30 April 2013 Last updated at 21:25
Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah in Syria pledge
The head of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has declared that Syria has real friends who will not let it fall to the US, Israel or Islamic radicals.
Hassan Nasrallah said Syria's opposition was too weak to bring down Bashar al-Assad's regime militarily.#
He was speaking in an address broadcast on Hezbollah's TV station al-Manar.
BBC Arab affairs analyst Sebastian Usher says the speech tacitly confirmed the group has been involved in fighting in neighbouring Syria.
The Syrian opposition has long claimed the Iranian-backed Shia movement has been supplying fighters to help Mr Assad, a key Hezbollah backer.
"A large number [of rebels] were preparing to capture villages inhabited by Lebanese... so it was normal to offer every possible and necessary aid to help the Syrian army," Mr Nasrallah was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
The Hezbollah leader said it had never hidden its martyrs, but that reports that large numbers of its fighters had been killed were lies.
He also warned that if a key Shia shrine south of Damascus - that named after Sayida Zeinab, a granddaughter of Prophet Muhammad - were to be destroyed, it would spark revenge that could get out of control.
"If the shrine is destroyed things will get out of control," he said.
Mr Nasrallah tried to reassure his domestic audience that - above all - Hezbollah wanted to avoid the Syrian war coming to Lebanon, adds our correspondent, but many there may find little to comfort them in this latest show of defiance.
The announcement came hours after 14 people were killed by a powerful explosion in Damascus, and a day after Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi survived a car bomb attack in the Syrian capital.
Government forces and rebels have been fighting in and around Damascus for months, but neither have gained the upper hand.
More than 70,000 people have been killed since fighting between Syrian forces and rebels erupted in March 2011.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22360351
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Leader of Hezbollah Warns It Is Ready to Come to Syria’s Aid
By ANNE BARNARD and HANIA MOURTADA
NEW YORK TIMES - April 30, 2013
The leader of Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese Shiite organization, edged closer on Tuesday to acknowledging that its fighters were battling rebels in neighboring Syria, an intervention that threatens to drag Lebanon deeper into that conflict. #
The leader, Hassan Nasrallah, declared in a televised speech that Hezbollah could become more deeply involved in the future, and warned that Syria had “real friends” who would not allow it “to fall into the hands” of America, Israel and Islamic extremists, the forces that the Syrian government routinely blames for the two-year uprising against it.
He appeared to be referring to Iran, a patron of both Hezbollah and the Syrian government, as well as Hezbollah itself, whose well-organized guerrilla fighting force, honed by past battles with the Israeli military in southern Lebanon, is widely considered more effective than Lebanon’s army. Hezbollah relies on Iran and Syria to supply its arms.
“You won’t be able to bring down Damascus and you cannot bring down the regime, militarily,” Mr. Nasrallah said. “The battle will be long.”
As President Obama faces questions about whether the Syrian government has crossed what his administration has called the “red line” of using chemical weapons in the conflict, Mr. Nasrallah sketched some red lines of his own.
He warned of “very serious repercussions” if rebels destroyed or damaged the shrine of Sayida Zeinab, a site near Damascus that is a revered pilgrimage site for many Muslims, especially Shiites. Such an attack would unleash an uncontrollable conflict, he said, invoking a fearsome precedent: the destruction of a Shiite shrine in Iraq in 2006 that contributed to years of sectarian bloodletting between Shiites and Sunni Muslims there.
Fighting has engulfed areas around the Syrian shrine, and many Shiite fighters — Syrian as well as Iraqi and Lebanese — have rushed to defend it, according to fighters interviewed in Syria.
Until now, Mr. Nasrallah has maintained that individual members of Hezbollah were fighting to defend Lebanese citizens in Shiite villages inside Syria, notably around Qusayr, which has become a flash point of sectarian conflict not far from the Lebanon border. But on Tuesday, Mr. Nasrallah made clear that Hezbollah, Lebanon’s most powerful political and military organization, is ready to back its longtime ally, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, with its full organizational might.
“We won’t let the Lebanese in Qusayr be exposed to attacks,” he said. “Whoever needs help, we wont hesitate in assisting them,” he said, adding that he was referring not only to Shiites but to all Lebanese who needed help. The Lebanese Army, he noted, was not in a position to send fighters to Syria.
Mr. Nasrallah denied the widespread opposition claim that Iran had sent troops to Syria. “There might be a small number of experts who have been in Syria for decades,” he said, “but you are fighting Syrian forces.”
Syrian opposition leaders have long charged that Hezbollah was sending an increasing number of fighters to Syria, and in recent weeks have said the party is leading the fight against rebels in bloody battles around Qusayr.
Sunni factions in Lebanon — which still bears the scars of its own sectarian civil war — have also sent fighters to Syria, on the rebel side. Sectarian rhetoric in Lebanon has ratcheted up in recent weeks, with some imams sympathetic to Syria’s opposition issuing fatwas, or religious decrees, calling on Sunnis to fight in Syria.
As Lebanese factions take sides, they pose new challenges to the country’s stability. Lebanese leaders are struggling to form a new government, deeply divided by the Syrian conflict, despite the country’s official policy of “disassociation” from it.
Until now, Hezbollah has kept its public statements on Syria relatively subdued, partly to avoid further inflaming Lebanese politics. But after the Hezbollah-led government was dissolved last month, Mr. Nasrallah appears to have calculated that an all-out push to save Hezbollah’s ally, Mr. Assad, and the arms conduit he provides is worth the domestic political costs.
Critics attacked Mr. Nasrallah’s speech in Lebanese news outlets and social media, saying it was contradictory to blame the United States and its allies for intervening in Syria — where a government crackdown on peaceful protests prompted a conflict that has killed more than 70,000 people — while claiming a moral imperative for Hezbollah to intervene.
Mr. Nasrallah cast himself as the voice of reason. He castigated clerics who had issued fatwas calling for the death of Syrian government employees — “never mind if they turn out to be oppressed people themselves.”
No loyalist cleric has issued a fatwa saying “it is O.K. to spill the blood of everyone who works for the opposition,” Mr. Nasrallah said. “Find me one cleric who issued such a fatwa.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/world/middleeast/nasrallah-warns-that-hezbollah-is-ready-to-come-to-syrias-aid.html?ref=middleeast
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1 May 2013 Last updated at 14:45
Syria conflict: Growing signs of Hezbollah role
By Wyre Davies
BBC correspondent on Lebanese-Syrian border
The militant Lebanese Shia organisation, Hezbollah, has long been suspected of sending fighters across the border to help the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Initially the only proof was the occasional funeral for a Hezbollah fighter killed in Syria and it was impossible to ascertain how many Shia fighters from Lebanon were in Syria or exactly what their role was.#
Now for the first time, the BBC has seen direct evidence of Hezbollah's role in some of the key battles as the Assad regime claims to be regaining the upper hand.
And the clearest indication of Hezbollah's involvement has come from the group itself.
In a relatively rare televised speech on Tuesday, the group's head, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, declared: "Syria has real friends who will not let it fall to the US, Israel or Islamic radicals".
Saying that the armed opposition groups were too weak to bring down President Assad's regime, Sheikh Nasrallah mused that when rebels were threatening to capture villages under (Syrian) government control, it was "normal to offer every possible and necessary aid to help the Syrian army".
Hezbollah has long provided medical, logistical and practical help for Syrian refugees fleeing the fighting.
But in the last week we saw first-hand how, in some areas, Hezbollah fighters were openly and freely crossing the border between Lebanon and Syria - giving training and military support to their allies in Syria.
Historic ties
Here, in the northern Bekaa Valley, the official "border" between Lebanon and Syria means very little to many villages and communities.
Locals have traded, inter-married and moved freely across the valleys and mountains for much longer than the infamous Anglo-French (Sykes-Picot) agreement which, less than 100 years ago, carved up the Middle East along lines that barely recognised realities and relationships on the ground.
It is just across the border, in the pivotal Syrian town of Quseir, that some of the heaviest fighting is taking place.
Not far from Homs, images and testimony from Quseir suggest that Hezbollah fighters are increasingly involved in the fighting itself and in directing inexperienced, irregular pro-government troops.
The Syrian army, large and as well-equipped as it is, is undoubtedly overstretched - trying to contain a two-year-old rebellion across such a large country.
So whatever Hezbollah is able to do in Quseir, Homs and the suburbs of Damascus is an increasingly vital part of the regime's military strategy.
Things on the ground are visibly changing.
Here, in some parts of Lebanon's north-eastern corner, both sides of the border are now, in effect, controlled by Hezbollah and its Syrian allies. They claim to be gaining advantage.
'Operating as one'
Under the watchful eye of the "popular local committees" we were able to get right up to and across the Syrian border.
On their side of the small stream that officially divides the two countries, Syrian conscripts looked on as we jumped across the gap to meet a contact on the other side.
Abu Mohammed, a fighter with a pro-government Syrian militia unit, would only speak to us on the condition that we were inside Syria.
It was a nervy, brief encounter. The frontline of Quseir is only a few kilometres to the east and the sound of heavy shelling punctuated our interview.
In the cover of a small orchard, and surrounded by uniformed men armed with AK-47 rifles, it was apparent that in this area at least, Hezbollah, the Syrian army and pro-government militias are operating as one.
Despite evidence to the contrary, Abu Mohammed insisted that Hezbollah was not directly involved in the fighting.
"They give us logistical and medical help and they're helping us regain territory but they're not fighting," said the militia leader, his face almost completely covered by a green and white scarf or keffiyeh.
"We're defending our land from the rebels who bomb our villages. But we'll stand up to them and they'll get what's coming to them," he replied when I asked him about fears that the involvement of Lebanese groups like Hezbollah in the fighting would destabilise relations in the fractious border area.
Fighting in Lebanon
I crossed a small wooden bridge back across the stream into Lebanon as, 170ft (50m) along the road, a small unit of regular Syrian soldiers kept watch at a junction in the road.
In this area at least, the Assad regime is holding ground, even pushing back against previous rebel advances.
But the real fear is that the involvement of Hezbollah, and other Lebanese factions, means the fighting will spill over into Lebanon itself.
It is already happening.
Well inside Lebanon, the Shia town of Hermel has been repeatedly and deliberately targeted by anti-regime rebels in Syria because it supports the Assad regime and is accused of sending fighters across the border.
Locals took me up to the roof of a three-storey house through which a considerably large rocket had crashed just days before.
Luckily no-one was hurt on that occasion but there have been civilian casualties on this side of the border, in addition to the estimated 70,000 killed by the civil war inside Syria itself.
Not everyone here is supportive of Hezbollah's visibly active role inside Syria.
Abu Alawa is a village elder who talks fondly about the cross-border, inter-communal relationships before the fighting began.
"There are more moderate voices within the Shia community who should play a role in resolving the conflict," Abu Alawa says. But his is almost a lone voice in an increasingly sectarian and tense region.
Deep divisions
Not only in Syria itself, but in neighbouring Lebanon, the longer the fighting continues then fault lines between Sunni and Shia Muslims are being dangerously exposed.
At Sunni mosques in Lebanon, young men are being radicalised. Particularly in cities like Tripoli, where the sectarian divisions in Syria are mirrored in the city's own tense communities and districts, clerics fire up their followers with calls for Jihad, or holy war.
In recent weeks, several imams have publicly called on young men to sign up and head east to fight.
Critics mock the gesture as a publicity stunt but when I travelled to Tripoli to meet Sheikh Salem Rafii, he said it was a necessary response to Hezbollah's role in the fighting.
"This is a legitimate fatwa - a ruling from God, from the Koran," said the sheikh as we sat in his garden within sight of the mountain range that divided this part of Lebanon from Syria.
"There are oppressed people there [in Syria]. Women and children are being raped, killed and expelled. So any just Lebanese person should go and help them - and will be rewarded by God," he said.
Lebanon's own future is threatened by the turmoil in Syria.
The longer it continues, the more nervous the army and the interested parties on the Lebanese side of the border will get.
Geographically surrounded and historically dominated by its larger neighbour, it was perhaps too much to expect that Lebanon and its own sectarian divided factions, could ever realistically remain immune to events next door.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22369609
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Syria allies will prevent fall of Assad regime: Hezbollah
The Daily Star, LEBANON - 30 April 2012
By Wassim Mroueh, Thomas El-Basha
BEIRUT: Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah hinted Tuesday that his group, as well as President Bashar Assad’s other allies Iran and Russia, could intervene militarily to prevent the downfall of the Damascus government.
The head of the resistance group also said his fighters would continue to defend Lebanese in Syrian border villages from rebel attacks, arguing that the Lebanese state was unable to fulfill the task itself.#
“Syria has real friends in the region and the world that will not let Syria fall in the hands of America, Israel or Takfiri groups. They will not let this happen,” Nasrallah, Assad’s closest ally in Lebanon, said in a televised speech.
“How will this happen? Details will come later. I say this based on information...rather than wishful thinking,” Nasrallah added.
Syria accuses Western states and Israel of waging a war to topple Assad through the backing of “armed gangs,” Damascus’ term for rebels. Earlier this month, Assad told a visiting Lebanese delegation from the Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition there would be no reconciliation with “Takfiri and terrorist groups.”
The Hezbollah chief said that judging by facts on the ground, Syrian rebels lacked the military capabilities to topple Assad, who is supported by Tehran and Moscow.
“We tell you that you [rebels] are unable to topple the regime through military means. After two years and based on facts on the field ... you have no ability to do so,” Nasrallah said.
“This is the case when you are now only fighting the Syrian army and the popular forces loyal to the [government]. Up to this moment there are no Iranian forces in Syria.” Nasrallah said.
“What if dangerous developments occur, forcing states or resistance groups to step in the field in Syria”? Nasrallah, who commands Lebanon’s largest military force, asked.
