Hezbollah Aids Syrian Military in a Key Battle

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.

By ANNE BARNARD and HWAIDA SAAD

Anne Barnard and Hwaida Saad reported from Beirut. Hala Droubi contributed reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

sourche: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/world/middleeast/syrian-army-moves-to-rebel-held-qusayr.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=world