the war continues to be fought on Lebanese soil.
The even bigger risk, however, is that the sectarian violence that has marked Syria’s war will be exported to Lebanon as well, and that the coastal nation, with a population split more or less evenly between Sunnis and Shi’ites, will see its existing political tensions erupt into religious warfare as well.

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Syria Rebels Seize Military Compound Near Israel

Military Intelligence Site Just Five Miles From Frontier

by Jason Ditz, March 17, 2013
Syrian rebel fighters are moving ever closer to the frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, today capturing a military intelligence compound in Shagara, just five miles from the ceasefire line with Israel.
The Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade took credit for its capture, the same group that kidnapped 21 UN soldiers earlier this month. They say the building was being used by one of the pro-Assad militias as a command center, and that it fell after a five day siege.
“We have completed our liberation of the town of Shagara,” the rebels insisted. The commander said the goal of operations in the Golan is to stretch Assad government troops thinner.
So far that hasn’t been panning out, because while fighting has been intense in the area between Damascus and the Golan Heights, the Assad government has mostly contented itself to ceding the area along the Israeli border and focusing on protecting the capital.
Since Israel is openly talking about seizing more Syrian territory for a “buffer zone,” such towns are liable to be temporary gains for either side.
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Israel Will Press Obama to Attack Syria

Netanyahu Govt Feels 'Left Alone' on Attacking Syria

by Jason Ditz, March 17, 2013
President Obama’s upcoming visit to Israel is expected to include the usual hectoring on attacking Iran and some pro-forma US threats to actually do so, but likely no real policy change. Rather, Israeli officials insist, the real focus will be on talking Obama into attacking Syria.
Israel already attacked Syria once in late January, and almost immediately thereafter it was revealed that President Obama “green-lit” the attack, as well as any other attacks Israel might want to launch on Syria.
Of course giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a green light to attack almost anyone is bound to please him in the near term, but now, his aides say, he feels “left alone” by the green light, since it didn’t include any specific US offers to help with the war they’ve been planning.
Israel’s government is keen to move from the air strikes against Syria to a more full-scale offensive, with the possibility to seizing more Syrian territory as a “buffer zone” being raised, even though Israel already took a buffer zone in 1973 and never gave it back.
The hope among Israeli officials is that any Israeli offensive can include “joint operations” with the US, which would launch rounds of air strikes against the Syrian government’s missile caches. President Obama’s position on Syria has come into question in recent days, but if attacking Syria can be sold as a way for his administration to quiet Israeli officials (temporarily) about attacking Iran, it seems entirely possible they will do so.