A Hezbollah fighter recounts battles in Syria

[bemildred]

I just want to say that i find it fascinating that we are now allied with al Qaeda in the Syrian war. (Can we just call it the Syrian war, or the Syrian theater, or the Syrian front now? Stop pretending it's a low level conflict? Maybe we could even get the Congress to weigh in?)

BEIRUT -- He sits on a couch in an inconspicuous building in a southern suburb of Beirut. A baseball cap pulled down low, his eyes twitching, Hassan, a Hezbollah squad leader, describes killing more than 20 men in three weeks in the Syrian town of Qusair.

“It was a street war. We went from room to room, from house to house, from window to window,” said Hassan, who is in his late 30s and sports a light beard. “It was guerrilla warfare with gangs, not a war with a traditional army .... So it needed a bit more work. It brought more fatigue. You want to deal with these people as they are dealing with you.”

Hassan, who asked that his last name not be used because he’s not authorized to talk to the media, is at the forefront of Hezbollah’s increasing involvement in the Syrian civil war. His account could not be independently verified but was consistent with other reports on the fighting in Qusair.

The Shiite militant organization has aligned itself with embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad’s troops against rebel factions comprised mostly of Sunni Muslims.

http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-syria-hezbollah-fighter-20130607,0,7747054.story

[leveymg]

1. You managed to ignite another 1000 year war between Sunnis and Shi'ia. Congrats, Hillary and David

and many other neocons in Obama's inner ring during the last Administration. We'll see how they handle it during the second, and the during the Presidency that follows, and so on, for the next thousand years.

Thanks a lot.

[John2]

2. That is not

the impression that I'm getting out of Syria. There are a lot of Sunnis, which are not that extremist, fighting on the Syrian side. Most of the Syrian Army happens to be Sunnis, that didn't dessert. When you have a good number of Sunni's in important positions of the Assad regime,it dispels the myth of a sectarian War in Syria. The Prime Minister of Syria is a Sunni, which the opposition tried to assassinate recently. The Defense Minister reporting to Assad, is another Sunni.

There is also a bit of information recently coming out of Syria, that puts this Civil War in another light. They are getting ready to retake the Aleppo area now, and there is information going around, the Kurds are going to side with the Syrian Army, against the opposition. He gave the Kurds more freedom during this uprising and let them control their own territory in Syria. An alignment between the Syrian Government and Kurds, are not good news for the opposition or Turkey. If I was a General, like a Grant, or even a President,like a Lincoln, I would say President Assad is making very smart moves in this conflict to win it. He has managed to turn public opinion around in the Middle East, by aligning the West with Al Qa eda and Israel in a plot to destroy Arab resistance against them.

News maybe censored in the West, but he is still able to get his point of view out in the Middle East and to countries such as Russia and China. While the West,opposition and Israel has been claiming about all these atrocities committed by Assad's Army, Assad has been on a media campaign of his own with evidence of atrocities, including chemical use, and apparently funneling of Israeli weapons to the same extremist groups they fear. He has been able to show evidence of collaboration between Israel's military and groups like Al Nusra. Israel does not have the media outlets in these Arab countries, among the population, like Syria has. The opposition will not gain any traction in the Arab world, as long as Assad wins the media campaign. People keep questioning why the Russians are doing what they are doing. The simple fact is, the Russians just don't trust the opposition or the West. That includes Netnyahu's Government. The hard evidence of Israel's involvement, seems to be coming from prisoners and weapons collections, that the Syrian Army captured. This includes communications documents, between the opposition and certain countries.

[leveymg]

3. There are still Sunnis in the regime because of the durability of the Syrian Ba'ath Party. But,

the main source of the conflict is long-time religious animosities and clan-based vendettas. Much of this goes back to the French occupation when they applied the standard colonial model of putting the second or third most populous minority in charge of local administration. The religious war goes back centuries to the persecution of the Alawite and Christian minorities by the Sunni Ottomans.

As for the Mideast arms race and media war, I would not underestimate the firepower and the expertise and influence that Saudi and Gulf emirates can purchase, both within the region and in the West. For instance, who owns al-Jazeera? And NewsCorp? The Emir of Qatar and Kingdom Holdings, respectively. Who's the primary backer of al-Nusra and most of the other Salaafist militia groups? The same.

It will be a long time and many more lives before either side can claim victory in Syria, which will be a much reduced country. As far as it spreads without setting off a total regional war, it's Arabs killing each other and Persians. And to Israel, that is the point.

I agree that the Kurds will come out of this meat grinder the only clear winner.

[John2]

4. Like I said,

your last lines is where the disagreement is. perhaps from the different information we are getting. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, have their own media. Their media is not controlled by Al Jazeera. The West has tried to censor their media but they only have control on their side. The only populations being censored, are the West. The other side is reporting everything, even the accusations of the West and those Arab States to their audiences. How do you explain the West censoring information and not the Syrian side?

According to the Syrian side and with verification from Russian media and the BBC, the rebels are being routed by the Syrian Army and Hezbullah. This new information about the Kurds siding with the Syrian Army, is because, the Syrian Army is winning decisively. If they don't have complete control over Southern Syria, they almost do. They are going to move on the North and Aleppo. Between the Syrian Army and Aleppo, are the Kurdish units. Over 41,000 rebel fighters have been killed in the last few weeks and thousands more captured. They have captured tons of their weapons and ammunition. They have also destroyed much of it and destroyed mines in the process. Think about the German Army or Army of Northern Virginia on their last legs. Think about it in military terms.

I don't know where this General Idris holds his head quarters, but if it is anywhere in Syria, he is in danger of being killed or captured. If that happens, you can count the opposition dead.

[leveymg]

5. So long as the Saudis, Gulf States & Israel want to continue bleeding Syria, the conflict will

persist on some scale, like the Sunni insurgency in central Iraq, 2005-10. The oil states will eventually lose interest in bankrolling this Jihad, and move on to their next colossal waste of petrodollars and human life. We'll probably get hit eventually by some blowback event. That seems to be the model for these things.

The US and NATO are such an economically diminished and spent force, I can't imagine the west doing anything other than a sort of silent, ashamed shrinking away after the CIA, the British, and French intel along with the Saudi and Qatari secret services on the ground coordinated the twin uprisings in Benghazi and Daraa.

This has not been one of our finest hours, and the failure of "humanitarian intervention" will really spoil Obama's legacy in the foreign policy area. Hillary, "Best Secretary of State, Ever" has been ever masterful in sidestepping her fair share of blame for the disaster in Syria, but this shows how effective her political PR machinery really is. Never really went out of campaign mode as she has padded out her resume, gathered frequent flier miles, and waited for her inevitable comeback run.

Just out of curiosity, where did you see the figure 41,000 rebel fighters killed in the last few weeks?

[4dsc]

6. Nothing good will come from this.

Payback is a mother.