Hezbollah, Assad Troops Prepare to Attack Northern Rebels
Thousands of troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and allied Hezbollah fighters are preparing to enter the province of Aleppo, a rebel stronghold close to the Turkish border, activists said.
The fighters plan to enter from the province’s northern region, Al-Jazeera television said, citing unidentified rebels. The forces mobilized yesterday to attack from three different fronts, the U.K.-based pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on its Facebook page yesterday. Parts of Aleppo, the nation’s commercial capital, and the broader governate by the same name fell into rebel hands last year.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the civil war and the violence has spilled over into neighboring Lebanon, Hezbollah’s home base, inflaming the sectarian tensions that have frequently led to conflict there. A 15-year civil war ended in 1990 after reducing parts of the capital Beirut to rubble.
Hezbollah, a Shiite militia, is fighting alongside the Syrian forces loyal to Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam, to retake the strategic city of al-Qusair from the mainly Sunni Muslim rebels. The U.S. classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
The Free Syrian Army has threatened to strike Hezbollah’s locations inside and outside Lebanon if the group doesn’t withdraw from al-Qusair.
Clashes between pro- and anti-Assad groups in Lebanon have centered in the northern city of Tripoli. More than 10 people were injured in the latest fighting there between Sunnis and Alawites, the official National News Agency said late yesterday.
To contact the reporter on this story: Dana El Baltaji in Dubai at delbaltaji@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net