The Los Angeles Times reports: The leader of the militant group Hezbollah on Saturday aligned his powerful movement squarely behind the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad and vowed victory against Syrian rebels, whom he assailed as proxy warriors for the West and Israel.

The televised comments by Hassan Nasrallah were the most definitive to date rallying Hezbollah to the defense of Assad’s government, which has been trying to put down a revolt by rebels supported by the United States and its allies.

The comments came as Syrian government forces, assisted by Hezbollah militiamen, intensified their assault on the strategic Syrian town of Qusair, near the Lebanese border. Both sides reported fierce fighting in Qusair six days after Syrian forces and their Hezbollah allies launched an attack on the longtime rebel stronghold.

“Syria is the backbone of the resistance, and the resistance cannot stand with folded hands while its backbone is being broken,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech, referring to Hezbollah’s signature “resistance” to the state of Israel.

“The battle is ours,” Nasrallah added, “and I promise you victory.”

The Independent reports: Two rockets hit a Beirut neighbourhood earlier today raising fears that the bloody civil war in Syria is increasingly seeping across the border into Lebanon.

AFP reports: Twenty-two Hizbullah members were killed in fighting alongside Syrian government forces against rebels for control of the town of Qusayr, a source close to the Lebanese group said on Sunday.

“There were 22 killed on Saturday. Nine bodies were repatriated the same day and the rest on Sunday,” the source said, declining to be named.

The Syrian army announced that on Saturday its forces had infiltrated Dabaa military airport, a rebel post north of Qusayr, a week into a Hizbullah-backed offensive to recapture the strategic central town near the Lebanese border.

Martin Chulov reports: The workmen had been busy in the room where Hezbollah honours its dead. In one corner of the martyrs’ cemetery in south Beirut, four women shrouded in black sat cross-legged near a new grave, reading from the Qu’ran. Metres away, the yellow flag of the militant group covered a freshly covered hole in a white marble floor. The scent of burning incense wafted across the room.

Another grave, its concrete seal barely dry, had been partly completed nearby. There were seven fresh holes in all; and the grave digger was never far away. More bodies were due on Friday. At this rate, the tiny room – a shrine to Hezbollah’s cause as much as to the men who died fighting for it – would soon be full.

The flurry of activity in the martyrs’ cemetery marks the busiest period for the militant movement since the 2006 war with Israel, in which an estimated 400 of its members died. All the new graves here have been dug in the past 10 days. Many others have been sealed with the familiar yellow and green standard in villages across Lebanon where the rumblings of a very different war have now boiled over into sacrifice and loss.

The newly arrived dead have ushered in a new reality for Hezbollah, one that has taken more than two years of uprising and war in neighbouring Syria to publicly acknowledge: all the fallen have died fighting Arabs in Syria, not Jews in Israel. Such a shift in orientation, for so long denied by the group’s leadership, is now being worn as a badge of honour by the families of the dead.

Many of the next of kin interviewed by the Guardian said that their sons and brothers had been defending Lebanon from foreign plotters – in this case Salafists from the east rather than Zionists from the south. “The threat to us comes from all directions,” said one grieving relative in the Beirut suburb of Chiyah on Friday. “But behind it all is the hidden hand of Israel.”

Oy veh! It’s one thing to be an anti-Zionist, but when people start seeing “the hidden hand of Israel” lurking everywhere, they start to sound more like devotees of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

At this time, instead of obsessing about mischief emanating from the Jewish state, it might be more appropriate to be asking what “resistance” means if its backbone has been provided by Bashar al-Assad.

Reuters reports: Syria’s fractious opposition scrambled to agree a new leadership on Friday in a bid to present a coherent front at peace talks which the United States and Russia are convening to seek an end to more than two years of civil war.

A major assault by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces on a rebel held town over the past week is shaping into a pivotal battle. It has drawn in fighters from Assad’s Lebanese allies Hezbollah, justifying fears that a war that has killed 80,000 people would cross borders at the heart of the Middle East.

Washington and Moscow have been compelled to revive diplomacy by developments in recent months, which include new reports of atrocities, accusations chemical weapons were used and the rise of al Qaeda-linked fighters among rebels.

