Sign of Syria spillover: Gunmen kill pro-Assad commentator in Lebanon

Gunmen shot dead a well-known political commentator and supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad outside his home on Wednesday, an attack one Lebanese mayor called a “political assassination par excellence.”

The murder of Mohammad Darrar Jammo – the first of its kind in Lebanon since Syria's brutal civil war began more than two years ago – is just the latest example of violence spilled-over into the neighboring country.

The news follows reports of recent attacks against Hezbollah, a militant Lebanese Shia group that has sent fighters into Syria to support Assad's war against a majority of Sunni rebel factions.

For example, on Tuesday near the Syrian border, a roadside bomb hit a Hezbollah convoy, and last week a car bomb injured some 53 people in a Hezbollah-controlled suburb in Beirut.

Exactly this sort of violence is what the United Nations Security Council warned against in a rare public briefing on Tuesday in New York City.

“This is a regional crisis not a crisis in Syria with regional consequences, requiring sustained and comprehensive engagement from the international community,” UN aid chief Valerie Amos said.

Indeed, Turkey has for some time now felt the destabilizing effects of the Syrian crisis. In just one example, Turkish troops returned fire when bullets from Syria hit buildings in the town of Ceylanpinar, according to Turkish military.