Jerusalem Post
February 25, 2014
“A number” of Hezbollah militants were killed in the airstrike, according to pan-Arab news channel Al Arabiya.
The target was a “missile base,” Al Arabiya quoted the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as saying.
This article was posted: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 at 12:16 pm
A week after a former minister critical of Hezbollah was killed by a car bomb, another bombing targeted a Hezbollah headquarters.
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a security source said Lebanese authorities have identified the second suicide bomber who attacked the Iranian embassy in Beirut this week as a Palestinian man with ties to fugitive Lebanese Islamist cleric Ahmed al-Assir, known for fiery sectarian and anti-Iranian rhetoric. Assir’s militant supporters fought a two-day battle with the Lebanese army in June after barricading themselves in a mosque in the southern port city of Sidon.
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The border area between Egypt and the southern Gaza Strip is seen in this general view August 19, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
GAZA |
GAZA (Reuters) – Stunned by turmoil in neighboring Egypt and starved of funds, the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas is looking to repair damaged ties with its traditional Middle East allies, Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah party.
An off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas celebrated when the Sunni movement’s Mohamed Mursi was elected president of Egypt in 2012, believing the vote would boost its own international standing and its grip on the isolated Gaza Strip.
In the meantime, outraged by the bloody civil war in Syria, the Palestinian group quit its headquarters in Damascus, snapping the Iran-led “axis of resistance” that challenged Israel and the West across the turbulent region.
Shi’ite Muslim Iran, which had for years supplied Hamas with cash and arms, was infuriated by what it saw as a betrayal of its close friend, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and drastically scaled back its support. Tehran’s Shi’ite partner, Hezbollah, also voiced its fierce disapproval.
But following the ousting of Mursi, removed by the Egyptian military on July 3, political sources said Hamas had had direct and indirect contacts with both Iran and Hezbollah — anxious to revitalize old alliances and restore its battered funding.
“Some meetings have taken place … to clear the air. There is no boycott (of Hamas) but at the same time, things have not yet got back to normal,” said a Palestinian official, with knowledge of discussions, who declined to be named.
Moussa Abu Marzouk, former deputy head of Hamas’s political office, saw Hezbollah and Iranian officials in Lebanon last month, with other meetings taking place subsequently.
“It is in the interest of Hamas today to revise its rapport with Iran and Hezbollah for many reasons,” said Hani Habib, a political analyst based in the Gaza Strip. “At the end of the day, all the parties have an interest in this partnership.”
SYRIA ROW
Locked in conflict with arch foe and neighbor Israel, which it refuses to recognize, Hamas has governed the small, densely populated Gaza Strip since 2007 after a brief civil war against its secular rivals.
With the Muslim Brotherhood in control of Egypt, Hamas felt it did not have to worry so much about its ties with Iran.
Hamas’s leader in exile, Khaled Meshaal abandoned his long-time base in Damascus last year because of the civil war that pitted President Assad’s forces, backed by reinforcements sent by both Iran and Hezbollah, against mainly Sunni rebels.
Shi’ite and Sunni are the main streams of Islam. There are differences in their interpretations of the Koran and some traditions. The majority of the world’s Muslims are Sunni.
One of the veteran leaders of Hamas, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, said there had never been a suspension of relations with Tehran and Hezbollah, suggesting that contacts may have slowed only because of the recent presidential election in Iran.
“We do not yet know the nature of Iran’s new policy, but the information we have received, which is not direct, suggests that the old policy will be endorsed by the new administration,” Zahar, a renowned hardliner, told Reuters in an interview.
Hamas hopes newly installed President Hassan Rouhani will open the financial taps again.
Diplomats estimated that Iran used to give Hamas some $ 250 million a year, but one Palestinian official reckoned that only 20 percent of that was now being handed over. Ehud Yaari, a Middle East expert from Israel, put the figure at just 15 percent, with no arms being offered up either.
“We have a situation of close to zero arms trafficking through the tunnels into Gaza,” said Yaari.
Very little material, weapons or otherwise, is passing at present through the smuggling tunnels that criss-cross the desert border between Egypt and Gaza, with the new rulers in Cairo ordering a clampdown following Mursi’s removal.