The New York Times reports: For more than two years, Israeli leaders have insisted they had no intention of intervening in the civil war raging in neighboring Syria, but they vowed to stop sophisticated weapons from being transferred to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia group, and to respond to intentional fire into their territory.

Now, having followed through with a pair of airstrikes on weapons shipments this month and, on Tuesday, the destruction of a Syrian Army position, Israelis are asking what their options are, as if they feel it has become impossible to avoid deeper involvement.

Already, the language has grown more heated on both sides, with Syrian officials declaring they are prepared for a major confrontation with Israel — and Israel’s military chief warning of dire consequences.

“Clearly, a policy that functions successfully for more than two years for Israel, that policy is not working because Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia have all upped the ante,” said Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s former chief negotiator with Syria, mentioning that Russia continues to send advanced weaponry despite American and Israeli protests. “They created new rules of the game that Israel needs to figure out. It’s a policy in formation; the answers are not definitive.”

Several senior government officials, as well as half a dozen experts on Syria and the Israeli military, said on Wednesday that there was no new policy in Jerusalem, but there was a growing awareness that continuation of the current policy was likely to yield different results.

The next time Israel strikes a weapons convoy, they say, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is much more likely to retaliate, given the recent statements from Damascus. That could lead to further Israeli reaction, and a spiraling escalation. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: Syrian government forces backed by Lebanese fighters from the militant group Hezbollah pushed Sunday into parts of Qusayr, a strategic city long held by rebels, according to an antigovernment activist and pro-government news channels. If the advance holds, it would be a serious setback for opponents of President Bashar al-Assad.

Both sides called it one of the war’s most intense ground battles. The fight seemed likely to inflame regional tensions as Hezbollah plunges more deeply into the conflict in Syria, increasing fears of a regional conflagration.

The Syrian military hammered Qusayr, on the Lebanon border, with airstrikes and artillery, killing at least 52 people and wounding hundreds as civilians cowered, unable to flee the city, activists said. By day’s end about 60 percent of the city, including the municipal office building, was under the army’s control for the first time in months, one activist said. Residents said rebels kept fighting into the night in Qusayr, killing a number of Hezbollah and government fighters.

Syrian state television said the army had “tightened the noose on the terrorists,” the government’s term for its armed opponents, by attacking from several directions. State news media said the army had “restored security and stability” to most of the city, killing many rebel fighters and capturing others.

The battle for the city, in heavily contested Homs Province, is viewed by both loyalists and government opponents as a turning point that could, in the words of one activist in Qusayr, “decide the fate of the regime and the revolution.” [Continue reading…]

Reuters reports: Syria said its troops destroyed an Israeli vehicle that crossed into its territory from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday and warned that any attempt to violate its sovereignty would meet “immediate and firm retaliation”.

Israel said the incident took place on its side of the Golan ceasefire line, that the vehicle was damaged but not destroyed, none of its soldiers were hurt and they returned fire.

The clash highlighted the potential for renewed conflict along a frontline that has become increasingly fraught after nearly four decades of calm overseen by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his father.

It also followed Israeli airstrikes near Damascus against suspected missile stockpiles two weeks ago, after which Syria threatened to retaliate.

Assad is battling a two-year-old uprising in which rebel forces, including radical Islamists, have taken swathes of rural territory and attacked army posts near the Golan frontier.

There are frequent reports of cross-border gunfire from Syria during clashes between army and rebel forces but Tuesday’s incident was the first time since the start of the crisis that Syria’s armed forces said they targeted Israel’s military.

The Los Angeles Times reports: Fears about a possible escalation of violence between Israel and Syria grew Sunday amid renewed Israeli threats to destroy Syrian weapons caches and Syria’s warnings of retaliation.

After decades of relative calm along the two nations’ borders, some Israeli officials say tensions with Syria have reached one of the highest points since the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

During a Cabinet meeting Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would continue to act to prevent Syria’s advanced weapons from falling into the hands of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah or other organizations deemed to be terrorists.

