Hezbollah sends fighters to Syria
22 May 2013 5:04 PM IST
Elite Hezbollah fighters poured across the border from Lebanon into Syria on Tuesday, a watchdog and others said, bolstering regime forces battling to retake the key rebel stronghold of Qusayr.
Washington expressed concern about Hezbollah’s role and diplomats said the EU was poised to place the powerful Shiite militant group’s military wing on its list of international terrorist groups. Separately, Israeli and Syrian forces traded fire on the Golan Heights. The Syrian army claimed it had destroyed an Israeli military vehicle that crossed the armistice line but the Jewish state denied that.
In central Homs province, Hezbollah fighters were reportedly leading the battle for Qusayr, three days after the Syrian regime began an assault to regain control of the town.
‘It’s clear Hezbollah is leading the assault,’ Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP, adding that regime air strikes were ongoing and ‘much of the town is now destroyed.’
A source close to Hezbollah said it ‘has sent new elite troops to Qusayr’.
Hezbollah’s television channel broadcast images of funerals for five members it said were killed carrying out their ‘jihadist duty’. The Observatory said more than 100 people have already been killed in Qusayr.
Washington expressed concern about Hezbollah’s role and diplomats said the EU was poised to place the powerful Shiite militant group’s military wing on its list of international terrorist groups. Separately, Israeli and Syrian forces traded fire on the Golan Heights. The Syrian army claimed it had destroyed an Israeli military vehicle that crossed the armistice line but the Jewish state denied that.
In central Homs province, Hezbollah fighters were reportedly leading the battle for Qusayr, three days after the Syrian regime began an assault to regain control of the town.
‘It’s clear Hezbollah is leading the assault,’ Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP, adding that regime air strikes were ongoing and ‘much of the town is now destroyed.’
A source close to Hezbollah said it ‘has sent new elite troops to Qusayr’.
Hezbollah’s television channel broadcast images of funerals for five members it said were killed carrying out their ‘jihadist duty’. The Observatory said more than 100 people have already been killed in Qusayr.
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