The army-backed government has accused Hamas of interfering in Egyptian affairs and suggested that Palestinians might be helping Islamist militants active in the Sinai peninsula.
The restrictions on the tunnels, which flourished thanks to an Israeli blockade on the coastal enclave, cost Gaza at least $ 230 million in July alone, said Hamas Economy Minister Ala Al-Rafati. But he rejected any suggestion of a financial crisis.
“There are some problems and they are being overcome,” he told Reuters on Monday, adding that the tunnel trade, which provides Hamas with a crucial source of tax income, had dropped some 60 percent since Mursi’s ousting.
In an additional blow, Hamas’s close ties with Qatar have also been dented this summer.
The emir of the energy-rich Gulf state visited Gaza last October promising millions of dollars of aid, but he abdicated in June and his heir has shown much less interest in Hamas.
PRIORITIES
In reaching out once more to Iran and Hezbollah, Hamas’s dilemma is as much ideological as political — how to balance its Sunni Muslim Brotherhood roots with its vital interests to forge partnerships with fellow enemies of Israel.
Leading a special prayer meeting on Friday for the souls of the “Egyptian martyrs”, the Hamas prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, made clear that the war with Israel took precedence.
“We understand that the priority of our resistance is to liberate the land, regain the rights and return the Palestinian people to the land they were forced out of,” said Haniyeh, the movement’s deputy chief.
“We have no military and no security role in Egypt or in the Sinai. Our military and security role is here, on the land of Palestine and against the Zionist enemy.”
Founded in 1988, Hamas has regularly squared off against Israel, most recently in November last year in an eight-day conflagration that killed at least 170 Palestinians and six Israelis. The truce was brokered by Mursi.
Israeli analyst Yaari thought Iran would exact a price for welcoming Hamas back into the fold. “It will require them to stop opposing Assad and stop any criticism of Hezbollah’s intervention (in Syria) and Iranian support of Assad,” he said.
Zahar, who lost two sons in the conflict against Israel in past years and carries great weight in the movement, has always sought to maintain good ties with Iran.
But he also says the organization, which is estimated to have around 30,000 well-equipped fighters, has survived difficult situations in the past when U.S.-backed strongman Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt and kept Gaza in a vice.
“We became very strong in an era where the entire surrounding environment was hostile,” he said. “Our resistance relies mainly on God and also on its capabilities. History proved we have always emerged stronger every time.”
(Editing by Crispian Balmer and Anna Willard)
BRUSSELS |
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union governments could decide to blacklist the military wing of Hezbollah on Monday, in a policy reversal fuelled by concerns over the Lebanese militant movement’s activities in Europe, senior EU diplomats said.
Britain has sought to persuade its EU peers since May to put the Shi’ite Muslim group’s military wing on the bloc’s terrorism list, citing evidence that it was behind a bus bombing in Bulgaria last year which killed five Israelis and their driver.
Until now, the EU has resisted pressure from Washington and Israel to blacklist Hezbollah, arguing such a move could fuel instability in Lebanon, where the group is part of the government, and add to tensions in the Middle East.
A senior EU official said on Friday opposition to the blacklisting was “slowly diminishing”.
Britain’s William Hague said a “great majority” of EU capitals supported the move, due to be debated at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.
“When a terrorist attack takes place on European soil, there have to be consequences. Europe has to recognize that and face up to that,” Hague told reporters ahead of the meeting.
Blacklisting the military wing would mean the freezing of any assets it may hold in the 28-nation bloc, though officials say there is scant information on the extent of Hezbollah’s presence in Europe or on its assets.
Britain, backed by France and the Netherlands among others, has argued that Hezbollah’s growing involvement in the Syrian war means Lebanon is already in a fragile situation and that the EU must weigh the possibility of future attacks in Europe.
REASSURANCES
To soothe worries that sanctions against Hezbollah could complicate the EU’s relations with the Lebanese government, EU governments are also likely to issue a statement pledging to continue dialogue with all political groups in the country.
“A few member states wanted to be reassured that such a decision will not in any way jeopardize political dialogue,” a senior EU official said.