“The Middle East is in one of its most sensitive periods in decades with the escalating upheaval in Syria,’’ Netanyahu said. “We are monitoring the changes there closely and are prepared for any scenario.” [Continue reading…]

Julian Borger writes: The stranglehold that Jabhat al-Nusra and its allies have achieved over Syria’s oilfields signals a decisive moment in the conflict that will shape the rapidly and violently evolving map of the new Middle East.

The impact is immediately visible. With a new independent source of funding, the jihadists holding the oilfields between al-Raqqa and Deir Ezzor are much better equipped than their Sunni rivals, reinforcing the advantage originally provided by Qatari backing. They have been able to provide bread and other essentials to the people in the areas under their control, securing an enduring popular base.

This serves to marginalise the western-backed rebels, the National Coalition and the Supreme Military Council (SMC), even further. The blustering claim by the SMC commander, Salim Idriss, that he was going to muster a 30,000 force to retake the oilfields served only to undermine his credibility.

More importantly, as so often in history, control over hydrocarbons has solidified new lines on the map. The fact that the Syrian army has withdrawn from the heart of the country and that the victorious Salafist groups have not pressed their attack, but instead entered into a revenue-sharing agreement with Damascus over the oil, show that both sides are satisfied with the dividing lines. [Continue reading…]

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.

The Los Angeles Times reported: President Obama on Thursday ruled out unilateral U.S. military action in Syria even if proof emerges that Syrian forces have used lethal chemical weapons.

“This is … an international problem,” Obama said at a White House news conference with visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “It’s not going to be something that the United States does by itself. And I don’t think anybody in the region would think that U.S. unilateral actions … would bring about a better outcome.”

Obama’s warnings since August that Syrian President Bashar Assad would cross a “red line” if his forces used poison gas in the nation’s civil war were widely viewed as a trigger for potential U.S. military intervention.

But in recent weeks, with growing evidence indicating use of sarin nerve gas, Obama has made it clear he wants conclusive proof before ordering a response. He previously indicated that he would prefer a collective response, but Thursday was the first time he categorically ruled out action by the United States alone.

The Observer reports: Syria’s embattled leader Bashar al-Assad has used a rare interview – carried out amid the sound of artillery fire resounding through his presidential palace in Damascus – to warn the United States and Russia that their efforts to bring about talks will do little to halt the civil war laying waste to his country.

In an exclusive interview for the Argentine newspaper Clarin, shared with the Observer, Assad says he welcomes attempts at dialogue, but believes that western states are looking for ways to fuel the violence, rather than stop it, and are seeking to topple his regime regardless of the toll.

At loggerheads since the outset of the anti-Assad uprising began, Moscow and Washington have been in dispute over the anti-Assad uprising since it began in March 2011, but are now trying to find common ground to quell the bloodshed and destruction as its effects continue to reverberate across the region. If successful, there are hopes talks could take place at the end of this month, and could lead to a multilateral summit attended by key protagonists.

Assad, speaking to Clarin‘s reporter Marcelo Cantelmi from the library of his palace, said that a continuing lack of unity between the myriad rebel groups meant that opposition leaders would be unable to implement any ceasefire measures agreed at a summit, such as surrendering arms. “They are not a single entity,” he said. “They are different groups and bands, not dozens but hundreds. They are a mixture and each group has its local leader. And who can unify thousands of people? We can’t discuss a timetable with a party if we don’t know who they are.” [Continue reading…]

The Times of Israel reports: A weakened Bashar Assad is preferable for Syria and the whole region, to a takeover by rebel forces increasingly ruled by Islamic extremists, Israeli officials said overnight Friday-Saturday.

“Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if Syria falls into chaos and the extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there,” said one senior intelligence officer to the London-based Times.

A defense official said Israel had originally thought too little of Assad’s ability to maintain control of his country despite an increasingly bloody and gruesome two-year war. “We originally underestimated Assad’s staying power and overestimated the rebels’ fighting power,” he told the Times.

Suspicions of increasing Islamic influence over rebels forces have been growing for some time, with evidence mounting that al-Qaida- and Salafi-linked groups are gaining power among the forces.

The Times of Israel reports: Underlining growing concerns over friction between Jerusalem and Damascus, the highly-respected former head of the Israeli army’s Military Intelligence hierarchy on Friday compared current Israeli-Syrian tensions to the strains that presaged the 1967 Israel-Arab war.

