BICOM

Hezbollah is widely reported to have played its’ most significant role yet in Syria’s bloody conflict, yesterday providing important ground support for President Assad’s forces to attempt to wrest control of the town of Qusair from opposition forces seeking Assad’s downfall.

According to the Independent, Hezbollah forces fought alongside Syrian army troops firing mortars and grenade launchers after warplanes and tank fire had bombed Qusair in the morning. Opposition sources reported that at least thirty people were killed during yesterday’s offensive, with Reuters quoting an opposition activist who said “Most of the dead are civilians killed by the shelling.” However, Al Arabiya also reported that senior Hezbollah officer Fady al-Jazzar was among those killed and other accounts say that several Hezbollah fighters died in the fighting.

Qusair, which is located six miles from the Lebanese border is of strategic importance to Assad, as it links the capital Damascus to the Mediterranean coast region, where much of Assad’s Alawite community is based. It is also an important gateway for Syrian opposition forces to smuggle weapons from Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s prominent involvement in the Syrian conflict will be of increasing concern to Israel, which has repeatedly warned about the dangers of sophisticated weapons being transferred to Hezbollah.  Israel is thought to have been responsible for air strikes earlier this month, which targeted a military facility near Damascus, where sophisticated Iranian weaponry was being stored prior to transfer to Hezbollah. At a cabinet meeting yesterday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the region “is in one of its most sensitive periods in decades with the escalating upheaval in Syria at its centre.” He said that “The government of Israel is working responsibly… [to] prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah and to [other] terrorist elements.”