But the Hezbollah leader reiterated that only a political solution would resolve the conflict in the war-ravaged country.
“Whoever wants to save Syria ... feels sad for the daily bloodshed in Syria ... and does not want the Palestinian cause to be lost ... should push for dialogue and a political compromise,” Nasrallah said.
On the subject of Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria, Nasrallah said the Lebanese state could not fulfill its duty of defending Lebanese populations in Syrian border towns.
The party argues that its members are helping Lebanese residents of a string of Syrian villages in rural al-Qusair in defending themselves against attacks by Syrian rebels. However, Hezbollah’s rivals in Lebanon maintain that the party is assisting Assad in its crackdown on the uprising.
Nasrallah pledged that his party would not let down residents of these villages.
“What can the [Lebanese] state do? Let us be objective ... can it send the Army to Syrian border towns that are inhabited by Lebanese? ... the Lebanese state, given its nature and structure cannot do so,” he said.
“The most that the Lebanese state can do is to file a complaint to the Arab League. But the Arab League is arming, funding, inciting [rebels] and managing this battle,” he added.
Nasrallah said Lebanese residents of Syrian villages have the right to defend themselves, adding that assisting them did not require authorization from any side.
“This is a moral and humane issue. We are not talking about Lebanese from a specific sect but about all Lebanese living in rural villages of al-Qusair,” he said.
“We clearly will not let the Lebanese in rural al-Qusair be subjected to attacks from armed groups and we will not hesitate to offer this help to whoever wants to stay in his village,” he said.
In response to Hezbollah’s involvement in al-Qusair, two Salafist sheikhs in Lebanon issued calls for Jihad to defend residents of the area against attacks they claimed Hezbollah was carrying out.
Nasrallah said these calls only made public what had been happening since the uprising in Syria began.
“In Lebanon over the past two years all those who could issue fatwas, stir incitement, send fighters and arms [to Syria], not only through Lebanese borders but also through Turkey, Jordan and Iraq, all that they could have done to Syria from Lebanon they have done,” he said.
Nasrallah blasted what he called was exaggeration by some Arab and Lebanese media outlets of the number of Hezbollah fighters that had been killed in al-Qusair but gave no exact figures of the party’s casualties.
He also said his group had definite information that a massive rebel force was mounting an operation to take over these villages and accused some Lebanese of being involved in the affair.
The Hezbollah chief also said fighters defending the shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, the granddaughter of Prophet Mohammad who is revered by Muslims, Shiites in particular, were thwarting sectarian strife. The shrine falls in a suburb of the Syrian capital.
He said that some Syrian rebels were positioned hundreds of meters away from the shrine and that some Takfiri groups have threatened to blow it up.
Media reports have emerged recently on Hezbollah’s involvement in defending the shrine.
“Blowing up or demolishing this shrine by Takfiri groups will have very dangerous repercussions, things will spin out of control,” Nasrallah warned.
“There are people who are dying as martyrs defending this spot. These [fighters] are ... preventing sectarian strife rather than opening the door for it,” he said.
Commenting on the ongoing case of the Lebanese pilgrims kidnapped in Syria, Nasrallah said no one in Lebanon knew yet what the captives wanted in return for their release.
“Do they want a ransom, money, or to release them in exchange for prisoners in Syria? If you want money, say it,” Nasrallah said.
“Where do you want things to go? Demonstrations and sit-ins here and there could not solve the problem. The state’s negotiations with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey and other states have led nowhere so far,” he said.
“Do you imagine that we can stand by idly seeing women and children moving from one street to another and allow this tragedy to continue?” Nasrallah asked, referring to almost daily protests in Lebanon by the relatives of the kidnapped.
He reiterated that the abduction of the Lebanese pilgrims would not change the party’s stance on the crisis in Lebanon’s neighbor.
Nasrallah reiterated his party’s eagerness to protect Lebanon from the repercussions of the Syrian crisis.
“But I want to tell everybody that what is happening in Syria concerns all of us ... the Lebanese people, Muslims and Christians, the state and the government, all who have ties with Arab and foreign states should tell them: the war should stop in Syria.”
www.dailystar.com.lb/
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Hezbollah hints Lebanese militia is ready to back President Assad in Syrian war as conflict threatens to spread
Hassan Nasrallah warned the battle in Syria 'will be long'
Comments seen as hint Hezbollah will increase support for Assad regime
Comes after President Obama said it may consider backing rebels
Images emerged from war-torn country last week of people who had apparently been hit by chemical weapons
By Martin Jay in Beirut -
DAILY STAR, UK 09:07, 2 May 2013 | UPDATED:07:50, 3 May 2013 #
The leader of Hezbollah has hinted he is ready support the Assad regime in the Syrian war.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the powerful Lebanese Shiite militia, warned on Tuesday during a rare interview that Syria had 'real friends' who would not allow it 'to fall into the hands' of America, Israel and even Islamic extremists.
His comments came after U.S. President Barack Obama that he was ready to up the game in Syria, following reports of chemical weapons allegedly used by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fighters.
Hezbollah has previously only sent small groups of fighters for battles with other Lebanese groups fighting in Syria but seems to have been provoked by Obama's comments into a stronger stance.
The Washington Post on Tuesday reported senior officials describing Obama as ready to move on what one described as the 'left-hand side' of a broad spectrum that ranged from 'arming the opposition to boots on the ground.'
Consequently, the Syria regime has got the support that it needs from Hezbollah, an impressive Lebanese military group which proved its capability when it defeated highly equipped Israeli army soldiers who invaded Lebanon briefly in the summer of 2006.
On Tuesday the Hezbollah leader openly acknowledged for the first time that its fighters were battling rebels in neighbouring Syria, an intervention that is already threatening to drag Lebanon deeper into that conflict.
Nasrallah appeared to be referring to Iran, a patron of both Hezbollah and the Syrian government, as well as Hezbollah itself, which has relied entirely in the past on Iran and Syria to supply its arms.
'You won’t be able to bring down Damascus and you cannot bring down the regime, militarily,' Nasrallah said. 'The battle will be long.'
Yet it’s more Hezbollah’s link with Iran which is believed to be a decisive move to up the stakes with Washington.
Iran has nuclear weapons as well as the ability to produce chemical weapons.
Also, if the Syrian regime needs to move some of its chemical weapons quickly, the only destination can be Hezbollah held areas of Lebanon.
Alternatively, those same weapons could be moved within Syria and guarded by Hezbollah fighters, considered to be highly disciplined and far superior to their Syrian Army comrades.
This week President Obama is reported to be trying to rally support from international supporters of his plans to oust Assad with a much more decisive role in arming the rebels with much heavier and lethal firepower.
British foreign secretary William Hague is also currently battling with EU foreign ministers in Europe to try and lift the current EU arms embargo on the Syrian rebels.
U.S. media reported that President Obama is preparing to send lethal weaponry to the Syrian opposition and has taken steps to 'assert more aggressive U.S. leadership among allies and partners' in seeking to oust Assad.
Until now, Hezbollah has only made subdued public statements on the Syria situation to avoid further inflaming tensions within Lebanon.
But after the Hezbollah-led government was dissolved last month, Nasrallah is reported by many pundits to have calculated that an all-out push to save Hezbollah’s ally, Mr. Assad, is worth the political trade-off in the long run.
It would not be the first time that Hezbollah has used a war to increase its political support ahead of key elections.
In 2006, it virtually got a 100 per cent backing from the entire Shia community in Lebanon after giving the Israelis a bloody nose on the battlefields of southern Lebanon.
Lebanese leaders are struggling to form a new government, deeply divided by the Syrian conflict, despite the country’s official policy of 'disassociation' from it.
However, momentum is building in the country and this week Lebanese media reported that 'hundreds' of Sunni hard-core Islamists were lining up to join Syrian rebel fighters, after a rallying speech of a Sunni Salafist leader.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, seems to have gone back to basics and given up on the conventional rules of political horse-trading and opted for the Assad ticket.
War is after all, a more familiar ground than the awkward setting of parliament and diplomatic foibles.
But it’s also about the new Lebanese Prime Minister fighting his own battle to have the crucial ‘one third’ voting veto removed from the parliament so that a new government will not be hampered by pushing crucial reforms through, by Hezbollah blocking it.
Top of the list for reforms is addressing the issue of the arms that Hezbollah has.
Lebanon’s ‘neutrality’ though is more important than many think.
If Lebanon is dragged into the war and itself becomes a battlefield, then the Syrian war becomes a regional war, something that Obama is fighting the bitter end to prevent as he knows this will play into Assad’s hands.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2318135/Hezbollah-hints-Lebanese-militia-ready-President-Assad-Syrian-war-conflict-threatens-spread.html
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Hezbollah steps up rhetoric against Islamist rebels
The Daily Star, Lebanon - May 03, 2013 03:46 PM
BEIRUT: Hezbollah stepped up its rhetoric against radical Islamist groups Friday, saying their war on Syrian President Bashar Assad is also against Lebanon's resistance.
"Those targeting the resistance and preventing supplies reaching it are practicing an act of aggression against Lebanon, based on the view of Takfiri terrorism which complements Zionist schemes aimed at provoking sectarian strife,” the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc Mohammad Raad said in a remarks that referred to the Islamists as apostates.#
He was apparently referring to Islamist opposition groups including Jabhat al-Nusra, the radical lslamist Syrian rebel group which has repeatedly warned Lebanon over Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syria civil war.
Raad said their involvement in the Syrian conflict plays into the hands of Western plans for the region.
"Their problem is with the people of this region – Sunnis, Shiites and Christians and even Salafists,” Raad said.
“They do not have a political project, but they are pawns and tools of a Western conspiracy that aims to weaken the region and subdue the will of its people," he added.
Raad, however, warned the radical Islamist rebels against picking a fight with Hezbollah.
“They won’t be able to achieve their goals, and the resistance will remain vigilant and respond to this dubious scheme."
A number of recent reports have claimed to show Hezbollah engaged in battles with rebel groups in the Syrian border town of al-Qusair that have intensified in recent days.
Hezbollah's leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah acknowledged his group is helping Shiite Lebanese defend themselves against rebel attacks and described their training and arming as a moral and national duty.
Politicians and lawmakers with the March 14 coalition have said that Hezbollah’s involvement is a clear violation of the government’s policy of disassociation.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
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Hezbollah is helping Assad fight Syria uprising, says Hassan Nasrallah
Leader of Lebanese group hints that Russia and Iran would intervene militarily, declaring that Syria has 'real friends' in region
Ian Black, Middle East editor, and Dan Roberts in Washington
The Guardian, Tuesday 30 April 2013 23.20 BST #
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has confirmed for the first time that members of the powerful Lebanese Shia organisation are helping President Bashar al-Assad fight the uprising against his rule – and will stand by him.
Nasrallah – a close ally of Assad – also hinted that Russia and Iran, Syria's principal supporters, would intervene militarily to prevent his defeat.
"Syria has real friends in the region and the world that will not let Syria fall in the hands of America, Israel or Takfiri (extreme jihadi) groups," Nasrallah said in a broadcast on Hezbollah's al-Manar TV channel. "How will this happen? Details will come later. I say this based on information … rather than wishful thinking."
Alluding to concerns about growing sectarianism in the region, Nasrallah said there would be "dangerous retribution" if any harm befell the historic Sayyida Zeinab Shia shrine near Damascus.
Fighting in the Qusayr region inside Syria but close to the Lebanese border, was "not over," he said. Overall, his combative statement was widely seen as a pledge of public support for the Damascus government – and as such an escalation of the already grave crisis.
"Nasrallah just made sure Syria will get a lot worse," commented analyst Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The speech was broadcast as Nasrallah arrived in Tehran to attend an Islamic conference.
Hezbollah had acted in defence of Lebanese border villages attacked by anti-Assad rebels so it was "normal to offer every possible and necessary aid to help the Syrian army, popular committees (pro-government militia) and the Lebanese," Nasrallah said
Hezbollah fighters have been seen in Syria helping the government from early on in the 25-month uprising but their presence, long formally denied, has become much both more open and large-scale in recent weeks, and funerals of fighters killed there are now a regular occurrence in Lebanon
Hezbollah counts itself as a key participant in the "axis of resistance" comprising Syria, Iran and Palestinian groups which are opposed to both the PLO and Israel. It is thought likely to respond to any Israel attempt to target's Iran's nuclear programme. But Nasrallah denied it had launched a drone downed in Israeli.
Hezbollah's arsenal, especially of long-range rockets, makes it the most powerful military force in Lebanon.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/30/hezbollah-syria-uprising-nasrallah
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Hezbollah leader vows to get more weapons in wake of Israeli strike
pic: Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah said Syria will arm his group with “game-changing” weapons after an Israeli airstrike on Damascus on May 4 reportedly targeted a shipment of weapons bound for Hezbollah
Washington Post - 10 May 2013
Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah vowed Thursday that Syria would provide the Shiite Lebanese movement with even more powerful weapons to supplement those Israel destroyed in a series of airstrikes against Damascus over the weekend, but he refrained from threatening retaliation for the attacks.#
In the first official response by Hezbollah to the strikes, Nasrallah said Syria will provide his movement with “game-changing” weapons that will “break the balance” of power in the region.
“Syria will give more weapons, better quality weapons, to the resistance than the resistance has ever had before,” he said in a speech broadcast by Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV station. “This is the strategic response of Syria.”
Nasrallah also pledged to provide moral and material support to an unspecified Syrian resistance movement that would attempt to recover the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967.
However, the speech appeared to rule out any immediate Hezbollah response to the attack, in which Israeli warplanes demolished targets said to include shipments of Fateh-110 missiles destined for the Shiite military and political movement. Hezbollah plays a commanding role in Lebanon’s government and also sustains a private army for the chief purpose of confronting Israel.
