WarSclerotic

BBC News – 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.

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