Hezbollah's secret war on Syrian rebels , report

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The other night I spoke to Alaa al-Sheikh, the Free Syrian Army’s Khaled Bin Waleed Brigade in Rastan, a city that’s home about 25,000 people and lies on the main Damascus-Aleppo highway in the province of Homs. Over the last several months, Rastan has become the frontline in the war between Syrian rebels and pro-Assad loyalists as well as a kind of de facto headquarters for the FSA. When I asked al-Sheikh about the rebels’ targeting of power lines and water mains in the country, I was surprised at his response. He said that this tactic was not in fact designed to rob the regime of electricity and water but rather to affect Lebanon: retaliation, he said, against Hezbollah’s provocations. “Hezbollah received information that the Iranians who were captured in Homs had been taken to north Syria,” he told me. “So Hezbollah started bombing us there with Katyushas. They fired around 21 rockets from near Al-Hermel in Lebanon, which is close to the Syrian border.”

The Iranians he’s referring to are seven nationals in FSA custody; five of them, the rebels insist, are members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) brought in to assist Assad’s Air Force intelligence in sniping. However, Syrian state media adamantly denies the allegation and insists that five Iranian engineers who were on their way to work at the Jandar power plant in Homs on 21 December were kidnapped by “terrorists”. Press TV, the Iranian regime’s propaganda outlet, says two more engineers were taken after they attempted to investigate the whereabouts of their missing colleagues.

Yet last week, James Hider and Nate Wright of the Times reported that Mahmoud Haj Hamad, the head financial auditor at the Syrian Defence Ministry who defected last month, confirmed that the Assad regime had indeed been paying “military consultants” from Iran and Hezbollah out of a US-dollar slush fund financed by Iran. These consultants, Hamad said, now number in the “thousands.”

Tehran’s facilitation of Assad’s brutality is matched by Moscow’s obstruction of any UN Security Council resolution that demands the dictator’s ouster, an obstruction that, even after yesterday’s intense diplomatic wrangling by the US, Europe and Arab states at Turtle Bay, shows absolutely no sign of abatement.

Clearly, Assad has used the Security Council deadlock to his advantage. In the last day, the regime has waged a comprehensive offensive and reprisal campaign in Idleb and the Damascus suburbs. One member of the Syrian Revolution Coordination Union (SRCU) told me yesterday that Rankous has been hit especially hard: there have been mass arrests, shabbiha gangs have confiscated cellphones and electronics, and houses have been burnt to the ground. Even animals, the SRCU activist said, have been killed “just for fun.”

Rastan, too, has been pounded by regular army forces, both with tanks shells and heavy artillery. “The army has used 130-millimetre towed field guns, which can hit a target at 28 kilometres,” al-Sheikh told me. “These are Russian-made. The tanks have pounded houses, one of which we saw collapse. It’s hard to say how many have been killed here because we are just now able to pull the bodies out from under the wreckage.” The rebels claim that yesterday they destroyed eight of the Syrian army’s tanks and captured four more in Rastan. A different activist told me that 300 more soldiers tried to defect but of them, 225 were killed by the loyalists they turned against.

“We hold the city right now,” al-Sheikh said of Rastan. But for how long? “A week, maybe two.” The aim is to weaken the regime by inflicting “painful” losses, not topple it, which is something the rebels can’t do so long as the regime receiving armaments and supplies from Iran and Russia. “Iran is sending weapons inside civilian airplanes,” al-Sheikh added, “landing in civilian airports.”

The only other “liberated” city in Syria is Zabadani, but the army now has it completely surrounded. Still, morale seems to be high among the FSA combatants. Al-Sheikh sent me the link to this YouTube video showing an urban side street littered with rubbish and rubble; out of a thick fog of pulverised concrete, a tank was being tentatively manoeuvred. “You see here, we captured a tank and they’re driving around in it,” he said, laughing. “Look at the driver, he is parking the tank like a taxi in front of his house.”

By: Michael Weiss

Telegraph.UK.

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Comments

  1. antar2011 Avatar

    the silence of the lebanese govt is going to quicken the fact that the uprising will spill over to lebanon…..everyone now knows that Hizbollah is involved except the sleepng lebanese govt….

    they all deserve to be out in a big pit and burnt like they are burning inoocent civilian’s houses.

    el 3ama walah shi bikaffer!

  2. antar2011 Avatar

    the silence of the lebanese govt is going to quicken the fact that the uprising will spill over to lebanon…..everyone now knows that Hizbollah is involved except the sleepng lebanese govt….

    they all deserve to be out in a big pit and burnt like they are burning inoocent civilian’s houses.

    el 3ama walah shi bikaffer!

