WADI KHALED, Lebanon: The redeployment of Lebanese troops from an unofficial crossing on the Lebanon-Syria border at Arida in the Wadi Khaled region has left local residents and Syrian refugees worrying about their vulnerability to possible cross-border raids by Syrian security forces.

With recent nights punctuated by machine-gun fire, residents and refugees alike only spend the daylight hours in the area closest to the small stone bridge that crosses the Kabir River connecting Arida on the Syrian side to Lebanon.

“I didn’t sleep at all last night,” said the driver of a small van near the official Boqaiaa border crossing, three kilometers east of Arida. He pulled down a lower eyelid with his finger to emphasize his fatigue. “There was shooting all night long. Rifles and what sounded like a Dushka,” he added, referring to the common name for a Russian 12.7mm heavy machine gun.

Until earlier in the week, a small number of Lebanese troops and intelligence officers had manned a position on the Lebanese side of the bridge at Arida. They had remained there during several tense days two weeks ago when thousands of residents from Talkalakh fled across the river into Lebanon to evade a crackdown by Syrian security forces. Some 2,000 troop reinforcements were sent to Wadi Khaled to help contain the crisis. As the flow of refugees dried up, Syrian forces deployed in and around Arida. A small position has been established in a grassy field near the river bank. Syrian soldiers can be seen wandering between white canvas tents. Other soldiers monitor the frontier from sandbagged posts.

The Lebanese Army position beside the Arida bridge and neighboring buildings were hit by sporadic sniper fire, thought to be emanating from houses on the Syrian side of the river.

On Tuesday, with no further refugees entering Lebanon, the 2,000 extra soldiers departed along with the small squad beside the Arida bridge. Troops wearing green helmets and black flack jackets returned briefly to the Arida bridge on Thursday for the arrival of a delegation of diplomats from the U.S. Embassy in a convoy of SUVs. Shortly after the diplomatic convoy moved on from Arida, the soldiers disappeared.

Local residents worry that the reason for the departure of the soldiers from Arida may be to avoid a potential clash with Syrian security forces if they choose to cross the river.

“The Syrians have got a red eye on Wadi Khaled. They will burn us down if they can,” said a resident of Wadi Khaled village who has been helping house refugees from Talkalakh. “Now that the soldiers have gone, everyone here is worried about commando raids. The Syrians could cross over for 30 or 40 minutes, snatch whom they can and go back.”

If the Syrian authorities sanction a cross-border raid to capture Syrian refugees from Talkalakh – approving it perhaps under the rubric of an anti-terrorism measure – it will cause severe diplomatic embarrassment for the Lebanese state and worsen already frail tensions between Sunnis and Alawites in Tripoli and the north.

Many of the thousands of refugees from Talkalakh are sheltering in homes either side of the three kilometer road between Arida and Boqaiaa. The absence of a permanent army presence along the road has left many feeling exposed.

“The regime and the Shabiha militias consider that those of us who left Talkalakh for Lebanon are traitors. We are scared they may come for us at night,” said one headscarfed woman sharing a tiny single-roomed house with a family of 10.

The Wadi Khaled area is a fist-shaped pocket of territory punching into Syria formed by an inverted U-shaped bend of the Kabir river. To the north of the Arida-Boqaiaa road, lies a pastoral scene of meadows filled with spring flowers and knee-high grass and narrow water channels. On the opposite side of the river at the hamlet of Batroul, a Syrian soldier dressed in crisp camouflage uniform with a red and white keffiyah tied around his waist stared with curiosity at visitors to this remote stretch of the frontier. A little further downstream, a new Syrian military post could be seen through the dense bulrushes and thistles, a Syrian flag snapping in the breeze and a heavy machine gun on a mount pointing skyward.

Welfare assistance is being provided by an assortment of NGOs, including UNICEF and Medecins Sans Frontieres. At Arida, several young volunteers unloaded food parcels donated by Qatar from a truck and handed them to refugees in nearby homes. During the day, the narrow potholed road is busy with Syrians wandering up and down or chatting among themselves, having little else to do.

“At night, you will see nobody here because they are all afraid. Either they stay in their houses or they move somewhere safer from the border,” said Mohammad, a worker from Mqayble village. Local residents say they will shoot back if Syrian troops of the Alawite Shabiha militias stage incursions across the river. “Do you think we will allow them to come here and mess with our women and children,” asked one man. “Of course, we will fight back.”