BEIRUT, December 30. /TASS/. A group of 13 Syrian officers and soldiers who had served in the government army under the former regime were detained at the border with Lebanon while attempting to illegally enter the country, a Lebanese security source told the Elnashra news website.

According to him, local residents spotted the fleeing Syrian soldiers in a pickup truck that had crossed the border near the village of Mish Mish in the Akkar border district. The perpetrators were handed over to Lebanese border guards.

On December 28, 67 former Syrian officers and soldiers who had sought refuge in Lebanon were deported to Syria. They were taken to their homeland via the Arida border crossing in northern Lebanon and handed over to representatives of the military operations command under Syria's transitional government.

This marked the first time since the fall of former President Bashar Assad’s regime on January 8 that former Syrian military officers who had taken refuge in Lebanon were handed over to the new authorities in Damascus.