Beirut, Lebanon ? Lebanese police traded gunfire with smugglers on the border, while Syria arrested Lebanese fishermen Sunday in new tensions that reflect increasing acrimony between the countries since Damascus was forced to end its domination of its neighbor.

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa tried Sunday to calm the bitterness, meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad and the foreign minister in Damascus. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak also spoke with Assad by telephone.

Moussa said relations between the two countries should be “based on the mutual interests of Syria and Lebanon in a constructive, brotherly” atmosphere.

On Sunday, Lebanese police traded fire with smugglers near the village of Qaa, in an area where the border with Syria is not clearly marked.

The smugglers were returning to Syria with contraband when a Lebanese customs patrol spotted them, a border policeman said on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. One Lebanese officer was slightly wounded, and the smugglers escaped, the official said.

Security officials in northern Lebanon, also declining to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation, said a Syrian sea patrol arrested four Lebanese fishermen Sunday after they entered Syrian waters at Aridah, north of the Lebanese city of Tripoli.

Syria also arrested five fisherman – four Lebanese and a Syrian – on Saturday for the same reason, referring them to the prosecutor general in the Syrian port city of Tartous.