But Hezbollah has become increasingly embroiled in the war in Syria in recent months, dispatching hundreds and perhaps thousands of fighters to aid government forces battling the rebels seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Analysts say the Syrian entanglement leaves Hezbollah in no position to risk opening up a second front against Israel.
“Hezbollah is bogged down in the Syria conflict, and it does not want a confrontation with Israel at this time,” said Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut.
Syria has also not threatened any direct response to the strikes, which triggered a series of spectacular explosions on the landmark Mount Qassioun overlooking Damascus, indicating that the warplanes had hit a sizable weapons depot. Syrian activist groups have reported that dozens of Syrian soldiers died in the attacks, but Nasrallah said that only “four or five” were killed.
In an interview with the Agence France-Presse news service Thursday, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad offered a more robust warning, pledging that Syria would respond “immediately” to any Israeli attack, “without instruction from any higher leadership.”
“Our retaliation will be strong and will be painful against Israel,” he said, in a comment that appeared to escalate the stakes in the increasingly complex conflict that threatens to embroil the region.
Israel has not formally acknowledged carrying out the strikes, but it has made clear that it intends to halt transfers of sophisticated weaponry from Syria to Lebanon, where Hezbollah maintains a sizable arsenal of rockets capable of hitting Israeli cities, but not the kind of precision-guided missiles reportedly targeted by the airstrikes.
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Hezbollah Threatens Israel Over Syria Strikes
By ANNE BARNARD
NEW YORK TIMES - May 9, 2013
The leader of Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militant group, escalated tensions with Israel on Thursday over the recent Israeli airstrikes near Damascus, suggesting that the Syrian government would respond by providing Hezbollah fighters with the same weapons that Israel wants to keep out of their hands. #
While the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, did not specify the type of arms, he said that they were “unique weapons that it never had before” that would “change the balance” of power with Israel, which regards his group’s alliance with Syria and Iran as one of its most potent security threats.
In a televised speech, Mr. Nasrallah said the transfer of the weapons would be Syria’s “strategic response” to the airstrikes that hit the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday.
Israel has not publicly acknowledged responsibility for those strikes. But Israeli leaders have said they would take military action to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining “game changing” weapons like chemical arms, which Syria is believed to possess in large quantities, and sophisticated long-range missiles that could hit anywhere in Israel from Hezbollah-controlled areas of southern Lebanon.
Analysts close to Hezbollah said they believed that Mr. Nasrallah was referring to long-range missiles, not chemical munitions. But the Israelis have expressed growing concern about the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war, suggesting that the transfer of such weapons to groups hostile to Israel was more and more likely.
The airstrikes believed to have been carried out by Israel last Sunday heightened fears that Syria’s war could lead to a regional conflagration.
Syrian officials said Thursday that they would respond forcefully to any future Israeli attacks and that they planned to retaliate for Sunday’s strikes, possibly by authorizing Syria-based militant groups to attack in the Golan Heights, the disputed border region captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967 war.
Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, said in an interview with Agence France-Presse in Damascus that any new Israeli assault would bring a “harsh and painful” response from Syria’s military.
“Instructions were given to respond immediately to any Israeli attack,” he said in the interview, which was also published on the Web site of Press TV, an Iranian satellite channel. “Syria will not allow this to be repeated.”
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria told recent visitors to Damascus that his government had decided to give Hezbollah “everything,” according to an article in the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar. He also said that Syria planned to become “a resistance country” and take a more active role in opposing Israel. Syria has long positioned itself as the champion of the Palestinian cause and as Israel’s greatest Arab foe, but since 1973 it has rarely clashed militarily with Israel.
The Israeli government did not respond to the assertions by Mr. Assad or Mr. Nasrallah. But Israeli analysts said they did not doubt that Mr. Assad’s forces and Hezbollah, which Israel considers a terrorist organization, would be drawing closer militarily, and that weapons transfers were possible.
“I’m afraid that both sides are serious in what they are saying and this is a recipe for direct confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah,” said Boaz Ganor, a counterterrorism expert at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.
The escalating tensions came as the United States was seeking to exert more diplomacy in conjunction with Russia, Syria’s most powerful foreign supporter, aimed at starting negotiations to settle the Syrian conflict.
Secretary of State John Kerry, asked during a visit to Rome about intelligence reports that Russia was completing a sale of surface-to-air missiles to Syria, told reporters that the focus should be on the Russian-American agreement to convene peace talks as soon as possible.
But he said he had made it clear to Russian leaders during his visit to Moscow this week, where the agreement on peace talks was reached, that the United States “would prefer that Russia not supply assistance” to Syria’s air defenses because of the threat they posed to the region, particularly Israel.
In addition to meetings with Italy’s new prime minister and foreign minister, Mr. Kerry discussed Syria with Jordan’s foreign minister, Nasser Judeh, pledging $100 million in new humanitarian assistance, nearly half of it to help Jordan deal with a flood of refugees. He also spoke with the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, in an effort to start negotiations.
Mr. Kerry suggested that the United Nations would soon announce a date for talks to begin, presumably in Geneva, where an effort to create a framework for a negotiated settlement began last year but stalled.
In Paris, the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said in an interview with Le Monde that France favored the diplomatic solution advanced by Mr. Kerry, but that it also wanted to rethink the European Union arms embargo in order to help the Syrian rebels. He also proposed that the United Nations should declare Syria’s Islamist Al Nusra Front a terrorist organization to separate it from other rebel groups.
The United Nations Security Council has already looked informally at whether to impose sanctions on Al Nusra Front after it pledged allegiance last month to Al Qaeda. The State Department designated Nusra a terrorist organization in December, but the group has strengthened since then. It is considered one of the Syrian insurgency’s most effective fighting forces.
Senior French officials said that the French position toward the Syrian rebels had become noticeably more cautious in the last few weeks, especially since the resignation last month of Sheik Moaz al-Khatib, the leader of the main political opposition group, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, amid political infighting.
They said they would like to see the opposition’s main armed wing, the Free Syrian Army, become more centralized and come under the command of a civilian hierarchy before moving ahead with arms transfers.
At the United Nations, where a deadlock in the Security Council has frozen any concrete action on Syria, Qatar and other supporters of the Syrian opposition began circulating a draft General Assembly resolution on Thursday that strongly condemned the Assad government and called for a political transition.
Such resolutions are nonbinding, but its supporters hope a vote supporting the measure in the Assembly as early as next week will add pressure on Damascus to end the fighting.
In a related development, the United Nations said Thursday that Lakhdar Brahimi, the special Syria envoy for both the United Nations and the Arab League, had agreed to Mr. Ban’s request to stay on the job. Mr. Brahimi had been expected to resign in frustration over the lack of progress on the political track. But he apparently changed his mind after the Russian-American agreement to convene a peace conference — something Mr. Brahimi had long sought.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/world/middleeast/hezbollah-syria-israel.html?ref=middleeast
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Hezbollah: Syria to provide 'game-changing' weapons
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, warned on Thursday that Syria would respond to Israel’s attacks last week by giving his group sophisticated weapons, raising fears the conflict in Syria may threaten the entire region.
By FRANCE 24 (text)
Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said on Thursday that Syria would respond to Israeli raids near the capital Damascus last week by supplying his group with sophisticated new weapons – the very outcome Israel said its attack was designed to avert.#
“If the aim of your attack was to prevent the strengthening of the resistance’s capabilities, then Syria will give the resistance sophisticated weapons the like of which it hasn’t seen before,” he said in a televised speech. “The resistance is prepared to accept any sophisticated weaponry even if it was to break the equilibrium (in the region).”
“We are worthy of having such weapons and we would use them to defend our people and our country and our holy sites,” Nasrallah said.
Israel launched a series of raids near the Syrian capital last Friday and followed up with air strikes early on Sunday morning, which shook the city and lit up the horizon.
Western and Israeli sources said its aim was to take out “game-changing” Iranian missiles destined for the Lebanese Shiite group, which fought a war with Israel in 2006 and has also acted as a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his struggle against a two-year revolt.
Syria is a pivotal ally of the regional Shiite power Iran and believed to serve as its conduit to Hezbollah. Israel fears the group could act as a proxy for Iran along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel.
Nasrallah’s comments, along with last week’s Israeli strikes, have raised growing concerns that as the conflict in Syria seeps over the country’s borders, it could threaten the region as a whole.
“It’s certainly going to add to the already tense situation, particularly after Israel’s two air strikes against, reportedly, Iranian weapons targets inside Syria,” Robin Wright, a fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, told FRANCE 24. “The fact that the head of Hezbollah has now claimed that the Syrians are going to provide additional weaponry that is game-changing, bringing Israel once again into the Syrian arena, is going to make things much more difficult for the international community”.
Wright added that another reason for concern was the fact that Nasrallah has “a long reputation for actually being pretty candid about what they’re doing”.
“He’s not normally a braggart,” she said. “He does not make false claims. Usually when he says something, it happens.”
‘Liberating the Golan’
Lebanon and Syria have technically been in a state of war with Israel since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948, though Syria has kept its frontier with Israel, along the Golan Heights, quiet for decades.
In the days following Israeli strikes last Friday and Sunday, Syrian state media quoted unnamed sources saying that Damascus had given the green light for operations against Israel from the Golan, although so far there have been no clear signs of increased militarization.
On Thursday, Syrian officials said they would respond “immediately” to any future Israeli strike. Soon after, Nasrallah said his forces would join a Syrian military operation against Israel.
“We announce that we stand with the Syrian popular resistance and offer material and spiritual support as well as coordination in order to liberate the Syrian Golan,” Nasrallah said.
The Golan in recent months has become a battleground between Assad’s forces and the rebels fighting to topple him.
The Syrian civil war has killed more than 70,000 people and become increasingly sectarian.
Majority Sunni Muslims lead the revolt, while Assad has received the bulk of his support from minorities, particularly his own Alawite sect, a Shiite offshoot.
--
20 May 2013 Last updated at 11:00
Syria conflict: Fierce battle for key town of Qusair
Fierce fighting has been reported in the strategic Syrian town of Qusair, as rebels and government forces backed by Hezbollah militants fight for control.
The state news agency reported that the army had taken control of most of the town on Monday, and killed more than 100 of what it called "terrorists".#
Activists denied that Qusair had been captured, but said some 50 people had died in heavy shelling since Sunday.
They also said at least 23 Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon had been killed.
Qusair, a small town about 30km (18 miles) south-west of the city of Homs, is seen as important to both sides.
It helps link Damascus with government strongholds on the Mediterranean coast, and is a conduit for rebel supplies and fighters from Lebanon, whose border is 10km (6 miles) away.
'Impending massacre'
Fighting has raged for weeks around Qusair, which has been controlled by the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad for several months.
Following a day of heavy bombardment by aircraft and artillery, the army launched an offensive to recapture the town on Sunday. By the evening, they had taken the municipality building in the town centre and were advancing, according to state media.
The claim was denied by opposition activists, although they admitted the rebels had suffered very heavy casualties. They posted video on the internet showing chaotic scenes at what they said was a field hospital filled with wounded fighters and civilians trapped in the town.
On Monday morning, the Sana state news agency reported that army units had "restored security and stability" to most districts of Qusair, and "eliminated large numbers of terrorists, most of them non-Syrians". Twelve leading rebels allegedly among the dead were named.
However, state television's reports from the Qusair area were all filmed from well outside the town's perimeter and gave no sense that it had fallen almost entirely to the government forces, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut.
Activist groups also denied that the army had captured most of the town. One report said that six army tanks were destroyed as they tried to advance.
Our correspondent says it is not clear how many civilians remain trapped in Qusair.
Opposition sources estimate that at least 40,000 are still there, though it is thought many may have fled long ago, he adds.
State television said that the army had set up a protected corridor for civilians to escape the fighting, but activists said many people feared persecution and torture once they entered government-controlled areas.
The main opposition alliance, the National Coalition, warned of an impending "massacre", and called for an emergency meeting of the Arab League.
There were also reports that members of the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement, Hezbollah, had joined the government side in the battle, while Lebanese Sunni militants were said to be supporting the rebels.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, said 23 elite Hezbollah fighters had been killed and about 70 wounded.
Several mortar rounds fired from Syria also struck Lebanon's north-eastern town of Hermel - a Hezbollah stronghold - on Sunday, Lebanon's National News Agency said. No casualties were reported.
Refugee health risks
In a separate development on Monday, Oxfam said Jordan and Lebanon were in urgent need of help to support hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees who have fled the fighting.
A combination of rising summer temperatures and poor sanitation posed increased health risks for the refugees, the British aid agency warned.
Many of those crossing the border from Syria end up in inadequate shelters, it added. Some refugees are living in an empty shopping centre; others on the outskirts of a cemetery.
The UN says more than 1.5 million Syrians have fled abroad. There are also an estimated 4.25 million internally displaced people.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned against setting arbitrary deadlines for the international conference proposed by Washington and Moscow to find a political solution to the conflict.
"Some our partners, and [US Secretary of State] John Kerry mentioned that a couple of days or a week should be enough," he told the government daily, Rossiskaya Gazeta.
"Previous peace conferences have lasted months, even years," he added. "I don't want it to be the same with Syria. But it's absolutely counterproductive to set artificial time restrictions."
He also stressed the need to invite Iran, President Assad's strongest ally.
The UN says more than 80,000 people have been killed since the anti-government protests erupted in March 2011.
Analysis, Jim Muir - BBC News, Beirut
What appears to be a concerted government attempt to recapture Qusair from the rebels had been in the making for some time.
In a sense, Qusair had already fallen militarily, since the rebels appear to have lost control of most of the surrounding villages and countryside adjacent to the Lebanese border.
It adds to a string of setbacks rebels have suffered in recent weeks, especially along the Lebanese and Jordanian borders and around Damascus itself.
