Syrian Army and Hezbollah Advance Into Key Rebel City
By ANNE BARNARD and HALA DROUBI
Published: May 19, 2013
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian government forces backed by Lebanese fighters from the militant group Hezbollah pushed Sunday into parts of a strategic city long held by rebels, according to both 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 and further inflame regional tensions.
via Associated Press
The battle for Qusayr, Syria, raged on Sunday. A photo from a citizen journalist captured what was said to be the results of military airstrikes and artillery assaults.
Multimedia
Syrian state news media said that the army had "restored security and stability" to most of Qusayr, killing many fighters and capturing others. 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.
The battle for the city, in heavily contested Homs Province, has deepened the involvement of Hezbollah in the Syrian conflict, raising sectarian tensions and fears of a regional conflagration. The fight 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 Tarek, the activist, who would give only his first name because of security concerns. "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 control in Homs Province is crucial to maintaining control of the 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 hold 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.
Tensions have risen in Lebanon as Syrian rebels have shelled Hezbollah-controlled areas. On Sunday, they hit the Lebanese town of Hermel with Grad missiles, activists said.
Ali, a Shiite from southern Lebanon, said Sunday that one of his relatives was fighting with Hezbollah in Qusayr and reported in a text message: "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."
Lebanese news media and residents of the Bekaa Valley bordering Syria have reported a recent increase in the funerals of Hezbollah fighters who have been fighting near Qusayr. One resident described Lebanese Shiites in the area as being concerned about relatives recently deployed to Syria by Hezbollah.
"They are soldiers — they have to go," the resident said.
Though many Lebanese Shiites support Mr. Assad against an uprising in which Sunni extremists are playing an increasing role, there is quiet consternation that the Syrian conflict is growing more bloody and that Hezbollah guerrillas are being sent to battle fellow Arab Muslims in a country where they have many ties, rather than fighting their primary foe, 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 used by Israel and the West to their advantage.
For weeks, Hezbollah — which is both Lebanon's most powerful political party and a militant group listed 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 northwest 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."
But one Qusayr resident, a doctor who works in field hospitals and whose brother is a rebel fighter, said Qusayr's rebels were more motivated. 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, 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?"
Qusayr residents reached through Skype on Sunday said that government forces showered the city with hundreds of artillery shells, flattening dozens of houses in an operation that they said could lead to the city's "complete destruction."
"This is an aggressive campaign, one of the harshest and strongest on Qusayr," said Rami Abdul Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group based in Britain that tracks the violence through a network of observers in Syria.
Tarek, the activist in Qusayr, said that more than 25,000 civilians remained in the city as Hezbollah fighters and government forces tried to storm it from the south and east.
Syrian state television said that the government had provided a safe corridor for civilians to flee the city. But Mr. Abdul Rahman said that the route leads residents to government-controlled areas, and they fear prosecution and torture there, especially in the wake of the killings of scores of Sunni Muslims in government-held Tartous 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.
Activists said that government forces had prevented people from leaving. "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.
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