At least 13 people were killed on Tuesday across Syria in clashes between regime forces and rebel troops, including near the border with Lebanon, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Britain-based group said seven of those killed were civilians, among them one man who died in intense clashes near the central town of Qusayr, located close to the border with Lebanon.
Officials said the clashes spilled over into Lebanon as Syrian troops chasing rebels made a brief incursion into a sparsely populated area in northern Lebanon.
One Lebanese official who requested anonymity said Syrian troops briefly entered the Lebanese side of Masharii al-Qaa, a remote region that straddles both countries.
He said one house in the area was hit by mortar shells and gunfire. Its residents had fled shortly before, he added.
Another local resident said several houses were hit.
Clashes were also taking place in Saraqeb, in the northwest province of Edleb, where rebels attacked two security posts, the Observatory said.
Most of Saraqeb’s residents have fled in recent days in the face of a fierce assault by regime forces seeking to stamp out insurgents in the area.
In Deir Sanbal, also in Edleb province, two regime forces were killed in clashes with rebels.
One woman was killed by a stray bullet in the Damascus suburb of Douma and two other women died in Maaret al-Numan, in Edleb province.
One civilian was killed by sniper fire in Deblan, a neighborhood of the flashpoint central city of Homs which has been under attack for weeks by regime forces trying to root out rebels.
Four soldiers also died in the clashes with rebel troops in Maaret al-Numan, the Observatory said.
The uprising in Syria began as a popular revolt in March of last year but has transformed into an insurgency that many fear will lead to a full-blown civil war.
Monitors say close to 10,000 people, the majority of them civilians, have died in the revolt against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
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