Some EU diplomats, responding to concerns that sanctions could further radicalize the group, have argued that targeting the military wing could, in the long term, persuade some of its members to move away from violence into the political sphere.
Hezbollah denies any involvement in last July’s attack in the Bulgarian coastal resort of Burgas. The Bulgarian interior minister said last week Sofia had no doubt the group was behind it.
“We should name names because time has come to tell the truth,” Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Antanas Linkevi�ius said ahead of Monday’s meeting. Vilnius holds the rotating presidency of the European Union in the second half of 2013.
In support of its bid to impose sanctions, Britain has also cited a four-year jail sentence handed down by a Cypriot court in March to a Hezbollah member accused of plotting to attack Israeli interests on the island.
Hezbollah was set up in Damascus by Iran in 1982 with the aim of fighting Israel after its invasion of Lebanon.
In recent months it has entered the Syrian civil war in support of President Bashar al-Assad, a major factor helping Assad to withstand a two-year popular uprising led by the Sunni Muslim majority against his rule.
(Editing by Gareth Jones and Peter Graff)
BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group vowed Friday to keep fighting in Syria “wherever needed” and said his Shiite Muslim group has made a “calculated” decision to defend the Syrian regime no matter what the consequences.
The comments by Sheik Hassan Nasrallah in a speech to supporters in southern Beirut signaled for the first time the Iranian-backed group will stay involved in the civil war raging next door after helping President Bashar Assad’s army recapture a key town in Syria’s central Homs province from rebels.
President Barack Obama has authorized lethal aid to Syrian rebels after the U.S. announced it had conclusive evidence that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons. U.S. officials are still grappling with what type and how much weaponry to send, but the announcement buoyed opposition forces, which have found themselves heavily outgunned and outmanned by the Hezbollah-backed regime.
The Syrian government on Friday dismissed U.S. charges that it used chemical weapons as “full of lies,” accusing Obama of resorting to fabrications to justify his decision to arm Syrian rebels.
U.S. officials said the administration could provide the rebel fighters with a range of weapons, including small arms, ammunition, assault rifles and a variety of anti-tank weaponry such as shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades and other missiles. The officials insisted on anonymity in order to discuss internal administration discussions with reporters.
Hezbollah has come under harsh criticism at home and abroad for sending its gunmen to Qusair, and Nasrallah’s gamble in Syria primarily stems from his group’s vested interest in the Assad regime’s survival. The Syrian government has been one of Hezbollah’s strongest backers for decades and the militant group fears that if the regime falls it will be replaced by a U.S.-backed government that will be hostile to Hezbollah.
Nasrallah said verbal and other attacks against his militant group “only serve to increase our determination.”
“We will be where we should be, we will continue to bear the responsibility we took upon ourselves,” Nasrallah said. “There is no need to elaborate… we leave the details to the requirements of the battlefield.”
Assad’s forces, aided by fighters from Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah, captured Qusair on June 5, dealing a heavy blow to rebels who had been entrenched in the strategic town for over a year.
Since then, the regime has shifted its attention to recapture other areas in the central Homs province and Aleppo to the north.
A visibly angry Nasrallah did not say outright whether his fighters would go as far as fighting in Aleppo, but his words strongly suggested the group was prepared to fight till the end.
“After Qusair for us will be the same as before Qusair,” he said. “The project has not changed and our convictions have not changed.”
Nasrallah reiterated that the fight in Syria was one against the “American, Israeli and Takfiri project” that was meant to destroy Syria, which along with Iran has been the group’s main backer. Takfiri Islamists refers to an ideology that urges Sunni Muslims to kill anyone they consider an infidel.
Much of the group’s arsenal, including tens of thousands of rockets, is believed to have come from Iran via Syria or from Syria itself.
In addition to the increased military aid, the U.S. also announced Thursday it had conclusive evidence that Assad’s regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against opposition forces. The White House said multiple chemical attacks last year killed up to 150 people.
Obama has said the use of chemical weapons cross a “red line,” triggering greater U.S involvement in the crisis.
“The White House has issued a statement full of lies about the use of chemical weapons in Syria, based on fabricated information,” a statement issued Friday by the Syrian Foreign Ministry said. “The United States is using cheap tactics to justify President Barack Obama’s decision to arm the Syrian opposition,” it said.
