Reuters reports: Lebanese Hezbollah militants attacked a Syrian rebel-held town alongside Syrian troops on Sunday and Israel threatened more attacks on Syria to rein the militia in, highlighting the risks of a wider regional conflict if planned peace talks fail.
Activists said it was the fiercest fighting in Syria’s two year-old civil war involving Hezbollah, a Shi’ite group backed by Iran which they said appeared to be helping President Bashar al-Assad secure a vital corridor in case Syria fragments.
Speaking from Qusair near the border with Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, activist Hadi Abdallah said Syrian warplanes bombed the town in the morning and shells were hitting the town at a rate of up to 50 a minute. At least 32 people were killed.
“The army is hitting Qusair with tanks and artillery from the north and east while Hezbollah is firing mortar rounds and multiple rocket launchers from the south and west,” he said.
There is an interesting sub-text here which I haven’t seen discussed. Although the Assad regime clearly still has lots of weapons, their ongoing shortage of usable troops continues to worsen. Assad now has so few reliable troops / shabiha left that his sovereign government is now reliant on assitance from a ramshackle foreign militia to achieve the smallest victory on the field. The collapse must be very close now.
One wonders if the Syrians use the latest Russian anti-aircraft rockets on the Israeli planes, will the Israelis use Nuclear bombs, especially on Damascus?