Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat stressed on Sunday that Lebanon is facing the danger of terrorism given the clashes between the army and the al-Nusra Front gunmen in the eastern region of Arsal near the border with Syria.

He said during a tour of the Deir Qoubel and Choueifat regions: "Hizbullah's fighting in Syria did not bring about the threat of terrorism to Lebanon."

The United States strongly condemned on Sunday the al-Nusra Front’s attack on the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) in the eastern region of Arsal, where at least seven soldiers were killed and some Internal Security Forces (ISF) members were briefly held hostage, said the U.S. Department of State in a statement.

“We extend our deepest sympathy and condolences to the victims’ families and wish a full recovery to those who were wounded,” it added.

A number of Internal Security Forces were forced to defect by al-Nusra Front members on Sunday after being taken captive by the group, said LBCI television.

Twenty security forces members were shown announcing their defection “from the army and Hizbullah” in a video uploaded to Youtube.

Three members of the same Syrian family were killed on Sunday in a traffic accident at the Masnaa border-crossing, reported LBCI television.

It said that the accident took place between a Hyundai vehicle and a passenger van that had lost control of its brakes.

Abou Ahmed Jomaa, the men who fueled Saturday's clashes in the Bekaa town of Arsal, hails form the Syrian border town of Qusayr and has confessed upon his arrest to belonging to the al-Qaida-inspired al-Nusra Front.

Jomaa was detained at an army checkpoint on Saturday, and he was referred to relevant authorities for further investigation.

Tension soared Saturday afternoon in the eastern border town of Arsal when masked Syrian gunmen infiltrated Lebanon after news circulated about the arrest of al-Nusra Front official, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The infiltrators surrounded army checkpoints and targeted military posts with gunfire, while other stormed an Internal Security Forces post in the Bekaa region.

Syrian troops backed by Hizbullah fighters have killed at least 50 jihadists from the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front groups near the border with Lebanon, a monitor said Saturday.

The clashes raged through the night and into the morning on Saturday in the border region of Qalamun, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A local chief of al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front has died in an apparent assassination after a bomb went off in his car, a monitor said Saturday.

"Nusra's emir in Idlib (province), Yaacub al-Omar, was killed overnight when a bomb went off in his car near his house in the Khan al-Subul area," the Syria Observatory for Human Rights said.

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said on Saturday that the Lebanese state didn't take any “extraordinary measures” regarding the influx of Christians from the Iraqi city of Mosul as a the Patriarchs of the Orient are set to hold a conference in Lebanon on August 7.

“The state didn't take any extraordinary measures regarding the flow of Iraqi Christians to Lebanon as it considers that their conditions are not similar to the Syrian refugees,” Derbas said in comments published in the the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat.

The Lebanese Army Intelligence apprehended seven Syrian nationals while trying to infiltrate illegally into Lebanese territories by evading checkpoints.

According to the Central News Agency, the seven Syrians were trying to enter the southern border town of Shebaa illegally by dodging army checkpoints that are distributed in nearby areas.