The statement also accused the U.S. of “double standards,” saying America claims to combat terrorism while providing support for “terrorist” groups in Syria, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, with arms and money. The group, also known as the Nusra Front, is an al-Qaida affiliate that has emerged as one of the most effective rebel factions in Syria.
The commander of the main Western-backed rebel group fighting in Syria said he hoped that U.S. weapons will be in the hands of rebels in the near future.
“This will surely reflect positively on the rebels’ morale, which is high despite attempts by the regime, Hezbollah and Iran to show that their morale after the fall of Qusair deteriorated,” Gen. Salim Idris told Al-Arabiya TV.
Loay AlMikdad, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, said Idris will begin meeting with international players on Saturday to work out the details of the weapons and their delivery.
“We encourage them to take a decision in this relation, by establishing a no-fly zone either all over Syria or areas they choose based on their technical or military considerations on the ground,” he said, adding that would ensure safe areas for civilians. “We hope they start arming immediately. Any delay costs blood of Syrians. It is not water, it is blood of the Syrians, women and children and its future.”
AlMikdad said the rebels have asked for shoulder propelled rockets, thermal anti-tank missiles, anti-aircrafts missiles, surface to surface missiles and armored vehicles.
The regime’s advances have added urgency to U.S. discussions on whether to provide the rebels with weapons. The United Nations said this week that nearly 93,000 people have been confirmed dead in Syria’s civil war, but the actual number is believed to be much higher.
Russia, a staunch ally of Assad, disputed the U.S. charge that Syria used chemical weapons against the rebels.
President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters that the information provided by U.S. officials to Russia “didn’t look convincing.”
But he said there was no talk yet about whether Russia could retaliate to the U.S. move to supply weapons to the Syrian rebels by delivering the S-300 air defense missile systems to the regime.
“We aren’t competing over Syria, we are trying to settle the issue in a constructive way,” he said.
Ushakov warned that providing such assistance could derail efforts to convene a Syria peace conference. The main opposition coalition has already said it would not attend, all but scuttling the initiative.
Alexey Pushkov, chairman of Russia’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, wrote on his Twitter account Friday that “the data on Assad’s use of chemical weapons were faked in the same place as the lie about (Saddam) Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” referring to the deposed Iraqi dictator.
“Obama is going down the route of G. Bush,” he added, in reference to former President George W. Bush’s assertion — never proven, but used to justify the invasion of Iraq — that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
A lawmaker in Damascus echoed those comments.
“This reminds us of what America did in the prelude to the invasion of Iraq by releasing fabrications and lies to the international community that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction,” said Issam Khalil, a member of Assad’s Baath party.
In Friday’s violence, Syrian troops and rebels fought some of the heaviest battles in months in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, activists said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes were concentrated in the city’s eastern rebel-held neighborhood of Sakhour, calling the fighting “the most violent in months.” It said regime troops attacked the neighborhood from two directions but failed to advance, suffering casualties.
___
Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus and Vladimir Isachenkov contributed to this report from Moscow.
Hezbollah supporters raise their hands in salute as Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah speaks on a screen via a video link from a secret place, during a rally to mark the “wounded resistants day,” in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, June 14, 2013. Nasrallah said his group will continue to fight in Syria “wherever needed,†and said he has made a “calculated†decision to defend Syria and is ready to bear all consequences.(AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Hezbollah supporters raise their hands in salute as Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah speaks on a screen via a video link from a secret place, during a rally to mark the “wounded resistants day,” in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, June 14, 2013. Nasrallah said his group will continue to fight in Syria “wherever needed,†and said he has made a “calculated†decision to defend Syria and is ready to bear all consequences.(AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Injured Hezbollah fighters listen to a speech by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah on a screen via a video link during a rally to mark “wounded resistant’s day,” in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, June 14, 2013. Nasrallah said his group will continue to fight in Syria “wherever needed,†and said he has made a “calculated†decision to defend Syria and is ready to bear all consequences. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Injured Hezbollah fighters listen to a speech by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah on a screen via a video link, during a rally to mark the “wounded resistant’s day,” in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, June 14, 2013. Nasrallah said his group will continue to fight in Syria “wherever needed,†and said he has made a “calculated†decision to defend Syria and is ready to bear all consequences. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
This citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows damaged buildings during battles between the rebels and the Syrian government forces, in Aleppo, Syria, Thursday, June 13, 2013. Syria’s upwardly spiraling violence has resulted in the confirmed killings of almost 93,000 people, the United Nations’ human rights office said Thursday but acknowledged the real number is likely to be far higher. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC)
FILE – This Wednesday, April 17, 2013 file citizen journalism image provided by Aleppo Media Center AMC which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a mass burial of people allegedly killed by Syrian Army snipers, in Aleppo, Syria. Syria’s upwardly spiraling violence has resulted in the confirmed killings of almost 93,000 people, the United Nations’ human rights office said Thursday but acknowledged the real number is likely to be far higher. (AP Photo/Aleppo Media Center AMC, File)
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BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group vowed Friday to keep fighting in Syria “wherever needed” and said his Shiite Muslim group has made a “calculated” decision to defend the Syrian regime no matter what the consequences.
