generalspeaking

Sectarian Factions To The Death

Lebanon has been put on notice. But then that happened long ago. The Lebanese tolerated the presence of the Palestinian refugees while loathing them. And from among the Palestinians arose Hezbollah, whose fierce and bloody viciousness as fighters simply could not be matched by Lebanon's own militias, representing the Maronites, the Druze, Shia, Sunni, who saw Hezbollah grow in strength, aligned with the occupying Syrians with the departure of Israeli occupation.

Israel's realization that it could no longer support a military occupation of Lebanon in response to the PLO's (Fatah) violent assaults and incursions leading to its withdrawal, spurred Hezbollah to greater prominence. Until now, it is in control of much of southern Lebanon, part of the capital, and its political wing, the government, while maintaining a separate militia, apart from the national army. Its better-trained and -armed military wing is sponsored by Iran.

And Syria has always been a part of the Shia-trifecta. Now that Syria has imploded, its majority Sunni population refusing further domination by the Alawite Baath party, a minority Shia presence in Syria, Iran is desperate to keep its three-pronged alliance in good health, dispatching Hezbollah fighters to do their duty to Bashar al-Assad's regime. Iran's Republican Guard, Hezbollah and the Syrian regime's military are faced off against the Free Syrian Army, but also against Islamists from Iraq, Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and in fact all points of the Islamist compass.

The official Syrian opposition National Coalition has demanded that Hezbollah immediately withdraw from Syria, giving warning of the possibility that their involvement could be responsible for a wider conflict that "could drag Lebanon and the region into an open-ended conflict with disastrous consequences". In other words the cataclysm of violently opposing militias that destroyed the country that Lebanon used to be, could do something similar to the Middle East.


"The Coalition calls on the Lebanese government ... to take all the necessary measures to put a stop to the actions of Hezbollah, which is flagrantly involved [in the conflict] on the side of the Assad regime", reads the statement. A pitiably absurd suggestion to a government incapable even of exerting its authority to insist that the Hezbollah members revealed responsible by the UN commission investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri be placed in custody and put on trial.




The past week has seen an escalation in rocket and mortar attacks by the FSA against the area, with rockets hitting the area daily. Syrian air force jets are letting loose their strikes against villages near Qusayr held by the rebels. "It has been like this all week. It looks like they are getting ready for an attack on Qusayr" observed one villager close to the border. Former areas taken by the rebels have been captured by Syrian troops, and they are succeeding in their quest to oust the rebels with the help of Hezbollah fighters.

"Hezbollah fighters advance on the ground while the [Syrian] air force gives them cover", stated a Qusayr-based activist. "The only reason why the regime is advancing on Qusayr area is because of Hezbollah's troops." He must be delusional. Hezbollah denies the accusations levelled that it has sent its fighters into Syria to aid in the crushing of the rebellion; there may, however, they agree, be some members of Hezbollah living in Lebanese Shiite villages just inside Syria who are fighting a defence of their homes attacked by Syrian rebels.

Hezbollah fighter presence around Damascus and villages around Qusayr is a known fact, however. They are there "performing their jihadi duty".  Qusayr is important to the regime, for the highway linking Damascus to Tartous and Homs. The recapture of Qusayr would represent a strengthening of the regime and serve to sever the logistical supply chain between Lebanon and Homs. 

Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militia fighting as part of the rebel faction, warns it will attack Hezbollah wherever it is, including throughout Lebanon, and the suburbs of Beirut. If only that were to occur; a face-off between two fundamentalist Islamist militias, each deserving attention from the other, and the world deserving release from the presence of their malignant presence as death-delivering cancers on the world body.

Labels: Conflict, Hezbollah, Iran, Islamism, Lebanon, Revolution, Syria

posted by Pieface @ Monday, April 22, 2013