Thousands of pro-Assad Syrians flee to Lebanon to escape reprisals as interim government takes shape 

Suggesting need for strong vetting for any new Syrian origin asylum seekers to ensure that few, if any, former senior officials and others complicit with the regime are rejected:

…Lebanon is watching one set of Syrian refugees head home only to see another set arrive within its borders in the aftermath of the toppling on Sunday of Syria’s autocratic president Bashar al-Assad.

Since then, thousands of Syrians, most of them believed to be Alawites – members of the same Islamic sect that included the Assad family – have crossed into Lebanon illegally to avoid retribution from the Islamic rebel alliance, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, that has set up a transitional government.

Michel Constantin, the regional director for Lebanon, Syria and Egypt for the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, a papal charity established almost a century ago, said that some 50,000 Syrians have entered Lebanon since the fall of the Assad regime.

“Villages in the north Bekaa Valley are full of families coming from Syria,” he told The Globe and Mail, referring to the 120-kilometre valley in eastern Lebanon that runs roughly parallel to the Syrian frontier. “If they continue to come, it could turn into a crisis for Lebanon.”

The arrivals figure was difficult to verify, though a France 24 news channel report from the Syrian-Lebanese border said there were many more cars lined up to leave Syria than to enter it.

Marc Saad, a spokesperson for the Lebanese Forces, a Christian party that is the largest in the country’s parliament, said, “There is an influx of Syrians fleeing into Lebanon. We cannot bear any more arrivals here.”

Source: Thousands of pro-Assad Syrians flee to Lebanon to escape reprisals as interim government takes shape