Video: Hezbollah, Russia and Iran are providing help to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, changing the momentum of the civil war but not yet decisively. Loveday Morris joins us from Beirut.
BEIRUT — The Syrian army and Lebanese Hezbollah militants seized control Wednesday of the strategic town of Qusair, boosting momentum for President Bashar al-Assad’s forces on the battlefield and dimming the prospect of peace talks.
State television broadcast footage of a soldier hoisting a Syrian flag emblazoned with Assad’s face over a bullet-pocked clock tower in the town center as the opposition conceded defeat.
Timeline: Major events in the country’s tumultuous uprising that began in March 2011.
Losing control of the town, which the predominantly Sunni opposition had held for more than a year, is a serious blow for the rebels, cutting their supply lines from Lebanon, six miles to the west.
For the government, it adds impetus to a swing in Assad’s favor, as his forces are bolstered by military technology from Iran and Russia and by support from the Shiite Hezbollah movement, whose involvement has deepened fears of the two-year conflict exploding into a regional sectarian war.
Qusair is an essential cog in the government’s effort to regain a grip on central Syria. Its fall will put Assad in a position of confidence, diminishing hopes for a U.S.- and Russia-backed peace conference, which was postponed Wednesday until at least July.
For more than two weeks, Qusair has been the scene of a grinding battle as rebels attempted to repel the advance of pro-government forces. Outnumbered, outgunned and surrounded, they resisted more tenaciously than many had expected, inflicting heavy losses on the Hezbollah militants, known for their prowess in street fighting. But even with reinforcements from Aleppo, the rebels were unable to halt their opponents’ creeping gains.
“It’s a battle that we lost,” the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition activist network, said in a statement, adding that the war is not yet over. The rebel Free Syrian Army put up a strong fight in the face of “missile launchers, mortar shells, airstrikes . . . a strangling siege and a lack of all of the basic needs of life,” it added.
The United Nations had earlier raised concerns about more than 1,000 civilians it said were trapped inside under constant bombardment, with no access to medical care and basic supplies.
Launching a surprise attack Tuesday night, pro-Assad forces opened up an escape route to the nearby villages of Dabaa and Aarsal, across the Lebanese border, to encourage rebels to leave, a security official with ties to Syrian forces told the Reuters news agency.
Streets in Qusair, once an opposition bastion and home to 30,000 people, now lie deserted, with buildings reduced to rubble, activists say. For the government, retaking Qusair gives it a crucial link between the Syrian capital, Damascus, and the port cities of Tartus and Latakia, its heartland of support.
Importantly, it also secures a supply conduit from the Lebanese border, which could prove crucial for Hezbollah as it appears ready to dig in for a long-term fight in Syria.
A win in Qusair was essential for the movement’s reputation after its leader, Hasan Nasrallah, promised his men victory in a May 25 speech. There was celebratory gunfire Wednesday in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold which has been counting its war dead in Syria.
George Sabra, the acting head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, decried what he called Hezbollah’s “murderous” involvement in the battle for Qusair, saying it would split open Sunni-Shiite divisions in the region.
The movement’s deepening entanglement has inflamed sectarian strife in Lebanon, where clashes in the northern city of Tripoli have continued almost unabated for two weeks. Meanwhile, Iraq recorded its highest monthly death toll for five years in May — a spike that analysts attributed to heightened sectarian tensions at least partly linked to Syria’s war.
“Hezbollah may provide the regime with a sharper military edge, but at the cost of turning the struggle into a regional Sunni-Shiite war,” said Peter Harling, a Syria analyst with the International Crisis Group. “How is that supposed to bring it to a close?”
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