Rebel commanders blame their recent losses on the drying-up of arms supplies from outside. Qatar and others are reported to have recently cut deliveries, perhaps in response to US reservations about enabling a victory by a rebel movement in which the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front is playing a lead role.
Certainly the government forces, bolstered by apparently open-ended support from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, have in recent weeks had a new spring in their step.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22592627
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BBC 22 May 2013 Last updated at 16:16
Hezbollah plunges deeper into Syrian conflict
The western Syrian town of Qusair has become a fiercely contested battleground
By Jim Muir - BBC News, Beirut
The overt involvement of Hezbollah fighters in the battle for the strategic western Syrian town of Qusair confirms the transition of the militant Lebanese Shia movement into a whole new phase of its existence.
From its inception as an Iranian- and Syrian-backed counter to the Israel invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Hezbollah's main focus was on resistance to Israel.
Its campaign against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon culminated in Israel's decision to pull its troops out of Lebanon altogether in 2000.#
The month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006 gave the movement heroic status throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds for its extraordinary performance as an Arab David against the Israeli Goliath.
Shia observer
But less than two years later, in May 2008, that lustre dimmed sharply as Hezbollah did something its leader said it would never do - it turned its weapons against fellow Lebanese.
Stung by provocative positions taken by Sunni and Druze leaders, Hezbollah overran many Sunni areas in a short-lived conflict that reflected and exacerbated both rising sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shia in Lebanon and the region; and divisions between the movement's Iranian and Syrian patrons on the one hand, and Saudi Arabia, other Sunni powers and their allies on the other.
'All systems go'
Now, those regional, political, strategic and sectarian issues have come to a head even more forcefully, as Hezbollah plunges deep into a Syrian civil war that is only tangentially related to its basic struggle with Israel.
The dangers for Hezbollah are obvious - that it may be drawn ever deeper into a bottomless pit of conflict in Syria that could leave it severely depleted and easy prey to a death-blow from Israel, although Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has dismissed that possibility.
"Yes, it's a risk for Hezbollah, but it's part of Iran's overarching regional strategy: the Syrian regime must not fall," said one well-placed Shia observer.
"It's all systems go, and Iran will unleash everything it has to. It and Hezbollah consider this a threat to their political existence."
"Israel's interest is to see the civil war continue and Hezbollah sucked in and massacred as it has been in the past few days, when they've lost 40 fighters. It's a grinding machine, and Israel is laughing and happy."
Indeed, put like that, it is hard to imagine Israel not being happy to see what it regards as extremists and terrorists from both the Shia and Sunni sides of the sectarian divide at each other's' throats in Syria.
Apparently foreshadowing Hezbollah's deepening involvement, Hassan Nasrallah in a speech on 30 April made it clear that Syria's allies in the "Axis of Resistance" - Iran and Hezbollah - would do everything necessary to save it.
"Syria has true friends in the region and the world who will not allow it to fall into the hands of the United States, Israel, or the takfiri [Sunni extremist] groups," he said.
"If the situation gets more dangerous, states, resistance movements and other forces will be obliged to intervene effectively in the confrontation on the ground."
'Party of Satan'
That seems already to be the case, at least as far as Hezbollah is concerned, reflecting the existential situation faced by the Syrian regime.
Some Western diplomats believe that much of the recent progress scored by regime forces against the rebels is down to active involvement by Hezbollah, whose expertise in street fighting surpasses that of the conventional Syrian army.
"It is an obvious sign of crisis for the regime that Hezbollah and the new National Defence Force should play such a big role in the key attacks at Qusair and east of Damascus," said one.
The National Defence Force is a recently-formed "Home Guard" militia believed to have around 50,000 personnel and to be trained, paid and armed by Iran and Hezbollah and drawn largely from the mainly Alawite "Popular Committees" and shabiha militia.
The exact extent of Hezbollah involvement on the ground is the subject of much speculation and mystification.
But its casualties on the first day of the attack on Qusair on Sunday, with around 30 reportedly killed on that day alone, were roughly double the estimate given for those of actual regime forces.
Standing over the body of one of the dead Hezbollah fighters, a rebel commander declared: "Let the whole world know that we are fighting Iran, and Russia, and Hezb al-Shaitan ["the Party of Satan" - Hezbollah means "the Party of God"], and the regime, while the world has abandoned us and gives us neither arms, ammunition, equipment nor men."
But it is hard to imagine Hezbollah enabling the regime to restore its control over the entire country.
While government forces have been making advances in some key areas, the rebels have also been gaining ground in other places and control large swathes of territory in the north, east and south.
If military stalemate should lead to some kind of fragmented equilibrium, Hezbollah's help in controlling the Qusair area, with its 20 or so Shia villages inhabited by many Lebanese nationals, would be vital to the regime's ability to protect the link between Damascus, the main cities to the north, and what is seen as the Alawite heartland along the north-west coast.
Sectarian flare-ups
In Qusair, Hezbollah finds itself in a head-on collision not just with the Sunni-majority Syrian rebels and al-Qaeda-related Salafist fighters, but also with fellow Lebanese - Sunni jihadist militants come to join the fray.
Lebanese politicians - well aware of their country's sectarian splits and potential for civil strife - agreed a year ago to keep Lebanon out of the Syrian conflict and try to stay neutral.
With militant Lebanese Sunnis and Shia killing one another just across the border, how long can an explosion in Lebanon itself be averted?
Some key flashpoints have already been ignited, especially in the northern city of Tripoli, where an Alawite minority has for decades been at odds with Sunnis living in adjacent areas.
But Tripoli had already been spluttering into occasional flare-ups which have so far been isolated and contained.
Elsewhere, the number of friction points between Sunni and Shia areas is limited to a few places in the Beqaa Valley, on the southern edge of Beirut, and at Sidon in the south.
That is not to say that a wider flare-up might not happen - but after fighting a 15-year civil war in which nobody won and everybody lost, the main Lebanese factions seem loath to allow it to happen again.
But the loose cannons, relatively new to the Lebanese scene, are the militant Sunni Salafists, who are becoming strong in Tripoli and Sidon in particular.
Although comparatively few in number, there are fears that they might resort to the kind of provocative, indiscriminate car or suicide bomb attacks carried out so devastatingly by al-Qaeda or its affiliates in Iraq and Syria.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22630005
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Qusair, Syria Rebel Stronghold, Hammered By Hezbollah, Assad Forces
Huffington Post - 05/19/2013 9:12 pm EDT #
Lebanese Hezbollah militants attacked a Syrian rebel-held town alongside Syrian troops on Sunday and Israel threatened more attacks on Syria to rein the militia in, highlighting the risks of a wider regional conflict if planned peace talks fail.
Activists said it was the fiercest fighting in Syria's two year-old civil war involving Hezbollah, a Shi'ite group backed by Iran which they said appeared to be helping President Bashar al-Assad secure a vital corridor in case Syria fragments.
Speaking from Qusair near the border with Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, activist Hadi Abdallah said Syrian warplanes bombed the town in the morning and shells were hitting the town at a rate of up to 50 a minute. At least 52 people were killed.
"The army is hitting Qusair with tanks and artillery from the north and east while Hezbollah is firing mortar rounds and multiple rocket launchers from the south and west," he said.
Assad poured scorn on the idea that a U.S.- and Russian-sponsored peace conference planned for Geneva next month would end fighting that is deepening the sectarian fault lines between Sunnis against Shi'ites across the Middle East.
"They think a political conference will halt terrorists in the country. That is unrealistic," he told the Argentine newspaper Clarin, in reference to the mainly Sunni groups seeking to unseat him.
Assad declared "No dialogue with terrorists", but it was not clear from his remarks whether he would agree to send delegates to a conference that may falter before it starts due to disagreements between its two main sponsors and their allies.
The opposition will agree its stance on the proposed peace conference in a meeting due to start in Istanbul on Thursday, during which it will also appoint a new leadership.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was "preparing for every scenario" in Syria and held out the prospect of more Israeli strikes inside Syria to stop Hezbollah and other opponents of Israel getting advanced weapons.
"We will act to ensure the security interest of Israel's citizens in the future as well," Netanyahu said.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied reports that it attacked Iranian-supplied missiles stored near Damascus this month that it believed were awaiting delivery to Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006 and is allied with Assad.
REBELS UNDER PRESSURE
Attacks by troops and militias loyal to Assad, who inherited power in Syria from his father in 2000, have put rebel brigades under pressure in several of their strongholds across the majority-Sunni country of 21 million people.
In one attempt to strike back, opposition sources said rebel fighters had abducted the father of Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad in the province of Deraa, one of many tit-for-tat kidnappings being carried on by both sides.
"Mekdad's nephew was taken before, and exchanged for Free Syrian Army (rebel) prisoners. The speculation is that a similar deal will be struck for his father," said activist Al-Mutassem Billah of the opposition Sham News Network.
In the fighting near Lebanon, rebel fighters clashed with mechanised Syrian army units and Hezbollah guerillas in nine points in and around Qusair, 10 km (six miles) from the border, activists said.
The region is needed by Assad, who is from the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, to secure a route from Hezbollah's strongholds in the Bekaa to areas near Syria's Mediterranean coast where many Alawites live, they said.
Opposition sources say Syria's coastal region could serve as an Alawite statelet if Assad should lose control of Damascus, a potential fragmentation of Syria along ethnic and sectarian lines that raises the prospect of many more deaths.
Sources in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley said shells fired by rebels had hit the edges of the town of Hermel, a Hezbollah stronghold, but no casualties were reported.
Syrian Television said troops "leading an operation against terrorists in Qusair" had reached the town centre.
"Our heroic forces are advancing toward Qusair and are chasing the remnants of the terrorists and have hoisted the Syrian flag on the municipality building. In the next few hours we will give you joyous news," the television said.
But al-Siddiq Brigade, one of several Islamist units defending Qusair, including the al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, said in a statement that attempts to storm the town had failed and that 45 government troops and Hezbollah guerrillas had been killed in the battles.
Abu Imad, another activist in the Qusair region, said the rebel grip was tenuous but the army was far from in control.
"If Qusair falls, it will be a big problem because the regime will be in control of most of the countryside south of the city of Homs and the rebel forces holding Old Homs will be squeezed," he said.
The United Nations says at least 80,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which started with peaceful protests against four decades of rule by Assad and his late father.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/19/syria-qusair-hezbollah_n_3304152.html?utm_hp_ref=world
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Hezbollah sends new fighters to bloody Syria battle
Daily Star - May 21, 2013
Elite Hezbollah fighters poured across the border from Lebanon into Syria to lead a withering assault by President Bashar al-Assad's forces on the rebel stronghold of Qusair on Tuesday, activists reported.
In a separate escalation, Israeli and Syrian forces traded fire across the Golan Heights, with the Syrian army claiming it destroyed an Israeli military vehicle that crossed the armistice line.#
The developments came after US President Barack Obama expressed concerns to Beirut about Hezbollah's growing role in the conflict, and the State Department warned of the conflict spilling across the region.
The battle for Qusair, in central Homs province, raged for a third day after Assad loyalists launched an offensive to reclaim the town more than a year after rebels seized it.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based activist group, said Hezbollah was leading the attacks on the ground while Assad's warplanes carried out air strikes.
"It's clear Hezbollah is leading the assault," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP, adding that "much of the town is now destroyed".
A source close to the powerful Lebanese group told AFP that "Hezbollah has sent new elite troops to Qusair" and its television channel broadcast images of funerals for five members it said were killed carrying out their "jihadist duty".
The Observatory said at least 31 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in the battle for Qusair since Sunday, as well as 70 rebels, nine soldiers, three paramilitary fighters and four civilians.
Assad and Hezbollah have made reclaiming Qusair, which lies between the Syrian city of Homs and Tripoli in northern Lebanon, a priority in its fight to turn the tide against the two-year insurgency.
"It is important for the Syrians, the Iranians and Hezbollah to control the road" linking Tripoli to Syria, Lebanese analyst Waddah Sharara told AFP.
Tripoli, which has a Sunni Muslim majority, has been a stronghold for Syria's Sunni-led rebels, and some of the Lebanese city's residents have joined the armed uprising.
Scene to frequent Syria-linked violence, it is also home to a minority of Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Assad belongs.
The Syrian regime also considers Qusair of strategic importance because it "needs to maintain its territory and power from Damascus to the coast", according to Sharara.
The Observatory's Abdel Rahman described the rebel response to the assault in Qusair as "fierce," but expressed concern for the fate of some 25,000 trapped civilians.
Pro-regime daily Al-Watan meanwhile said loyalists had taken control of all Qusair's official buildings and "raised the Syrian flag" above them.
State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell condemned Hezbollah and said its actions in Syria "exacerbate and inflame regional sectarian tensions and perpetuate the regime's campaign of terror".
Although their government has adopted a stance of neutrality, the people of Lebanon are sharply divided over the war in Syria.
Hezbollah has sent fighters to back the regime, which has for years facilitated the transportation of weapons from Iran to the Lebanese group.
Fears of a regional spillover also rose Tuesday after claims from Syria's army that it destroyed an Israeli military vehicle after it crossed the Golan ceasefire line.
"Our armed forces have destroyed an Israeli vehicle with everything that it had in it... The vehicle had crossed the ceasefire line and was moving towards the village of Bir Ajam, situated in the liberated Syrian zone" of the Golan, the army statement said.
The Damascus regime has consistently blamed foreign powers, including Israel, for the conflict in Syria.
But its main regional ally Iran said it was willing to attend a peace conference in Geneva proposed by Russia and the United States.
"The condition for success in Geneva is that all countries with influence on events in Syria participate," foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi said.
