Hizbullah Pulled More Deeply Into Syria Civil War

Hizbullah was pulled more deeply into Syria’s civil war as 28 guerrillas from the Lebanese Shiite terrorist group were killed and dozens more wounded while fighting rebels, Syria activists said Monday.

The intense battle drove rebels from large parts of the town of Qusair, part of a withering government offensive aimed at securing a strategic land corridor from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast.

Hizbullah-affiliated hospitals in Lebanon urged blood donations through mosque loudspeakers and ambulances raced along the Damascus road in a stark indication of the group’s increasingly prominent role in Syria.

The overt Hizbullah involvement — several funerals for group members were held Monday in Lebanon — edges the war further into a regional sectarian conflict pitting the Middle East’s Iranian-backed Shiite axis against Sunnis.

It also raised tensions considerably in Lebanon, where Hizbullah has come under harsh  criticism for its involvement in the civil war next door.

A staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hizbullah is heavily invested in the survival of the Damascus regime and is known to have sent fighters to aid government forces. The Iranian-backed group’s growing role in the conflict also points to the deeply sectarian nature of the war in Syria, in which a rebellion driven by the country’s Sunni majority seeks to overthrow a regime dominated by Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Clashes continued for the second day in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon, where Sunnis and Alawites battled in a direct spillover from the fighting in Qusair.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks Syria’s civil war, said that more than 70 Hizbullah fighters have also been wounded in the fighting around Qusair.

The White House said President Barack Obama telephoned Lebanon’s president and expressed concern about Hizbullah’s “active and growing role in Syria, fighting on behalf of the Assad regime, which is counter to the Lebanese government’s policies.”

More than 70,000 people have been killed and several million displaced since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011 and escalated into a civil war. The Syrian government and Hizbullah deny there is an uprising in Syria, portraying the war as a foreign-backed conspiracy driven by Israel, the U.S. and its gulf Arab allies.

In addition to the Hizbullah involvement, Iraqi Shiite fighters have for months trickled in to Syria.

Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said in a recent speech that his fighters had a duty to protect Shiite Muslim  shrines in Syria. He also claims that supporters of the group were fighting in Shiite villages near the Lebanon border against the rebels, saying it was in self-defense.

Qusair has been the target of a Syrian government offensive in recent weeks, and the surrounding countryside has been engulfed in fighting as regime troops backed by Hizbullah fighters seized villages while closing in on Qusair itself.

This article appeared in print on page 1 of the May 21st, 2013 edition of Hamodia.