The comments by Sheik Hassan Nasrallah in a speech to supporters in southern Beirut signaled for the first time the Iranian-backed group will stay involved in the civil war raging next door after helping President Bashar Assad’s army recapture a key town in Syria’s central Homs province from rebels.
President Barack Obama has authorized lethal aid to Syrian rebels after the U.S. announced it had conclusive evidence that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons. U.S. officials are still grappling with what type and how much weaponry to send, but the announcement buoyed opposition forces, which have found themselves heavily outgunned and outmanned by the Hezbollah-backed regime.
The Syrian government on Friday dismissed U.S. charges that it used chemical weapons as “full of lies,” accusing Obama of resorting to fabrications to justify his decision to arm Syrian rebels.
U.S. officials said the administration could provide the rebel fighters with a range of weapons, including small arms, ammunition, assault rifles and a variety of anti-tank weaponry such as shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades and other missiles. The officials insisted on anonymity in order to discuss internal administration discussions with reporters.
Hezbollah has come under harsh criticism at home and abroad for sending its gunmen to Qusair, and Nasrallah’s gamble in Syria primarily stems from his group’s vested interest in the Assad regime’s survival. The Syrian government has been one of Hezbollah’s strongest backers for decades and the militant group fears that if the regime falls it will be replaced by a U.S.-backed government that will be hostile to Hezbollah.
Nasrallah said verbal and other attacks against his militant group “only serve to increase our determination.”
“We will be where we should be, we will continue to bear the responsibility we took upon ourselves,” Nasrallah said. “There is no need to elaborate… we leave the details to the requirements of the battlefield.”
Assad’s forces, aided by fighters from Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah, captured Qusair on June 5, dealing a heavy blow to rebels who had been entrenched in the strategic town for over a year.
Since then, the regime has shifted its attention to recapture other areas in the central Homs province and Aleppo to the north.
A visibly angry Nasrallah did not say outright whether his fighters would go as far as fighting in Aleppo, but his words strongly suggested the group was prepared to fight till the end.
“After Qusair for us will be the same as before Qusair,” he said. “The project has not changed and our convictions have not changed.”
Nasrallah reiterated that the fight in Syria was one against the “American, Israeli and Takfiri project” that was meant to destroy Syria, which along with Iran has been the group’s main backer. Takfiri Islamists refers to an ideology that urges Sunni Muslims to kill anyone they consider an infidel.
Much of the group’s arsenal, including tens of thousands of rockets, is believed to have come from Iran via Syria or from Syria itself.
In addition to the increased military aid, the U.S. also announced Thursday it had conclusive evidence that Assad’s regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against opposition forces. The White House said multiple chemical attacks last year killed up to 150 people.
Obama has said the use of chemical weapons cross a “red line,” triggering greater U.S involvement in the crisis.
“The White House has issued a statement full of lies about the use of chemical weapons in Syria, based on fabricated information,” a statement issued Friday by the Syrian Foreign Ministry said. “The United States is using cheap tactics to justify President Barack Obama’s decision to arm the Syrian opposition,” it said.