The conference -- expected to be held in the first half of June -- seeks to find a political solution to the conflict, which has killed more than 90,000 people since it erupted in March 2011.
www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2013/May-21/217837-hezbollah-sends-new-fighters-to-bloody-syria-battle.ashx#axzz2U1MWZdag
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Hezbollah's role in Syria pressures US to end war
John Lyons, Middle East correspondent
The Australian - May 22, 201312:00AM
HEZBOLLAH'S frontline role in shoring up the Assad regime is piling pressure on the West to end Syria's two-year civil war.
US President Barack Obama yesterday telephoned Lebanese President Michel Sleiman to protest against the intervention of fighters from Hezbollah, the militant organisation based in Lebanon, in support of President Bashar al-Assad's troops in neighbouring Syria.#
The call came as Hezbollah members fought in the crucial battle for Qusayr, a Syrian town near the border with Lebanon.
The regime has launched an offensive to recapture the town to establish a corridor between the capital, Damascus, and its Alawite stronghold on the coast. Up to 25,000 civilians are reported to be trapped in Qusayr.
The White House said Mr Obama had stressed to Mr Sleiman concern over "Hezbollah's active and growing role in Syria, fighting on behalf of the Assad regime, which is counter to the Lebanese government's policies".
The White House added: "Both leaders agreed that all parties should respect Lebanon's policy of dissociation from the conflict in Syria and avoid actions that will involve the Lebanese people in the conflict."
But Mr Sleiman has limited influence over Hezbollah, the strongest political force in Lebanon. Following a deal struck in Doha in 2008, Hezbollah can veto any government decision with one-third of the votes of the country's parliament, which it can gather easily. And Hezbollah has greater firepower than the official Lebanese armed forces.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 28 Hezbollah fighters had been killed and more than 70 injured in the battle for Qusayr.
Evidence of Hezbollah's involvement in Syria was on display yesterday in the town of Nabi Sheet in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold. About 2000 people attended the funeral of Hassan Shukur, an 18-year-old Hezbollah fighter.
Hezbollah comrades fired in the air in mourning and played the group's funeral march in front of senior members of the group.
"We will fight in all of Syria because we are fighting the Israeli enemy," said Sheik Mohammed Yazbeck, a member of Hezbollah's highest decision-making body, the Shura Council.
Republican US senator John McCain said Hezbollah's role in Qusayr was "a significant and dramatic indicator of the Obama administration's passivity".
"The longer this conflict goes on, the more unstable the region will be," he said.
The civil war in Syria - which has now claimed an estimated 94,000 lives since March 2011 - shows increasing signs of spilling into neighbouring countries.
The Israeli military again returned fire yesterday after shells from Syria landed in the Golan Heights.
Shells have also landed in Turkey and Lebanon.
In Lebanon, the conflict is inflaming sectarian divisions between Sunnis, who want to see the fall of Assad, and Shias, who are supporting the regime.
The US and Russia have agreed to a conference aimed at finding a breakthrough in the conflict, although no date has been set.
Expectations for the conference are low - the US insists that Assad can have no role in any future government while Russia remains committed to Assad, their strongest ally in the Middle East.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/hezbollahs-role-in-syria-pressures-us-to-end-war/story-e6frg6so-1226647895401
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Hezbollah in big Syria battle, Obama 'concerned'
Reuters - 20 May 2013 #
Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas have fought their biggest battle yet for Syria's beleaguered president, prompting international alarm that the civil war may spread and an urgent call for restraint from the United States.
About 30 Hezbollah fighters were killed on Sunday, Syrian activists said, along with 20 Syrian troops and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad during the fiercest fighting this year in the rebel stronghold of Qusair, near the Lebanon border.
That would be the highest daily loss for the Iranian-backed movement in Syria, highlighting how it is increasing its efforts to bolster Assad; it prompted U.S. President Barack Obama to voice his concern to his Lebanese counterpart, Michel Suleiman.
If confirmed, the Hezbollah losses reflect how Syria is becoming a proxy conflict between Shi'ite Iran and Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which back Assad's mostly Sunni enemies. Dozens of dead in sectarian bombings in Iraq on Monday and killings in the Lebanese city of Tripoli compounded a sense of spreading regional confrontation.
Western powers and Russia back opposing sides in the cross-border Syrian free-for-all, which is also sucking in Israel - though Washington and its allies have fought shy of intervening militarily behind fractured and partly Islamist rebel forces.
The White House said Obama spoke to Lebanese President Suleiman and "stressed his concern about Hezbollah's active and growing role in Syria, fighting on behalf of the Assad regime, which is counter to the Lebanese government's policies". The Beirut government, however, has limited means to influence the politically and militarily powerful Shi'ite group.
The two leaders agreed "all parties should respect Lebanon's policy of disassociation from the conflict in Syria and avoid actions that will involve the Lebanese people in the conflict".
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country was "preparing for every scenario" in Syria and held out the prospect of more Israeli strikes on Syria to stop Hezbollah and other opponents of Israel obtaining advanced weapons.
Israel has not confirmed or denied reports by Western and Israeli intelligence sources that three raids this year targeted Iranian missiles near Damascus that it believed were awaiting delivery to Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006.
FOG OF WAR
Syrian opposition sources and state media gave differing accounts of Sunday's clashes in Qusair, long used by rebels as a supply route from Lebanon to the provincial capital Homs.
Hezbollah has not commented but in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley on Monday several funeral processions could be seen. Pictures of dead fighters were plastered on to cars and mourners waved yellow Hezbollah flags. Several ambulances were seen on the main Bekaa Valley highway and residents said hospitals had appealed for blood to treat the wounded brought back to Lebanon.
The air and tank assault on the strategic town of 30,000 people appeared to be part of a campaign by Assad's forces to consolidate their grip on Damascus and secure links between the capital and government strongholds in the Alawite coastal heartland via the contested central city of Homs.
The government campaign has coincided with efforts by the United States and Russia, despite their differences on Syria, to organize peace talks to end a conflict now in its third year in which more than 80,000 people have been killed.
A total of 100 combatants from both sides were killed in Sunday's offensive, according to opposition sources, including the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Such a death toll would indicate at least hundreds had taken part.
Troops have already retaken several villages around Qusair and have attacked increasingly isolated rebel units in Homs.
"If Qusair falls, God forbid, the opposition in Homs city will be in grave danger," said an activist who called himself Abu Jaafar al-Mugharbil.
State news agency SANA said the army had "restored security and stability to most Qusair neighborhoods" and was "chasing the remnants of the terrorists in the northern district".
Syrian television also showed footage of what it said was an Israeli military Jeep which it said the rebels had been using and which showed the extent of their foreign backing. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the vehicle was decommissioned a decade ago and dismissed the footage as "poor propaganda".
Opposition activists said rebels in Qusair, about 10 km (six miles) from the Lebanese border, had pushed back most of the attacking forces to their original positions in the east of the town and to the south on Sunday, destroying at least four Syrian army tanks and five light Hezbollah vehicles.
The Western-backed leadership of the Free Syrian Army, the loose umbrella group trying to oversee hundreds of disparate rebel brigades, said the Qusair fighters had thwarted Hezbollah with military operations it dubbed "Walls of Death".
Syrian government restrictions on access for independent media make it hard to verify such videos and accounts.
"NO DIALOGUE WITH TERRORISTS"
The fighting raged as Western nations are seeking to step up pressure on Assad - Britain and France want the European Union to allow arms deliveries to rebels - while preparing for the peace talks brokered by Russia and the United States next month.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said "no option is off the table" over the possible arming of rebels if the Syrian government does not negotiate seriously at the proposed talks.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose country has shielded Syria from U.N. Security Council action, said Syrian opposition representatives must take part without precondition, apparently referring to their demands for Assad's exit before they come to the table.
Assad has scorned the idea that the conference expected to convene in Geneva could end a war that is fuelling instability and deepening Sunni-Shi'ite rifts across the Middle East.
"They think a political conference will halt terrorists in the country. That is unrealistic," he told the Argentine newspaper Clarin, in a reference to Syria's mainly Sunni rebels.
Assad ruled out "dialogue with terrorists", but it was not clear from his remarks whether he would agree to send delegates to a conference that may in any case falter before it starts due to disagreements between its two main sponsors and their allies.
The fractured Syrian opposition is to discuss the proposed peace conference at a meeting due to start in Istanbul on Thursday, during which it will also appoint a new leadership.
Among divisive factors in the rebel camp is fundamentalist Islam, practiced by some fighters and opposed by others. In the latest Internet video from Syria to cause discomfort for rebels seeking Western backing, anti-Assad Islamists flogged two men they said had infringed a ban on marrying newly divorced women.
Attacks by troops and militias loyal to Assad, who inherited power in Syria from his father in 2000, have put rebel groups under pressure in several of their strongholds in recent weeks.
Assad, from Syria's minority Alawite sect, has been battling an uprising which began with peaceful protests in March 2011. His violent response eventually prompted rebels to take up arms.
Hezbollah has supported Assad throughout the crisis but for months denied reports it was fighting alongside Assad's troops.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the Hezbollah casualties on Sunday at 28 dead and more than 70 wounded, while 48 rebel fighters and four civilians were also killed.
Tareq Murei, an activist in Qusair, said six more people were killed on Monday as Syrian army artillery and Hezbollah rocket launchers bombarded rebel-held parts of the town.
Video footage purportedly showed a Syrian tank on fire at a street corner in the town. In another video a warplane was shown flying over the town amid the sound of explosions.
Lebanese security sources said at least 12 Hezbollah fighters were killed in Qusair on Sunday. Seven were to be buried in the Lebanese town of Baalbek and nearby villages on Monday, they said.
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22 May 2013 Last updated at 23:55
Hezbollah 'perpetuating Assad's campaign of terror'
US Secretary of State John Kerry has said the militant Lebanese Shia Islamist group Hezbollah and Iran are helping perpetuate President Bashar al-Assad's "campaign of terror" in Syria.
Mr Kerry said thousands of Hezbollah fighters were contributing significantly to the violence.#
He added that Iran was actively supporting Hezbollah's involvement.
Dozens of Hezbollah militants are said to have been killed fighting alongside Syrian troops in Qusair since Sunday.
Government forces have launched an offensive to recapture the strategically important rebel-held town, which is close to both the city of Homs and the Lebanese border.
On Wednesday, rebel fighters said Qusair had come under bombardment by aircraft and heavy artillery for the fourth consecutive day.
An official from the office of the governor of Homs province told the Associated Press news agency that about 80% of the town was now in government hands. The rebels have denied that they have lost ground.
The acting head of the main opposition alliance, the National Coalition, meanwhile called on rebel commanders across Syria to send reinforcements to Qusair, citing concerns over "foreign invaders".
"Everyone who has weapons or ammunition should send them to Qusair and Homs to strengthen its resistance. Every bullet sent to Qusair and Homs will block the invasion that is trying to drag Syria back to the era of fear," George Sabra said in a statement.
'Right and duty'
Members of Hezbollah's military wing are reported to have been fighting for month alongside the Syrian army and the National Defence Forces, a pro-government militia allegedly set up and trained by Iran, as they gradually advanced on Qusair and surrounded it.
Hezbollah has denied sending any fighters into Syria, insisting that Lebanese Shia living in Syria who are affiliated to the group have been defending themselves.
However in recent days Hezbollah has held several public funerals in Lebanon for fighters believed to have been killed fighting in Qusair. Video footage was broadcast by the group's television channel, which said they had died while carrying out their "jihadist duty".
Speaking at a news conference in Amman on Wednesday after talks with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, Mr Kerry said the US believed Hezbollah had intervened "very significantly" in Qusair.
"There are several thousands of Hezbollah militia forces on the ground in Syria who are contributing to this violence," he said.
"In addition to that, Iranians are on the ground, and Iran is actively helping to support Hezbollah."
"Active military support to the Assad regime simply exacerbates the sectarian tensions, and it perpetuates the regime's campaign of terror against its own people."
Syria's ambassador to Jordan, Bahjat Suleiman, told reporters in Amman that it was Hezbollah's "right and duty to defend" the dozens of villages around Qusair inhabited by Lebanese nationals, but insisted the Syrian military did not require the group's assistance.
Mr Kerry is in Jordan for a "Friends of the Syrian People" meeting, which will also be attended by officials from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, the UK, France, Germany and Italy.
Following the meeting, delegates issued a joint statement denouncing the "flagrant intervention" in Syria by Hezbollah and Iran, and demanding their immediate withdrawal.
The UK and France are urging other European Union member states to designate Hezbollah's military wing, the Islamic Resistance, a terrorist organisation. The move comes after Germany changed its stance, having long been against anything that could destabilise Lebanon.
'Commitment to peace'
The Friends of the Syrian People meeting also prepared for an international conference set to be held in Geneva next month to find a political solution to the conflict, based on the final communique of the UN-backed Action Group for Syria meeting in the Swiss city in June 2012.
On Wednesday, Mr Kerry warned the Syrian president that if he was not prepared to make "a commitment to find peace in his country", the US and others would consider increasing backing for his opponents.
Without serious negotiations, Syria faced worse bloodshed, he added.
"Our understanding [is that] if Geneva 2 were not on the horizon, all we would be looking at is the continued tragic disintegration of the county that will go down further into more violence and more destruction."
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad later told the Russian news agency Itar-Tass that the government would decide soon whether to participate in the Geneva conference.
The UN says that more than 80,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Assad began in March 2011. There are 1.5 million refugees taking shelter in neighbouring countries and an estimated 4.25 million internally displaced people.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22630006
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Hezbollah Aids Syrian Military in a Key Battle
By ANNE BARNARD and HWAIDA SAAD
NEW YORK TIMES - May 19, 2013
Syrian government forces backed by Lebanese fighters from the militant group Hezbollah pushed Sunday into parts of Qusayr, a strategic city long held by rebels, according to an antigovernment activist and pro-government news channels. If the advance holds, it would be a serious setback for opponents of President Bashar al-Assad.
