Lebanon's Hezbollah denies clashing with Syrian army

Lebanon's Shiite militant movement Hezbollah denied Saturday the alleged news about clashes that erupted with the Syrian army in the province of Aleppo, slamming it as "lies."

In a statement by its media department, Hezbollah said "a number of local and Arab media outlets launched a series of lies in the past few days on the field situation in Syria."

"We deny these allegations and lies issued by a propaganda machine, which twists the truth and launches misleading campaigns. It is linked with local and Arab intelligence apparatuses that aim to raise the wretched morale of groups associated with the United States, Israel and the takfiris paraphernalia," the statement said.

The Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat reported on Friday that verbal disputes between Hezbollah and its ally the Syrian army escalated into unprecedented fierce clashes in the past two days in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo.

"Several fighters from both sides were killed, amid reports that groups of Hezbollah fighters were bombed by regime warplanes," the daily reported.

Hezbollah's statement said "the fighters that were killed in Aleppo and other Syrian regions are martyrs as the result of direct violent clashes with the terror and takfiris groups and not as claimed by the media."

Since 2013, Iran-backed Hezbollah has sent thousands of combatants to help the regime fight both rebels and jihadists.

Experts say Hezbollah has lost 1,000 to 2,000 fighters in the conflict, including senior commanders. Endit