Keys
to Damascus could lie at
borders By Zak Brophy
MASHEREE AL-QA'A, Lebanon-Syria border - A
group of six men listen as voices crackle through
a walkie-talkie. They are sitting in a farmhouse
in the north of Lebanon less than a kilometer from
the Syrian border. The sound of gunfire and
shelling in the distance sporadically punctuates
the atmosphere. One of the group returns to the
room after taking a telephone call. "Good news
from the battle," he exclaims with a smile.
The men are all in, or related to members
of, the opposition's Free Syrian Army (FSA), which
is fighting fierce battles for control of a number
of villages and the surrounding countryside on the
other side of the border. "A military leader for
Hezbollah has been killed in Zara'aat along with
the head of Syrian intelligence from al-Qusayr,"
he continues to tell the group. Earlier in the day
the men
also received news that
at least 13 Hezbollah fighters had been captured
and detained inside Syria.
Assad and
opposition both losing Hezbollah, the
Lebanese Shi'ite militia-cum-political party that
is the predominant force in Lebanon, has remained
a staunch ally of Syria's President Bashar
al-Assad throughout the uprising. The Syrian
opposition and its supporters in Lebanon have long
suggested that Hezbollah is actively helping Assad
quash the rebel forces, but the party has always
denied any direct involvement.
However,
the ambiguity surrounding the deaths of a number
of Hezbollah fighters, including some highly
ranked commanders in recent weeks has aroused
accusations to the contrary. With the death of two
senior military commanders in August and September
the party stated that they had been killed
performing their "Jihadi duty", but did not say
where.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan
Nasrallah finally made a televised appearance on
Thursday evening in which he categorically denied
that the commanders had fallen in Syria, while
also denying the capture of the 13 Hezbollah
fighters.
"The Syrian Army is weak along
the border now and Hezbollah is scared that the
FSA will take control of all of it," says Abu
Ahmad, a combatant for the FSA on the Lebanese
side of the border. He was fighting less than five
kilometers from the Lebanese border in Zara'at the
day before in a battle that is primarily about
securing supply lines.
The FSA needs to
maintain routes for the flow of refugees and
injured fighters out of Syria while medicine, fuel
and weapons move in the opposite direction. The
routes from northern Lebanon to the Syrian town of
Qusayr, via villages such as Zara'at and Jousi,
are particularly important as the rebels in the
war-ravaged city of Homs largely rely on them for
ammunition and weapons.
Similarly, the
army's ability to hold territory is dependent on
its supply lines from the heart of the country.
"We have managed to cut their most important
routes," says Abu Ahmad. "They desperately need
food and munitions and that is why there is such a
tough battle for the villages across the border."
Refugees and FSA fighters within Lebanon
claim that Hezbollah has been using Housh as-Sayed
Ali, a district on the border under their control
just north of the town Hermel, to provide supplies
to the Syrian army and send in fighters to
buttress its debilitated forces. They say that the
party's fighters are firing across the border from
Lebanon into Syria so as to pincer the FSA between
the Syrian Army's artillery fire from the
mountains in the east and to cut their escape
routes back into Lebanon.
In his televised
speech Sayyed Nasrallah denied Hezbollah had sent
fighters into Syria but conceded that members of
the party have been fighting there on their own
volition in order to protect their homes and
families. The border area is essentially
undefined, with many Lebanese citizens' homes and
farms falling within Syrian territory. Nasrallah
claims Hezbollah supporters living there were
attacked, harassed and some even killed by the
FSA. While many have fled, others stayed to fight.
The justification is technically plausible
but does not bode well for stability at the
border. That Hezbollah members are fighting inside
Syria with the support, if not the command, of the
party hints at how Syria's trauma is increasingly
threatening to Lebanon's vulnerable security.
Masheree'a al Qa'a, a strip of farmsteads
along the border to the east of Housh as-Sayed
Ali, is all but devoid of its native inhabitants.
"Over the past six to seven months as the conflict
has moved onto and over the border the families
have all fled," says Abu Mohammad, a philosophy
teacher from Zera'aa living in one of the farm
houses with his family.
He made the
journey to Lebanon once the army started its
aerial bombardment of his hometown and he now
lives with his extended family in one of the
farmhouses approximately one kilometer from the
border. Of his two sons fighting in the FSA, one
has been detained by the Syrian Army, and the
other smuggles supplies to the FSA.
While
standing on Abu Mohammad's rooftop in Masheree'a
al-Qa'a a house on the border can be seen burning.
There had been a fierce battle between the FSA and
the Syrian Army in the area earlier in the day, so
the army set fire to the building once night had
fallen.
"We moved to the relative safety
here, but it is all relative. The first house on
the border we moved to was shelled and I was
injured and now we have moved here, but there is
often cross border fire and you can see where we
were recently hit," he says pointing to where fist
sized chunks of concrete have been ripped from the
building. A local resident joins the conversation
saying at least ten Lebanese civilians have been
killed in cross-border attacks in the area over
the past year.
The houses closest to the
border have almost all been shelled or burnt to
the ground and smugglers and fighters only make
the journey to the frontier under the cover of
night for fear of sniper fire. "The Syrian
regime's forces destroy the houses along the
border so the FSA fighters can't take refuge there
or use them for their snipers," says Ahmad Fliti,
municipality official from the Lebanese border
town Arsal.
The FSA's use of the Lebanese
border areas to offer refuge to its fighters and
run smuggling operations destabilizes the region
and traps the Lebanese Army in an implacable bind.
However, if Hezbollah is being drawn into the
affray across the frontier, the repercussions
threaten to be far more disruptive.
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