Both sides called it one of the war’s most intense ground battles. The fight seemed likely to inflame regional tensions as Hezbollah plunges more deeply into the conflict in Syria, increasing fears of a regional conflagration.#
The Syrian military hammered Qusayr, on the Lebanon border, with airstrikes and artillery, killing at least 52 people and wounding hundreds as civilians cowered, unable to flee the city, activists said. By day’s end about 60 percent of the city, including the municipal office building, was under the army’s control for the first time in months, one activist said. Residents said rebels kept fighting into the night in Qusayr, killing a number of Hezbollah and government fighters.
Syrian state television said the army had “tightened the noose on the terrorists,” the government’s term for its armed opponents, by attacking from several directions. State news media said the army had “restored security and stability” to most of the city, killing many rebel fighters and capturing others.
The battle for the city, in heavily contested Homs Province, is viewed by both loyalists and government opponents as a turning point that could, in the words of one activist in Qusayr, “decide the fate of the regime and the revolution.”
“It is one of the hardest days all over Syria,” said the activist, Tarek, who would give only his first name because he was concerned for his safety. “If Qusayr is finished, it will be the end of the revolution in Homs.”
Mr. Assad, according to people who have spoken with him, believes that reasserting his hold in Homs Province is crucial to maintaining control of a string of population centers in western Syria, and eventually to military campaigns to retake rebel-held territory in the north and east. Many analysts say it is unlikely that the government will be able to regain control of those areas, but that it could consolidate its grip on the west, leading to a de facto division of the country.
The battle has brought Hezbollah’s role in Syria to the forefront as the war becomes a regional conflict, pitting Shiite-led Iran, the main backer of Mr. Assad and Hezbollah, against the Sunni Muslim states and their Western allies that support the uprising.
In the Hezbollah heartland in southern Lebanon, residents were electrified by a new sense that they were at war, according to Ali, a local resident who is related to a Hezbollah fighter sent to Qusayr. Ali said that 14 Hezbollah fighters had died on Sunday, a figure that is consistent with claims by rebels and with those on unofficial Hezbollah Web sites. If it is confirmed, the toll would make the battle by far the group’s most costly action since it entered the Syrian conflict.
“It reminds me of the July 2006 war,” Ali said Sunday night, referring to Hezbollah’s war with Israel, its last major battle. “All the people are still up. They are waiting anxiously; they’re praying for victory for our fighters.”
Tensions have risen in Lebanon as Syrian rebels have shelled Hezbollah-controlled areas. On Sunday, they hit the Lebanese town of Hermel with Grad rockets, activists said.
Ali said his relative reported in a text message from Qusayr: “Things are fine. They are perfect.”
He said he supported Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria because it would deter the rise of Sunni extremist groups like Al Nusra Front among the rebels. “If we don’t defend our villages,” he said, referring to Shiite villages in Syria, “Al Nusra will be outside our homes the next day.”
Residents of the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, bordering Syria, have reported a recent increase in the funerals of Hezbollah fighters there. One resident described Lebanese Shiites in the area as being concerned about their relatives in the ranks. “They are soldiers — they have to go,” the resident said.
Though many Lebanese Shiites support Mr. Assad, there is quiet consternation over the fact that Hezbollah fighters are being killed in battles with fellow Arab Muslims, in a country where they have many ties, rather than fighting the group’s primary enemy, Israel.
Perhaps seeking to address such concerns, Hezbollah, which depends on Mr. Assad for its shipments of weapons from Iran, recently acknowledged its military role in Syria more openly. The group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has said the group would not allow Qusayr, or the Syrian government, to fall to a rebellion that it views as being instigated by Israel and the West.
For weeks, Hezbollah — which is both Lebanon’s most powerful political party and a militant group regarded by the United States government as a terrorist organization — has fought alongside the Syrian military and pro-government militias in villages near Qusayr.
The small city, about 100 miles north of the Syrian capital, Damascus, is crucial to supply routes for both sides. Qusayr is a conduit for rebel supplies and fighters from Lebanon, and it links Damascus to the Mediterranean coast, which is the heartland for Mr. Assad’s minority Alawite sect.
The Syrian government appears to be trying to regain as much territory as possible, to strengthen its negotiating position while Russia and the United States try to organize peace talks for next month.
The rebels have issued pleas for help, saying they are running out of ammunition. A Syrian opposition figure with ties to the Saudi government, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said on Sunday that support and ammunition from Persian Gulf countries is reaching insurgents in Qusayr, but added that the government’s increasing control of supply routes made delivery difficult.
“They are getting help,” the opposition figure said, “but the other side is much stronger and better equipped and trained.”
Even so, one Qusayr resident, a doctor who works in field hospitals and whose brother is a rebel fighter, said that Qusayr’s rebels were more highly motivated than government fighters. He said a ground assault on the city, where about 7,000 local fighters have spent months preparing defenses and ambushes, would cost many lives.
“They’re defending their fields, their land,” said the doctor, Zahereddine, who is currently in the Bekaa Valley. “But those aggressors, what goal do they have? It’s not their town; they don’t dare to go inside and die — for what?”
In Qusayr, the doctor’s brother filmed himself standing on a rooftop as smoke rose over the city. “Qusayr is being destroyed,” he said.
Ammar, a Qusayr resident reached through Skype, said hundreds of shells had flattened houses across the city and that his brother had lost a leg and could not be evacuated. “I never saw the sky in Qusayr that black,” he said.
Tarek, the activist in Qusayr, said that more than 25,000 civilians remained in the city, blocked from leaving by government forces.
Syrian state television said that the government had provided a safe corridor for civilians to flee the city. But activists said that the route leads residents to government-controlled areas, where they fear prosecution and torture, especially in the wake of the killings of scores of Sunni Muslims in government-held Tartus Province this month.
“They would massacre them there,” he said. United Nations officials have also expressed fears that civilians could be targets of attacks if the government storms the city.
“Civilians are besieged,” Tarek said. “No way to get them out.”
Videos from Qusayr uploaded on the Web by opposition groups showed helicopters bombing a heavily damaged neighborhood while clouds of smoke drifted into the sky, amid the near-constant sounds of gunfire and shelling. Other activists uploaded images of dead bodies with their bloody faces wrapped in white cloth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/world/middleeast/syrian-army-moves-to-rebel-held-qusayr.html?ref=middleeast
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20 May 2013 Last updated at 08:09
Who are Hezbollah?
Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has argued against Western interference
Israel threw considerable military might against Hezbollah in the 2006 war
Hezbollah presents itself as a force of resistance for Lebanon and the region
Hezbollah - or the Party of God - is a powerful political and military organisation in Lebanon made up mainly of Shia Muslims.
It emerged with financial backing from Iran in the early 1980s and began a struggle to drive Israeli troops from Lebanon.#
Hostility to Israel has remained the party's defining platform since May 2000, when the last Israeli troops left Lebanon due in large part to the success of Hezbollah's military arm, the Islamic Resistance.
Hezbollah's popularity peaked in the 2000s, but took a dent among pro-Western Lebanese people when it was at the centre of a huge, destructive war with Israel following the capture of two Israeli soldiers in 2006.
Lebanese divisions
Hezbollah is the strongest member of Lebanon's pro-Syrian opposition bloc which has been pitted against the pro-Western government led by Saad Hariri.
It has several seats in parliament and has ministers in a national unity government formed in late 2009.
It also blocked the election of a new president by repeatedly boycotting sessions of parliament.
The stalemate ended on 21 May 2008, when the group reached a deal with the government under which its power of veto was recognised.
In January 2011, Hezbollah and its allies brought about the collapse of Lebanon's national unity government by resigning.
This was in protest against the UN tribunal investigating former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's murder. The tribunal was about to issue indictments against members of Hezbollah.
Washington has long branded Hezbollah a terrorist organisation and has accused it of destabilising Lebanon in the wake of Syria's withdrawal of its troops from the country following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The movement long operated with neighbouring Syria's blessing, protecting its interests in Lebanon and serving as a card for Damascus to play in its own confrontation with Israel over the occupation of the Golan Heights.
Since the Syrian conflict began in 2011, Hezbollah has consistently pledged its backing for President Bashar al-Assad and its members of its military wing have crossed the border to fight against rebels. It has also provided training and logistical support to Syrian forces.
As well as a political clout, Hezbollah has wide popular appeal by providing social services and health care. It also has an influential TV station, al-Manar.
Hezbollah's biggest test came in mid-2006, when its fighters captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border attack, killing a number of others.
The incident triggered a fierce month-long war with Israel, which ended in a ceasefire.
Having survived a massive military onslaught, Hezbollah declared victory, enhancing its reputation among many in the Arab world.
Its critics, however, blamed it for provoking the massive destruction which Israel wreaked in Lebanon.
Despite two UN resolutions (1559 passed in 2004, and 1701, which halted the war) calling for disarming of militias in Lebanon, Hezbollah's military arm remains intact.
Starting out
Hezbollah was conceived in 1982 by a group of Muslim clerics after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah It was close to a contingent of some 2,000 Iranian Revolutionary guards, based in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, which had been sent to the country to aid the resistance against Israel.
Hezbollah was formed primarily to offer resistance to the Israeli occupation.
It also initially dreamed of transforming Lebanon's multi-confessional state into an Iranian-style Islamic state, although this idea was later abandoned in favour of a more inclusive approach that has survived to this day.
The party's rhetoric calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. It views the Jewish state as occupied Muslim land and it argues that Israel has no right to exist.
The party was long supported by Iran, which provided it with arms and money.
Passionate and demanding
Hezbollah also adopted the tactic of taking Western hostages, through a number of freelance hostage taking cells.
In 1983, militants who went on to become members of Hezbollah are thought to have planned a suicide bombing attack that killed 241 US marines in Beirut.
Hezbollah has always sought to further an Islamic way of life. In the early days, its leaders imposed strict codes of Islamic behaviour on towns and villages in the south of the country - a move that was not universally popular with the region's citizens.
But the party emphasises that its Islamic vision should not be interpreted as an intention to impose an Islamic society on the Lebanese.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10814698
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25 May 2013 Last updated at 22:08
Hezbollah leader Nasrallah vows victory in Syria
The leader of the Lebanese Shia militant Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, has promised his supporters they will prevail in Syria, where they are backing President Bashar al-Assad.
"This battle is ours... and I promise you victory," he said in a TV address.
Syrian rebels in the besieged town of Qusair say they are under heavy bombardment from Hezbollah combatants.
The town is close to the Lebanese border, a conduit for both the government and rebels to get weapons.
In the speech from an undisclosed location, Mr Hasrallah said if Sunni Islamists took over in Syria, they would pose a threat to the entire Lebanese population - Shia and Sunni Muslims, as well as Christians.#
He said his movement could never be aligned with Syrian rebels who, in his view, were supported by the United States and Israel.
Offensive intensified
Dozens of Hezbollah militants are said to have been killed fighting alongside Syrian troops in Qusair since 19 May, when government forces launched an offensive to recapture the rebel-held town.
Last week, US Secretary of State John Kerry said thousands of Hezbollah fighters were contributing significantly to the violence in Syria.
He added that Iran was actively supporting Hezbollah's involvement - a claim denied by Tehran.
Iran and Hezbollah are predominantly Shia, while Mr Assad's Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam.
The week-long fighting in Qusair intensified early on Saturday, when activists reported heavy bombardments, including two ground-to-ground missiles and an air strike as well as artillery and rocket fire.
Syrian state media said the army had launched a three-pronged offensive in the north, centre and south of Qusair, and was making big advances after "killing large numbers" of fighters.
Qusair is important for the Syrian government because it links the capital, Damascus, with the Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast. However, official media made no mention of the part played by Hezbollah.
The Lebanese group is also known to have lost a number of fighters in Qusair, prompting Lebanese President Michel Suleiman to warn the Shia militia against getting "bogged down in the sands of discord".
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group that monitors the conflict, said at least 22 people including 18 rebels had been killed in the latest fighting in Qusair. Dozens had been wounded, it added.
Who are Hezbollah?
Name means "Party of God"
Political and military organisation made up mainly of Shia Muslims
One of the biggest blocs in Lebanon's governing coalition
Strongly backed by Iran, a close ally of Syrian President Assad
Mr Assad's minority Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22669230
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Nasrallah defends Hezbollah fighting extremists in Syrian town of Qusayr
Sat 25 May 2013, 7 pm
Hezbollah Secretary-General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has defended the Lebanese resistance movement’s decision to fight foreign-backed militants in the Syrian border town of al-Qusayr.
Nasrallah made the remarks on Saturday during a ceremony marking the 13th anniversary of the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, known as the Liberation Day.#
The Hezbollah leader said if foreign-backed militants win the war on Syria, they will turn their weapons on Lebanon.
Nasrallah further pointed out that the extremist Salafist groups form the backbone of the unrest in Syria, adding that the US-backed armed groups are also a threat to all Lebanese communities.
The Syrian army pressed ahead to liberate al-Qusayr in Homs Province fully from the foreign-backed militants on Saturday, seizing al-Daba’a military airport north of the town.
The army also regained control of the Ba’ath Party headquarters in the strategic town that borders Lebanon, killing large numbers of foreign-backed militants. The government forces have inflicted losses on the militants and destroyed their weaponry and equipment.
Nasrallah said the ongoing war in Syria is part of an American project to change the balance of power in the region in favor of the Israeli regime.
He, however, promised victory against the Salafist groups in Syria.
"I say to all the honorable people, to the Mujahedeen, to the heroes: I have always promised you a victory and now I pledge to you a new one" in Syria, he said.
"We will continue along the road ... bear the responsibilities and the sacrifices. This battle is ours ... and I promise you victory," he said.
The leader of the resistance movement also dismissed accusations that Hezbollah is a sectarian movement.