The statement also accused the U.S. of “double standards,” saying America claims to combat terrorism while providing support for “terrorist” groups in Syria, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, with arms and money. The group, also known as the Nusra Front, is an al-Qaida affiliate that has emerged as one of the most effective rebel factions in Syria.
The commander of the main Western-backed rebel group fighting in Syria said he hoped that U.S. weapons will be in the hands of rebels in the near future.
“This will surely reflect positively on the rebels’ morale, which is high despite attempts by the regime, Hezbollah and Iran to show that their morale after the fall of Qusair deteriorated,” Gen. Salim Idris told Al-Arabiya TV.
Loay AlMikdad, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, said Idris will begin meeting with international players on Saturday to work out the details of the weapons and their delivery.
“We encourage them to take a decision in this relation, by establishing a no-fly zone either all over Syria or areas they choose based on their technical or military considerations on the ground,” he said, adding that would ensure safe areas for civilians. “We hope they start arming immediately. Any delay costs blood of Syrians. It is not water, it is blood of the Syrians, women and children and its future.”
AlMikdad said the rebels have asked for shoulder propelled rockets, thermal anti-tank missiles, anti-aircrafts missiles, surface to surface missiles and armored vehicles.
The regime’s advances have added urgency to U.S. discussions on whether to provide the rebels with weapons. The United Nations said this week that nearly 93,000 people have been confirmed dead in Syria’s civil war, but the actual number is believed to be much higher.
Russia, a staunch ally of Assad, disputed the U.S. charge that Syria used chemical weapons against the rebels.
President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters that the information provided by U.S. officials to Russia “didn’t look convincing.”
But he said there was no talk yet about whether Russia could retaliate to the U.S. move to supply weapons to the Syrian rebels by delivering the S-300 air defense missile systems to the regime.
“We aren’t competing over Syria, we are trying to settle the issue in a constructive way,” he said.
Ushakov warned that providing such assistance could derail efforts to convene a Syria peace conference. The main opposition coalition has already said it would not attend, all but scuttling the initiative.
Alexey Pushkov, chairman of Russia’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, wrote on his Twitter account Friday that “the data on Assad’s use of chemical weapons were faked in the same place as the lie about (Saddam) Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” referring to the deposed Iraqi dictator.
“Obama is going down the route of G. Bush,” he added, in reference to former President George W. Bush’s assertion — never proven, but used to justify the invasion of Iraq — that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
A lawmaker in Damascus echoed those comments.
“This reminds us of what America did in the prelude to the invasion of Iraq by releasing fabrications and lies to the international community that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction,” said Issam Khalil, a member of Assad’s Baath party.
In Friday’s violence, Syrian troops and rebels fought some of the heaviest battles in months in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, activists said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes were concentrated in the city’s eastern rebel-held neighborhood of Sakhour, calling the fighting “the most violent in months.” It said regime troops attacked the neighborhood from two directions but failed to advance, suffering casualties.
___
Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus and Vladimir Isachenkov contributed to this report from Moscow.
BEIRUT (AP) — A pair of rockets slammed into a car dealership and a residential building in strongholds of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group in Beirut on Sunday, wounding four people in a new sign that Syria’s civil war is increasingly rattling its fragile neighbor.
Lebanon’s sectarian divide mirrors that of Syria, and Lebanese armed factions have increasingly taken sides in the fighting next door. There was no claim of responsibility for Sunday’s rocket attacks, but they struck just hours after Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed to propel Syrian President Bashar Assad to victory.
In Baghdad, Syria’s foreign minister offered the first direct confirmation that the Assad regime is willing to take part in talks aimed at ending the Syrian conflict. A U.N.-sponsored conference, envisioned for next month in Geneva, is to bring together representatives of the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition for talks on a political transition.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Sunday the government is willing “in principle” to participate in the conference. He added that such talks present a “good opportunity for a political solution for the crisis in Syria,” but did not say under what terms Assad would dispatch representatives.
The date, agenda and list of participants for the conference remain unclear, and wide gaps remain about its objectives.
Syrian opposition leaders have said they are willing to attend the Geneva talks, but that Assad’s departure from power must top the agenda. Assad said this month that his future won’t be determined by international talks and that he will only step down after elections are held.
