Hezbollah appears to be shrugging off a 24-hour ultimatum issued yesterday by Free Syrian Army chief Salim Idris instructing the Iran-backed terror group to withdraw from Syria, and is instead pouring extra fighters from Lebanon into the battle raging in the Syrian city of Qusayr:
Government fighter jets early Wednesday bombed rebel zones of the town as regime forces readied to launch a major assault, according to the watchdog. Hezbollah fighters and crack troops of Syria’s elite Republican Guards had been sent to reinforce government ranks, Observatory chief Rami Abdul Rahman told AFP news agency.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius estimated today that Hezbollah has deployed 3,000 to 4,000 troops to Syria. Idris accused the organization of committing genocide against Sunni Muslims, underscoring the hardening sectarian dynamics of the conflict.
Qusayr is strategically critical to both sides of the conflict, and is used by rebels as a key transit point for weapons and materials coming into the country. The Syrian army, bolstered by thousands of Hezbollah troops, has been engaged in an offensive to retake Qusayr from the rebels. It is claiming to have established control over 80 percent of the city. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah declared over the weekend that the organization would fight alongside the Bashar al-Assad regime until it secured victory over opposition forces, who for more than two years have been seeking the regime’s overthrow.
Hezbollah’s involvement reportedly comes at the behest of Iran, which in addition to militarily bolstering Assad is providing the regime with diplomatic cover.
Tehran hosted a meeting of what it calls “friends of Syria” on May 29. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi had expressed the hope that “many world leaders” would accept the invitation to attend the summit, and the conference is being covered across Iranian media outlets. Iran is seeking to reinforce its position that Assad must be included in any resolution to the conflict, and that Syria must not be divided to accommodate other ethnic or religious groups.
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