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30 May 2013 Last updated at 11:16
Syrian president says army 'has balance of power'
pic:
[Rebel] Gen Salim Idriss makes an appeal on the BBC's World Service:
"We are dying, we are suffering, many, many people are now waiting to be killed"
The Syrian army has scored "major victories" against rebels and now holds "the balance of power" in the conflict, President Bashar al-Assad has reportedly told a Lebanese TV station.
Mr Assad is also quoted as saying Syria has received the first shipment of an advanced Russian air defence system. #
Russia vowed to go ahead with sending S-300 missiles earlier this week.
The interview with Hezbollah-linked Al Manar TV is set to be broadcast later on Thursday.
In excerpts from the interview published by Lebanon's pro-Syrian Al Akhbar newspaper, Mr Assad is quoted as saying: "The Syrian army has scored major victories against armed rebels on the ground and the balance of power is now with the Syrian army."
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem made similar comments on Wednesday, telling Lebanese media: "Our armed forces have regained the momentum.''
Mr Assad also admits in the interview with Al Manar that Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement are co-operating, or "on the same axis".
"Hezbollah fighters are deployed along the Lebanese-Syrian borders but the operations are conducted by the Syrian army until the "terrorist" groups are crushed", he is quoted as saying.
Mr Assad condemns backing for the rebels from Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, claiming there are now 100,000 foreign fighters on Syrian soil.
"Invading"
Earlier, a rebel leader accused Hezbollah of "invading" Syria.
Gen Selim Idriss, the military chief of the main umbrella group of Syrian rebels, the Free Syrian Army, claimed that more than 7,000 fighters of the Lebanese Shia movement were taking part in attacks on the rebel-held town of Qusair.
He made an emotional appeal to Western powers on the BBC World Service's Newshour programme, saying: "We are dying. Please come and help us."
More than 50,000 residents were trapped in the town and a "massacre" would occur if it fell, he added.
Regime forces, backed by Hezbollah fighters, are reported to have retaken from rebels a disused military airfield north of Qusair, the BBC's Jim Muir reports from Beirut.
Opposition groups and humanitarian organisations say conditions for the civilians and the wounded in Qusair are dire, with doctors saying oxygen and other medical supplies have run out.
Syrian government officials say that a corridor had been established to allow civilians to escape and fighters who put down their arms are free to leave too.
Fears of further tension
"Syria has received the first shipment of Russian anti-aircraft S-300 rockets," Mr Assad is reported as saying in the TV interview.
"The rest of the shipment will arrive soon."
The S300 is a highly capable surface-to-air missile system that, as well as targeting aircraft, also has the capacity to engage ballistic missiles.
The delivery of such missiles raises fears of further tension with Israel as Mr Assad is also reported to have threatened to respond directly if Israel launches any further air attacks on Syria.
However, the Israeli Defence Minister, Moshe Yaalon, said on Tuesday he had information suggesting the missiles had not yet been delivered, but if they were Israel would "know how to act".
Israeli Energy Minister, Sylvan Shalom, told public radio that Israel did not want to "escalate" the situation with Syria but would not allow the transfer of strategic weapons to Hezbollah.
It is also feared that growing disagreement on the missile issue could endanger US-Russian efforts to convene a peace conference on Syria in Geneva in June.
The Syrian leader is quoted as telling Al Manar that Syria would take part in principle but doubts it will yield results.
Casting a further shadow over the proposed Geneva conference, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the Syrian opposition on Thursday of making unrealistic demands by calling for Mr Assad to step down.
RUSSIAN S-300PMU SYSTEM
Type: Surface to air missile system, capable of hitting aircraft, cruise and ballistic missiles
Special feature: Fires two missiles at a time, vertically, making it versatile and accurate
Origin: S-300P dates from the 1960s but current state-of-the art export versions are S-300PMU-1 and 2 which were developed in the late 1990s
Manufacturer: Almaz-Antey
Cost: $900m for full system although it is not clear whether this is what Russia is supplying to Syria
Specification: Each launcher vehicle [left] carries four missile containers (two missiles per target). A full battalion is six launcher vehicles with a total of 24 missiles plus command and control and long range radar detection vehicles
Capability: Russian 48N6 are the standard missiles fired from S-300PMU launchers. They have a range of 5-150km at an altitude of up to 30km
Response time: Vehicle stopping to missile firing is 5 minutes
Source: Royal United Services Institute
Who are Hezbollah?
Lebanese Shia Muslim group
Name means the Party of God
Defined by hostility to Israel since 1980s
Fought Israel in a bitter and deadly war in 2006
Made up of political and military wings
Strongest member of Lebanon's pro-Syria bloc
Consistently backs Assad rule in Syria
Fighters known to be active inside Syria
Branded a terrorist group by Washington
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22713119
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Syrian rebels plead for help as army bombards strategic Qusair
By Erika Solomon - Thu May 30, 2013 10:20am BST #
Syrian rebels pleaded for military and medical aid in the embattled border town of Qusair on Thursday, saying they were unable to evacuate hundreds of wounded under an onslaught from government forces backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters.
President Bashar al-Assad launched an offensive to capture Qusair two weeks ago in what many see as a bid to cement a hold on territory from the capital Damascus up to his Alawite community heartland on the Mediterranean coast.
"We have 700 people wounded in Qusair and 100 of them are being given oxygen. The town is surrounded and there's no way to bring in medical aid," said Malek Ammar, an opposition activist in the besieged town.
Rebels in Qusair sent out an appeal for support using social media outlets, saying the town near the Syrian-Lebanese border - straddling supply lines critical to both sides in Syria's civil war - could be devastated.
"If all rebel fronts do not move to stop this crime being led by Hezbollah and Assad's traitorous army of dogs..., we will soon be saying that there was once a city called Qusair," the statement said.
Syria's two-year old conflict began as a peaceful protest movement but evolved into an armed insurrection after a violent security crackdown on demonstrators. More than 80,000 people have been killed and the violence is now stoking political and sectarian tensions in neighbouring countries.
Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah is believed to have committed hundreds of guerrilla fighters, many of them with battle experience from a 2006 war with Israel, to help its ally Assad secure Qusair.
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Fighters in Qusair said they were hearing at least 50 shells crashing every hour. Hezbollah and Syrian government forces appeared to be advancing more quickly after seizing the nearby Dabaa air base on Wednesday.
The Qusair fighting has intensified already simmering sectarian tensions. The rebels are mostly from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority while minorities have largely backed Assad, himself from the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
Rebel units from different parts of Syria have said for days that they have sent fighters to support the opposition in Qusair, but rebels inside say none have made it into the town.
You Tube videos published by several units suggest some brigades have arrived around the outskirts of Qusair, a town of 30,000, but not advanced further.
Ahmad Bakar, a doctor in a hospital near Qusair, posted on appeal on Facebook for rebels to rush to help.
"We need immediate intervention from outside battalions. I swear to God no supplies have gotten through to us and we need a route to be opened to evacuate the wounded an civilians."
Thousands of civilians are believed to have fled Qusair before the offensive began - Assad's forces distributed leaflets by plane saying they would be attacking the town.
Some activists estimate Qusair's civilian population was at about 20,000 when the offensive began.
"What we need them to do is come to the outskirts of the city and attack the checkpoints so we can get routes in and out of the city. Most of Qusair is surrounded," said the activist Ammar, speaking by Skype from the town.
Among those who have come to try to help Qusair are fighters from radical Sunni Islamist groups such as Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra, which is linked to al Qaeda.
Sunni rebel groups have threatened to commit sectarian revenge massacres in Shi'ite and Alawite towns both in Lebanon and Syria in retaliation for Hezbollah's participation in the Qusair attack. They see the battle-hardened Hezbollah's role as critical to Assad's battlefield strength.
(Editing by Mark Heinrich)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/05/30/uk-syria-crisis-qusair-idUKBRE94T08Y20130530
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US demands Hezbollah pull out forces from Syria
30 May 2013
The United States has demanded the ‘immediate’ withdrawal of the forces of Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah from Syria.
The spokesperson for the US Department of State, Jen Psaki, said on Wednesday, “This is an unacceptable and extremely dangerous escalation. We demand that Hezbollah withdraw its fighters from Syria immediately.”#
On May 25, Hezbollah Secretary-General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah defended the resistance movement’s decision to fight along with the Syria army against the militants in the town of Qusayr near the Lebanese border.
The Washington Post reported in April that the US had “expanded and accelerated” the training of some 3,000 militants from the terrorist Free Syrian Army, which began in 2012 in Jordan.
The United States has provided indirect military support to the militants in Syria.
Syria has been gripped by turmoil since March 2011 and the foreign-sponsored militancy has taken its toll on the lives of many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on May 18 that militants from 29 different countries were fighting against the government in different parts of the country.
Meanwhile, Takfiri militants from around seventeen countries are also carrying out terrorist activities against civilians, including women and children, in Syria with the funding of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and the support of the Turkish government.
The Takfiris have also destroyed several ancient and religious sites in some parts of Syria over the past months.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/05/30/306236/us-demands-hezbollah-syria-withdrawal/
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31 May 2013 Last updated at 12:07
Syria rebels reinforce in fight for key town of Qusair
Dozens of fighters have arrived to reinforce rebel units battling to hold off a Syrian government and Hezbollah assault on the key town of Qusair.
A source in Qusair told the BBC the number was far fewer than the 1,000 suggested by the interim head of the main opposition alliance, George Sabra.#
But the arrival does contradict state media reports the town is surrounded.
President Bashar al-Assad earlier told Lebanese TV that he was "confident of victory" in the two-year-old conflict.
His troops, backed by fighters from Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement, have been tightening the noose on Qusair, which controls supply routes crucial to both sides.
Syrian state television said troops and Hezbollah fighters had captured the Arjun district of Qusair on Thursday.
The BBC source in Qusair did not give precise figures for the rebel reinforcements for security reasons.
But he said it was significant that they had managed to get in at all, and that the news would encourage others to come to the aid of the rebels.
He also said the humanitarian situation in Qusair was worsening, with urgent need to get some 800 wounded people out for treatment.
Mr Sabra, acting leader of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, insisted that "around 1,000 fighters from across Syria" had penetrated the town.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, said "hundreds" of rebels had broken through army lines north-east of Qusair.
Russian supplies
Earlier, the National Coalition ended marathon talks in Istanbul with a pledge to broaden its membership.
It will include more representatives of the rebel Free Syrian Army and other activists inside Syria, but correspondents say it failed to achieve many stated goals.
The coalition announced that its leadership council would be expanded, following widespread criticism that it was out of touch with events on the ground in Syria.
It adds 14 members of a liberal bloc led by Michel Kilo, 14 members of activists' groups from inside Syria and 15 members linked to the FSA.
However, the coalition postponed until June the election of a new leader to replace Moaz al-Khatib, who said he would resign in March, and the formation of an interim rebel government headed by Ghassan Hitto.
Before the announcement, the US had called for a decision on a new leadership and an expanded membership to "move forward in planning the Geneva conference".
The US and Russia are pushing for a meeting to find a political solution to the conflict in the Swiss city next month, and their officials will meet next week to prepare the ground.
Mr Sabra insisted: "The Syrian Coalition will not participate in international conferences and will not support any efforts in light of Hezbollah and Iran's militia's invasion of Syria."
However, given the fractured nature of the opposition it is unclear whether this is the final word.
The BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut says a lot more needs to be done for the opposition to be in any kind of shape to attend any conference in a coherent manner.
He says that, by contrast, the Syrian government appears unified and confident.
President Assad, speaking on Thursday to Lebanon's al-Manar TV, which is owned by Hezbollah, said: "There is a world war being waged against Syria and the policy of [anti-Israeli] resistance but we are very confident of victory."
He warned Israel that it would respond in kind to any future air strikes.
"We have informed all the parties who have contacted us that we will respond to any Israeli aggression next time."
Mr Assad said Syria would "in principle" attend the peace conference in Geneva if there were not unacceptable preconditions.
Mr Assad also said a Russian contract to supply it with new S-300 air defence missile systems was being implemented - but did not confirm any deliveries.
He said: "All we have agreed on with Russia will be implemented and some of it has been implemented recently, and we and the Russians continue to implement these contracts."
The S-300 is a highly capable surface-to-air missile system that, as well as targeting aircraft, also has the capacity to engage ballistic missiles.
Two Russian newspapers on Friday quoted defence sources as saying that it was unclear if any of the missile system would be delivered this year.
Russia's MiG company said it was also discussing the supply of more MiG-29 M/M2 fighter planes to Syria. General director Sergei Korotkov said the number would be "more than 10".
Meanwhile, Syrian state TV showed the bodies and identity cards of two Westerners it said were killed by government troops while fighting for the rebels in the north-western province of Idlib.
The family of an American woman later reported her death, naming her as Nicole Mansfield, a 33-year-old Muslim convert from the town of Flint, Michigan.
The UK Foreign Office said on Friday that it was aware of reports about a British citizen and was seeking further information.
Analysis:
Jim Muir - BBC News, Beirut
After 40 years of tight dictatorship in Syria, it is not surprising that the opposition is finding it hard to produce a coherent, representative leadership to face off against a tough regime team in the proposed Geneva conference.
What was meant to be a three-day meeting of the opposition coalition in Istanbul turned into eight days of in-fighting that has failed to achieve its stated goals of electing a new leadership, approving an interim government and taking a clear position on the Geneva proposal.
After initially saying it would go to Geneva with conditions, it now says it will not go as long as Hezbollah is fighting at Qusair. That buys it time for the great deal of work, and doubtless wrangling, that will be needed to construct a plausible delegation for the talks, and more meetings will be held early next month.