The foreign minister’s statement puts more pressure on Syria’s fractured political opposition to signal acceptance as well. The main bloc, the Syrian National Coalition, was meeting in Istanbul for the fourth day Sunday to come up with a unified position on the proposed peace talks, elect new leaders and expand membership.
Louay Safi, a senior member of the coalition, said participants were bogged down in talks about the expansion, and won’t be able to issue a formal statement on the Geneva talks until membership issues are settled.
The opposition’s Western and Arab allies remain skeptical about the Syrian regime’s commitment to negotiations. They have warned Assad that they will step up aid to Syrian rebels if the regime does not negotiate in good faith — though U.S. reluctance to arm the rebels may have taken the bite out of such threats.
Meanwhile, fighting has continued unabated inside Syria.
For the past week, regime troops and its Hezbollah allies have waged an offensive against the strategic rebel-held town of Qusair in western Syria. They have gained ground amid heavy shelling, but rebels have held some positions.
The Qusair battle has laid bare Hezbollah’s growing role in the Syrian conflict. The Shiite militant group, which has been fighting alongside Assad’s troops, initially tried to play down its involvement, but could no longer do so after dozens of its fighters were killed in Qusair and buried in large funerals in Lebanon.
On Saturday, Hezbollah’s leader firmly linked his militia’s fate to the survival of the Syrian regime, raising the stakes not just in Syria, but also in Hezbollah’s relations with rival groups in Lebanon.
“We will continue this road until the end, we will take the responsibility and we will make all the sacrifices,” he said in a televised speech. “We will be victorious.”
Hours after the speech, two rockets struck neighborhoods in south Beirut, a rare occurrence even in a country used to sectarian strife. Street fighting between rival Lebanese groups has been relatively common since the end of the country’s 15-year civil war in 1990, but rocket or artillery attacks on Beirut neighborhoods are unusual.
One rocket struck a car dealership in the Mar Mikhael district on the southern edge of the capital, wounding four Syrian workers, according to Lebanese security officials.
After the attack, part of the rocket’s main body was left embedded in the ground, where a Lebanese soldier measured its diameter. Two cars were badly damaged and others had windows shattered by shrapnel.
Another rocket hit the second floor of an apartment building in the Chiyah district, about two kilometers (one mile) away. It damaged a living room, but no one was hurt.
Lebanese media said security forces were searching for a third unexploded rocket.
A security official said rocket launchers were found in the woods in a predominantly Christian and Druse area in suburbs southeast of Beirut. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Earlier this week, a rebel commander threatened to strike Beirut’s southern suburbs in retaliation for Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria. The threat was made in a video showing Col. Abdul-Jabbar al-Aqidi, commander of the Syrian rebels’ Military Council in Aleppo, while apparently en route to Qusair.
“We used to say before, ‘We are coming Bashar.’ Now we say, ‘We are coming Bashar and we are coming Hassan Nasrallah,’” the commander says in the video.
“We will strike at your strongholds in Dahiyeh,” he says, using the Lebanese name for Hezbollah’s power center in south Beirut. The video was still posted online on Youtube on Sunday.
Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar said the rocket attack took aim at coexistence among Lebanon’s numerous sects and claimed the U.S. and Israel want to return Lebanon to the years of civil war. “They want to throw Lebanon backward into the traps of civil wars that we left behind,” he told reporters. “We will not go backward.”
Interior Minister Marwan Charbel blamed “saboteurs” and said: “We hope what is happening in Syria does not move to Lebanon.”
Lebanese Sunnis sympathetic to the Syrian opposition have also been fighting in Syria alongside the rebels. Nasrallah urged both sides to fight for their side in Syria “and leave Lebanon out of it.”
The fighting next door has repeatedly spilled over the border. For the past week, Assad’s opponents and supporters have been clashing in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli, using mortars, grenades and machine guns to attack densely populated areas.
___
Associated Press writer Sinan Salah in Baghdad, Iraq contributed reporting.
Are we watching Hezbollah closely enough these days? Probably not. Given events in Syria and the Balkans, it appears that we’re in for a whole new set of problems to be presented by Iran’s favorite proxy.