  3.  Avatar

    the silence of the lebanese govt is going to quicken the fact that the uprising will spill over to lebanon…..everyone now knows that Hizbollah is involved except the sleepng lebanese govt….

    they all deserve to be out in a big pit and burnt like they are burning inoocent civilian’s houses.

    el 3ama walah shi bikaffer!

  4.  Avatar

    the silence of the lebanese govt is going to quicken the fact that the uprising will spill over to lebanon…..everyone now knows that Hizbollah is involved except the sleepng lebanese govt….

    they all deserve to be out in a big pit and burnt like they are burning inoocent civilian’s houses.

    el 3ama walah shi bikaffer!

  5. 5thDrawer Avatar

    “…. paying “military consultants” from Iran and Hezbollah out of a US-dollar slush fund financed by Iran.”
    Yah … the hypocrisy oozes …. they all love the money.

    Nice to know why there’s a need for a Turkish power-boat.

  6.  Avatar

    “…. paying “military consultants” from Iran and Hezbollah out of a US-dollar slush fund financed by Iran.”
    Yah … the hypocrisy oozes …. they all love the money.

  7. it should be uprising in lebanon against that shit faqih goverment but we need a spark like saad hariri breaking his head hollydaying for example!!

  8.  Avatar

    it should be uprising in lebanon against that shit faqih goverment but we need a spark like saad hariri breaking his head hollydaying for example!!

  9.  Avatar

    it should be uprising in lebanon against that shit faqih goverment but we need a spark like saad hariri breaking his head hollydaying for example!!

  10. when Syria topples and a new government is formed remember the friends and enemies. A good starting point is HA and then IRAN and Russia and believe me they are not your friends

  11.  Avatar

    when Syria topples and a new government is formed remember the friends and enemies. A good starting point is HA and then IRAN and Russia and believe me they are not your friends

  12. wargame1 Avatar

    Its good that Hezbushaitan is getting exposed in their killing Syrians. This is the most essential aspect in order to fight against them. The Shia Iran and Hezbushaitan pretend to unite Shia and Sunni but in the back door they allied with USA and attack Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya and now Syria.But the newspaper Headline is completely different, they chant great satan , burn US and Israeli flag so its very difficult to punish this most wicked people.If you try to accuse them they will call others wahabi , zionist and american agents etc. So first unmasked these bastards to the whole world so they wont be able to play that sectarian card anymore like …look we are minority …fighting against Israel and these wahabis beat us… snif… snif . They are exposed helping USA in Iraq , in Libya , in Afghanistan and in Syria plus throughout history this was their role to cooperate with the foreign invaders and gain dominance over the sunnis , it happened during the crusade , during the mongol invasion. So the first and foremost task is to expose their true color and then punish them for their crime. Allah will expose them on due time.

  13.  Avatar

    Its good that Hezbushaitan is getting exposed in their killing Syrians. This is the most essential aspect in order to fight against them. The Shia Iran and Hezbushaitan pretend to unite Shia and Sunni but in the back door they allied with USA and attack Afghanistan, Iran and Libya and now Syria.But the newspaper Headline is completely different, they chant great satan , burn US and Israeli flag so its very difficult to punish this most wicked people.If you try to accuse them they will call others wahabi , zionist and american agents etc. So first unmasked these bastards to the whole world so they wont be able to play that sectarian card anymore like …look we are minority …fighting against Israel and these wahabis beat us… snif… snif . They are exposed helping USA in Iraq , in Libya , in Afghanistan and in Syria plus throughout history this was their role to cooperate with the foreign invaders and gain dominance over the sunnis , it happened during the crusade , during the mongol invasion. So the first and foremost task is to expose their true color and then punish them for their crime. Allah will expose them on due time. 

    1.  Avatar

      Money and power, wargame1.
       Your ‘bad crusaders’ invade – sending their hordes of money all the time … every day USA$$ fights it’s way into the streets and homes … Hezzy sets up businesses in the world to get more USA$$ … Iran sends them more USA$$ and weapons … and those USA$$ come and subjugate the people – killing and raping and burning. The great crusade of USA$$. ALL want it eventually, but it escapes most of them. A Great Wind comes, and it flies on the wind to the politicians instead, who gather it in banks to feed it before sending it out again. They have more than they can handle eventually. And a great dark ages of green paper begins again.
       Hmmmmm …. Interesting theme for the background of a fictional love story …. any writers out there?

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