By contrast, the regime side is unified and coherent, and has decades of negotiating experience to draw on. The opposition risks a severe defeat in the talks, unless it gets its act together very seriously.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22728798
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Iran Vice-President, "Salafis and Wahhabis's time is running out"
Tuesday 14 May 2013 08:42
Islam Times - Iran Vice-President, Mohammed Rahimi, told reporters while in visit in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. He believe the school of thoughts followed by Wahhabis and Salafis would never take root within Egypt, stressing that the 40 year-old movement would soon frill out and die out as it had no real substance.#
The verbal attack is bond to anger a few Sunni clerics, as it will be perceived as an attack against Sunni Islam rather than a political comment.
VP Rahimi said at a meeting with a delegation of Egyptian journalists, "The Salafi ideology was born outside Egypt .... This ideology has no root in Egypt and as such its influence will soon wear off."
In the coming days Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to discuss bi-lateral relations.
For the first time in several decades it looks as if Iran and Egypt will become strategic ally in the region and will together promote not only peace but put to rest sectarian strife between Shia and Sunni Muslims.
Ahmed Maulana, a Salafi militant accused Tehran of trying to spread Shiism across Egypt and the region.
He alleged that Iran, through a clever network of alliances in the region -- the Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen -- is trying to become the region's political and religious super-power, a theory Iran has always strongly rejected.
http://www.islamtimes.org/vdcezx8wfjh8ppi.1kbj.html
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Containing Iran’: Israel ‘in talks’ to join alliance with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey
RT - May 05, 2013 10:18
Israel is considering partnering with several moderate Arab states in a US-brokered defense alliance that would be aimed at containing Iran, which is accused of nuclear weapon ambitions, a British newspaper reported Sunday.
The alliance would see Israel teaming up with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to forge a Middle East ‘moderate crescent’ to contain, rather than confront, Iran, the Sunday Times reported, citing an unnamed Israeli official.#
According to the report, such an alliance would give Israel access to radar stations in Saudi Arabia and the UAE in exchange for its own early warning radar information and anti-ballistic missile defense systems, the source said.
In addition to US-made Patriot anti-missile systems, Israel has deployed the Iron Dome all-weather defense system, although this system guards against rockets fired from distances of 4 to 70km away.
The report suggested that Jordan would be protected by Israel’s Arrow long-range anti-missile batteries.
“The plan is to start with information-sharing about Iran’s ballistic missiles,” said an Israeli official.
The proposal, known by participating diplomats as ‘4+1’, is being brokered by the United States. If successful, it would represent a marked shift in Middle East policy at the White House, which in the past has said it is not interested in containing Iran, but rather preventing it from achieving nuclear weapon capability.
However, Turkey has dismissed the report. “These are manipulative reports which have nothing to do with the reality,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry official told Hürriyet Daily News.
Tehran denies it is attempting to build a nuclear weapon, saying that its nuclear research is aimed at creating new energy resources for its civilian sector.
The prospects for the plan’s success, however, remain questionable as Israel does not maintain formal diplomatic relations with Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, while relations with Ankara have been rather strained for the last several years.
Relations between Israel and Turkey sharply deteriorated following the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid, which left eight Turkish nationals dead after their ship attempted to break an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip.
In March 2013, Israel apologized for the raid on the Turkish vessel, which observers say represents a step toward the normalization of relations between the two countries.
The Sunni states of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Jordan, not to mention Israel and the United States, are all wary of Shiite Tehran gaining any strategic advantage in the region, a factor that may compel the Arab states and Israel to put aside their differences and join some sort of alliance.
http://rt.com/news/israeil-iran-security-alliance-us-832/
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Jordan, Israel working as one over Syria: Report
27 May 2013
Jordan has allowed the Israeli regime to fly its drones over the Jordanian airspace in order to monitor the situation in Syria, a report says.
A high-ranking Jordanian official, close to King Abdullah II, told the London-based newspaper Jewish Chronicle that Amman and Tel Aviv were “working as one over Syria.” #
The official, whose name was not mentioned in the report, stated that Jordan would “of course… allow Israel to use Jordanian air space for another attack on Syria” if the need arose.
On May 5, Syria said the Israeli regime had carried out an airstrike targeting a research center in a suburb of Damascus, following heavy losses inflicted upon al-Qaeda-affiliated groups by the Syrian army.
According to Syrian media reports, the strike hit the Jamraya Research Center which had been targeted in another Israeli airstrike in January.
“Syria is a crisis whatever happens. Assad is no longer a force for stability… The Israelis don’t mess about and that’s what we need. We are working as one over Syria,” the Jordanian official said, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Syria has been gripped by unrest for over two years, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the foreign-sponsored militancy.
The Syrian army has conducted successful operations against the militant groups over the past several days.
On May 25, Hezbollah Secretary-General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah defended the Lebanese resistance movement’s decision to fight the militants in Syria’s town of Qusayr near the Lebanese border.
President Assad said on May 18 that militants from 29 different countries were fighting against the government in different parts of the country.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/05/27/305655/jordan-lets-israel-move-against-syria/
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Hezbollah support firm in face of attacks
Supporters rally behind Shia movement following attacks.
Nour Samaha - AL JAZEERA - 28 May 2013 07:35 #
Al-Qasr, Lebanon - Within hours of two Grad rockets smashing into the Beirut neighbourhood of Shiyah, residents rallied behind Hezbollah, saying the Shia movement is working to protect not just their community, but the country as a whole.
Another three rockets from Syria slammed later on Sunday into the northern Lebanese area of Hermel in the Bekaa Valley, along the porous border with Syria.
"We are not worried, and we are not afraid," Mohammad, a computer businessman and resident of Shiyah, told Al Jazeera, asking that his surname not be used. "We will not hide behind our finger. This is an open battle, it is global, and the resistance and its [Hezbollah] leadership will protect us."
The rocket fire on Shiyah, a predominantly Shia neighbourhood located on the periphery of Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, are the first such attacks on the capital since the uprising began in Syria two years ago. Four people were wounded, three of whom were Syrian nationals.
The rockets came a day after Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, gave a speech to commemorate the liberation of the south from Israeli occupation in 2000. In his speech he defended Hezbollah's involvement in the Syrian conflict, saying, "You can take any side you want, but Hezbollah cannot be on the side of America and Israel, or with those who dig up graves, open chests, and behead other people."
No one has claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks. Rebels affiliated with the Free Syrian Army - angered by Hezbollah's involvement in the conflict on the side of the Syrian army - have issued numerous warnings against the group, threatening to hit their strongholds in Beirut, the south, and in the Bekaa.
Syrian opposition members and rebels have long accused Hezbollah of involvement in the conflict alongside the Syrian army, especially in the recent fierce battles to gain control of the city of Qusayr, which is seen by both sides as strategic.
"The Free Syrian Army has been threatening to attack us, so we expect these attacks, and more," Mohammad said.
"The resistance is fighting in Syria to prevent the battle from moving to Lebanon, and the supporters of the resistance know this," he said. "Anyone who watches the videos of executions and eating hearts will know that Hezbollah is doing the right thing."
'Intersecting lands'
While the Shiyah attacks are the first on the Lebanese capital since the Syrian conflict started, they were not the first on the country.
Lebanon's Hermel area, which shares a border with the suburbs of Qusayr, has fallen victim to numerous rocket attacks by Syria's rebels who claim to be targeting Hezbollah bases.
Residents and officials say, however, many of the these strikes have hit schools, farms, and residential areas, resulting in civilian fatalities and casualties.
For residents of these border villages, the presence of Hezbollah in Syria's Qusayr suburbs and elsewhere along the frontier allows them "to sleep better at night".
"I want Hezbollah to protect me. They are defending me, my children, our people," Abu Ghalib al-Jamal, a resident of the Lebanese border village Qasr, told Al Jazeera. "Right now Sayed Hassan [Nasrallah] is the only one who hears us.
"My farm has been hit from the shells of the armed gangs in Syria, and not one member of the Lebanese authorities has even come to inspect the damages," he said.
The area between Hermel and Qusayr, considered "intersecting lands" by Lebanese and Syrians, is said to be home to at least 30,000 Lebanese who have been living there for decades.
"Lebanese have been living in the border areas since before the Sykes-Picot agreement," Sobhi Saqr, the mayor of Hermel, told Al Jazeera, referring to the secret deal between Britain and France in 1916 to carve up the Middle East between them.
"There are people within these areas who have political affiliations to Hezbollah and its allies," Sobhi continued. "The shells coming in from the armed opposition are to try and create tension between residents and Hezbollah."
Historically neglected by the Lebanese state, Hermel has a strong Hezbollah presence, as the province benefited greatly from infrastructure and social welfare installed by the group, garnering overwhelming electoral support from its residents.
"Nasrallah said the Lebanese villages cannot be touched, and this makes me feel protected. As long as the Lebanese authorities are doing nothing, the resistance is who I rely on to protect me," said Abu Ghalib.
Funerals and fighters
While Hezbollah's role in Syria is undisputedly strategic; it is protecting its own weapons supply route within Syria, and defending the Syrian regime whom it considers to be a vital ally in the resistance axis against Israel, there is also a sense of obligation to its supporters to ensure their safety and protection.
According to Hasan Ileik, a journalist with the Lebanese daily Al Akhbar who has been following developments closely, Hezbollah's military involvement in Syria began at the end of September 2012, following increased attacks said to be carried out by the Syrian opposition in the Shia village of Haydariyeh, which is within the "intersecting lands".
'"They began by sending the people of the villages in the area weapons and training," and within a few weeks they began going in to fight, Ileik told Al Jazeera.
For the Syrian opposition, claims of how many Hezbollah fighters are currently in Qusayr range between hundreds to tens of thousands.
According to Ileik, however, Hezbollah's presence is "less than 500 fighters in Qusayr".
"On the borders there is definitely more pressure on the group to be involved because the residents are facing daily attacks," Ileik said. "You have families on both sides of the border pressuring Hezbollah to fight with them and to defend them."
And as more coffins come back carrying fallen Hezbollah fighters from Syria, the sign-up sheet to go fight is filling out more quickly.
"The more martyrs coming in from Syria, the more fighters are wanting to go," said Ileik. "Some people are asking for more training in order to be ready for the coming months."
For Ileik, the reason behind this support is much more focused on the bigger picture. "The people are not backing Hezbollah because of something related to this moment, but rather related to a big political ideology involving the region as a whole."
Losing support?
Yet others consider Hezbollah's deepening involvement in Syria detrimental to its supporters, resulting in a shrinking base as Shia Lebanese struggle with the image forced upon them because of the association - real or perceived - with the group.
"Now, when you are a Shia from Lebanon you are tarnished as being a supporter for Hezbollah," Sami Nader, a professor at the University of Saint Joseph and a Middle East analyst, told Al Jazeera.
"Today they are under pressure from the international financial industry so it is much harder for them to do transactions and open back accounts, it is much harder for them to get a job abroad, especially in the Gulf, and generally they are perceived by many as terrorists," he said. "This is clearly a problem for the community."
For Nader, the mass support the group once garnered across the region no longer exists today as a result of their alliance with the Syrian regime, and even its hardcore base of supporters is dwindling.
"The supporters that are still with them are doing so because they don't have any other choice. This is the minority complex living in fear," he said. "There is a message from the Arab community that the Shias are not welcome anymore."
And as the attacks on their community specifically and on Lebanon in general continue, "you will witness Hezbollah support shrinking".
Ileik disagreed, however, pointing out support for Hezbollah will remain because its supporters - including family members who are "supplying the fighters" - stand behind the group as "they know the fight in Syria would be better for Lebanon, and for them, in the long term".
For Shiyah resident Mohammad, such rocket attacks will not deter the group's support base, rather they will become increasingly resolute.
"This is a battle over the existence of the resistance."
Follow Nour Samaha on Twitter: @Nour_Samaha
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/05/2013526143718451718.html
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Gulf states will consider punishing Hezbollah for role in Syria
Al-Arabiya - 2 June 2013
Arab Gulf States will consider taking measures against Hezbollah if the Shi'ite Muslim Lebanese movement continues its involvement in Syria...
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Gulf Arab countries to consider action against Hezbollah
JEDDAH | Sun Jun 2, 2013 7:59pm BST
(Reuters) - Gulf Arab countries will consider taking action against Hezbollah if the Shi'ite Muslim Lebanese movement continues its involvement in Syria's civil war or interferes in Gulf Arab affairs, Bahrain's deputy foreign minister said on Sunday.
Ghanem al-Buainain said the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) regarded Hezbollah's involvement in Syria as "sectarian intervention", but had not discussed listing the group as a terrorist organisation, a step taken by Bahrain last week.#
The Arab League and the United States have urged Hezbollah to pull its fighters from Syria, where France last week said up to 4,000 guerrillas from the group were fighting alongside forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
"The ministerial council (of the GCC) condemned Hezbollah's brazen intervention in Syria ... and decided to consider taking action against any Hezbollah interests in GCC countries," he said, without specifying what those interests were.
Buainain was speaking at a news conference after a meeting of foreign ministers of the mostly Sunni GCC, which also includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.
Bahrain last Monday banned domestic political groups from making contact with Hezbollah, a movement it believes has been involved in unrest among its Shi'ite Muslim majority.
The country, ruled by the Sunni al Khalifa family, has been buffeted by political unrest since 2011 with mostly Shi'ite Bahrainis agitating for democratic reforms.
Bahrain has accused Shi'ite Iran, Hezbollah's main backer, and the Lebanese Shi'ite militants of fanning the unrest. They both deny it, although Hezbollah has criticised the Manama government's security crackdowns on Shi'ite protesters.
(Reporting By Angus McDowall; editing by Mike Collett-White)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/06/02/uk-gulf-hezbollah-idUKBRE9510CG20130602
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4 June 2013 Last updated at 11:58
'New levels of brutality in Syria'
Syria's war has reached "new levels of brutality", the UN says, with evidence of fresh suspected massacres, sieges and violations of children's rights.
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