BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah has sent 2,000 fighters into Syria, a source close to the armed group said on Saturday, as ally Damascus reels from a militant offensive that has seized major cities.
The Iran-backed group, which has fought alongside the forces of President Bashar Assad during Syria’s war since 2011, “sent 2,000 fighters to the Qusayr area” near the Lebanese border, the source told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The source said that since the Islamist-led militant offensive began last week, Hezbollah has not taken an active part in the fighting.
The group’s fighters had been sent “to defend its positions” in the mountains along the Syria-Lebanon border, the source said, adding that Hezbollah “has not yet participated in any battles.”
The militant coalition in Syria has already seized two of Syria’s main cities, Aleppo in the north and Hama in the center.
They launched their offensive on November 27, the same day that a ceasefire took effect in the war between Hezbollah and Israel, which has left the Lebanese group weakened.
On Saturday, militant forces were at the gates of the key central city of Homs and were advancing toward the capital Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
The source said Hezbollah sent “150 military advisers to Homs, to help the Syrian army if it decides to defend” the city.
Since 2013, Hezbollah has openly backed Assad’s forces.
Hezbollah fighters helped Assad regain territory lost earlier in the civil war, which broke out in 2011 after the repression of anti-government protests.
The Lebanese group supported Syrian government forces as they seized Qusayr city from militant control in 2013, with Hezbollah later setting up a military base and training camp there.
But as the war in Syria had been largely dormant until last week, Hezbollah has “withdrawn the majority of its fighters over the past two years,” said the source.
It did keep military advisers in Aleppo and Hama, the source said, without specifying whether they had left before the militant forces captured the two cities in recent days.
Russia and Iran have also intervened in the war to prop up Assad’s rule and help his forces claw back territory.
Tehran on November 28 announced that one of its Revolutionary Guards generals had been killed in the fighting in Aleppo.
Source close to Hezbollah says sent 2,000 fighters to Syria
https://arab.news/9kn7g
Source close to Hezbollah says sent 2,000 fighters to Syria
- The source said that since the Islamist-led militant offensive began last week, Hezbollah has not taken an active part in the fighting
- The group’s fighters had been sent “to defend its positions” in the mountains along the Syria-Lebanon border
Iranian strikes kill two in UAE, injure eight in Qatar as regional conflict escalates
- UAE defense ministry said Iran fired 137 missiles and 209 drones at the territory
- Qatar intercepted most of the 65 missiles and 12 drones launched by Iran, said officials
ABU DHABI: Explosions rocked cities across the Gulf on Saturday, killing two people in Abu Dhabi, while smoke and flames rose from Dubai landmark The Palm as Iran launched waves of attacks in retaliation for US and Israeli strikes.
The attacks hit airports in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Kuwait, as well as Gulf military bases and residential areas, raising fears of a wider conflict and rattling a region long seen as a haven of peace and security.
Across the UAE, Iran fired 137 missiles and 209 drones at the territory, the country’s defense ministry said, as projectiles streaked across the skies of every Gulf state but Oman, a mediator in the recent US-Iran talks.
The UAE defense ministry said most of the missiles and drones were intercepted but at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport officials said at least one person was killed and seven wounded in an “incident.”
Earlier, falling debris killed a Pakistani civilian in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates’ capital, officials said.
At Dubai International Airport four people were injured according to airport authorities and four others were also hurt at the luxury Palm development.
In Qatar, officials said Iran launched 65 missiles and 12 drones toward the Gulf state, most of which were intercepted, but eight people were injured in the salvos, with one of them in critical condition.
“We are scared of what the future is for us now, and we can’t say how the next few days are going to be,” Maha Manbaz, a nursing student in Doha told AFP.
Terrified’
Smoke poured from US bases in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain’s capital Manama, home of the American navy’s Fifth Fleet, witnesses saw.
A drone struck Kuwait’s international airport and a base housing US personnel was targeted. Three Kuwaiti soldiers and 12 other people were wounded, authorities said.
After Iran’s Revolutionary Guards reported missile strikes, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on X that no American naval vessels were hit, damage to US facilities was minimal, and no US casualties had been reported.
Residential buildings were also targeted in Manama, with officials saying firefighters and civil defense teams had been dispatched to the scene.
“The sound of the first explosion terrified me,” said a 50-year-old retiree living near the US base in Manama’s Juffair area, where residents were quickly evacuated.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar warned they reserved the right to respond to the attacks.
The oil-and-gas-rich Arab monarchies, lying just across the Gulf from Iran, are long-term American allies and host a clutch of US military bases.
“The Gulf states are sandwiched between Iran and Israel, and have to bear the worst inclinations of both,” said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor at Kuwait University.
“Iran’s attacks on the Gulf are misplaced. They’ll only alienate its neighbors and invite further distancing from Iran,” he added.
Conflict is unusual in the Gulf, which has traded on its reputation for stability to become the Middle East’s commercial and diplomatic hub.
‘Significant damage’
The unprecedented barrage targeted Qatar’s Al Udeid base, the region’s biggest US military base, as well as Riyadh and eastern Saudi Arabia.
The UAE, Qatar and Kuwait all announced that their airspace was closed.
An AFP journalist in Qatar saw one missile destroyed in a puff of white smoke, while another in Dubai saw a volley of Patriot interceptors taking off.
Iran fired missiles at Al Udeid last June after US strikes targeted Iranian nuclear facilities during a brief war with Israel.
The escalation also saw Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed speak for the first time since a public row in late December.
The Saudi de facto ruler called the Emirati president and the pair discussed Iran’s retaliatory strikes on the Gulf and expressed solidarity and sympathy.
In Kuwait, an Iranian missile attack caused “significant damage” to the runway at an air base hosting Italian air force personnel, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying.
Late on Saturday, Kuwaiti officials said a drone targeted a naval base there with air defense forces intercepting the projectile, according to a post by the defense ministry on X.
For many residents in the Gulf, which has drawn a cosmopolitan, largely expat population, the reaction was one of shock.
“I heard the explosions, I don’t know what I felt,” a Lebanese woman living in Riyadh told AFP.
“We came to the Gulf because it’s known to be safer than Lebanon. Now I don’t know what to do or how to think really.”
