A previously known group calling itself the "Shabaa Liberation Brigade" claimed Tuesday an operation on the Israeli-Lebanese border last week in which one man was killed.
A statement sent to AFP said the group had "launched armed action", and paid troibye for Lebanese government's support for the resistance against Israel backed by the Lebanese government.
It also said it stood with "fighters of national Islamic forces" and the Palestinian uprising, and "asks God to give victory to those who fight against his enemies and the enemies of humanity."
Israel described last Friday's incident as an attempted "terrorist infiltration", saying it had foiled the bid by a "terrorist commando" after an alarm on an electrified fence was triggered.
An army unit, backed by helicopters, engaged in a firefight with the commando which was trying to infiltrate the border near Abbassiyeh in the western sector of southern Lebanon, an army spokesman said.
When the unit arrived at the site, he said, the three-man commando attacked them with automatic weapons and grenades.
"The unit returned fire with light arms, hand grenades, and anti-tank rockets." At the same time, Israeli helicopters fired on the group, who had arrived on the border by civilian car.
"Supplies we found at the site included a bomb, pincers to cut wire and food," a senior army officer said, adding that this indicated the men were on a sabotage mission in Israel.
They were carrying a green flag, indicating they were Palestinians.
The incident was the first of its type on the border with Israel proper since Israel ended its occupation of southern Lebanon in May, though Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas captured three Israeli soldiers in a raid in the disputed Shabaa Farms area on October 7.
No Israelis were injured in Friday's skirmish.
The two main Shiite groups which opposed Israel's 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in May, Hizbollah and Amal, denied any link with the incident – BEIRUT (AFP)
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