Golan Heights on Wednesday, according to an Israeli military spokesman and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Among the fighters were
members of al-Nusra Front, a Syrian rebel group with ties to al Qaeda,
according to the Israel Defense Forces.
And while the Islamist
forces are no match for Israeli troops in the heavily militarized zone,
the takeover represents a new dynamic in a war long feared not only for
its deadly effects inside Syria but for threatening to widen into a
destabilizing regional conflict, CNN's Ben Wedeman reported Wednesday.
"Essentially, now you
have the Nusra Front facing off just a couple of hundred meters from the
Israeli army," he said, adding that United Nations peacekeepers are
stationed between the two.
An activist in the Golan
Heights, Shamil al-Jolani, said the Islamist group Ahrar al-Sham
al-Islamiya and other rebel groups, not all of them Islamist, were also
involved in the fighting.
Video from the scene
showed heavy smoke rising from the Syrian side of the crossing. A
journalist working with CNN said that heavy shelling and gunfire erupted
earlier from the Syrian side but that the situation had since calmed.
Jolani said some fighters
were able to reach the crossing despite bombardment by Syrian
warplanes. Because of agreements with Israel, Syrian forces could not
bomb the forces at the crossing, he said.
During the fighting,
three mortar rounds and some small-arms fire crossed into
Israeli-controlled territory, IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said.
An Israeli military
officer was moderately injured, the IDF said on Twitter, and Israeli
forces responded by striking two Syrian military positions.
Wednesday's fighting marks at least the second time rebels have attacked the crossing.
In June 2013, rebels and
Syrian forces battled for control of Quneitra. The violence prompted
Austrian troops to pull out of a United Nations peacekeeping force in
the Golan Heights. Israel sent tanks and troops to the border for a
time, as well.
Source:CNN
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