He also said Moscow, by continuing to stand by President Bashar Assad, was signaling to that it was not going to let the US get its hands on Syria.

Maj.-Gen (ret.) Amos Yadlin, a one-time fighter pilot, ex-head of IDF Military Intelligence and former Israeli military attaché to the US who now heads a prestigious Tel Aviv think tank, warned that Syria’s embattled president might well retaliate were Israel to again strike at weapons convoys in Syria, as it has done twice this month already.

Yadlin stressed that Israel has not attacked “Syrian targets” but rather weaponry that was being transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon from Iran via Syria. Nonetheless, he said, “there’s an accumulation of pressure on the other side” — the Assad regime — “to retaliate.”

Barbara Slavin writes: After opposing the inclusion of Iran in negotiations over Syria for more than two years, the administration of US President Barack Obama may finally decide to change course.

Secretary of State John Kerry, appearing on Wednesday, May 15, at a press conference in Sweden with counterparts from Sweden and Russia, stood silently while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized the need to mobilize support for new peace talks “by all the Syrian groups, the regime and all opposition groups and second, by those outside actors who have influence on either one or the other Syrian group.”

On Thursday, Lavrov said that Iran is “a very important external player” that should not be barred from Syria negotiations because of Western “geopolitical preferences.”

The US has not yet announced who will be invited to the conference. However, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki, pressed Thursday on whether Iran would be invited, waffled and told reporters, “We are not ruling [Iranian participation in peace talks] in or out.” [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: The black flag of jihad flies over much of northern Syria. In the center of the country, pro-government militias and Hezbollah fighters battle those who threaten their communities. In the northeast, the Kurds have effectively carved out an autonomous zone.

After more than two years of conflict, Syria is breaking up. A constellation of armed groups battling to advance their own agendas are effectively creating the outlines of separate armed fiefs. As the war expands in scope and brutality, its biggest casualty appears to be the integrity of the Syrian state.

On Thursday, President Obama met in Washington with the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and once again pressed the idea of a top-down diplomatic solution. That approach depends on the rebels and the government agreeing to meet at a peace conference that was announced last week by the United States and Russia.

“We’re going to keep increasing the pressure on the Assad regime and working with the Syrian opposition,” Mr. Obama said. “We are going to keep working for a Syria that is free of Assad’s tyranny.”

But as evidence of massacres and chemical weapons mounts, experts and Syrians themselves say the American focus on change at the top ignores the deep fractures the war has caused in Syrian society. Increasingly, it appears Syria is so badly shattered that no single authority is likely to be able to pull it back together any time soon.

Instead, three Syrias are emerging: one loyal to the government, to Iran and to Hezbollah; one dominated by Kurds with links to Kurdish separatists in Turkey and Iraq; and one with a Sunni majority that is heavily influenced by Islamists and jihadis.

“It is not that Syria is melting down — it has melted down,” said Andrew J. Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of “In the Lion’s Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington’s Battle with Syria.” [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: Russia has sent advanced antiship cruise missiles to Syria, a move that illustrates the depth of its support for the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, American officials said Thursday.

Russia has previously provided a version of the missiles, called Yakhonts, to Syria. But those delivered recently are outfitted with an advanced radar that makes them more effective, according to American officials who are familiar with classified intelligence reports and would only discuss the shipment on the basis of anonymity.

Unlike Scud and other longer-range surface-to-surface missiles that the Assad government has used against opposition forces, the Yakhont antiship missile system provides the Syrian military a formidable weapon to counter any effort by international forces to reinforce Syrian opposition fighters by imposing a naval embargo, establishing a no-fly zone or carrying out limited airstrikes. [Continue reading…]

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports: The U.N. General Assembly “strongly” condemned the Syrian government Wednesday for its “indiscriminate” shelling and bombing of civilians and “widespread and systematic” human rights violations in a conflict that has dragged on for more than two years and left more than 70,000 people dead.

The resolution, co-sponsored by most Arab and Western governments, was adopted by a vote of 107 to 12, with 59 abstentions. The United States backed the resolution and Russia opposed it, putting them on opposite sides as they struggle to start talks between the Syrian government and opposition on a political transition.