Inside Syria’s Next Big Battle -- Mike Giglio, Buzzfeed
Hezbollah fighters say they can help the Syrian regime wrest away a key rebel stronghold. Rebels worry they might be right. Inside a brewing battle that both sides are painting as a turning point in the war.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Ali Barakat is a rising star in some circles in Lebanon, as the crooning voice of Hezbollah, the paramilitary and political group that controls much of the country. He got his start singing songs about the group’s fight with Israel — but it wasn’t until war erupted in Syria that he caught his big break. Now his anthems about Hezbollah’s battles across the border are giving him a sudden surge in fame.
The sectarian tension fueling the Syrian conflict resonates with Hezbollah and its supporters, and Barakat taps into that. Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, hails from an offshoot of Hezbollah’s Shiite branch of Islam, and the group fears for its survival if he falls, which would empower its Sunni rivals across the border and at home. It would also sever Hezbollah’s lifeline to its main backer, Iran. “If Syria went down, you and me wouldn’t be sitting here talking,” Barakat said on a recent evening in Beirut, puffing nargila in the Hezbollah-controlled suburb of Dahiya.
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My Comment: Rough and mountainous terrain. Tens of thousands of fighters. This battle is going to be bloody with both sides (probably) losing many fighters .... and in a war of attrition that will favor the side with the numbers .... this will in the long term play in favor of the rebels.
1 comment:
It is true that while the rebels probable outnumber regime troops by a considerable amount; however they lack the firepower and are busy fighting amoungst themselves. Throw in Hezbollah and Iranian Quds forces. That's a trio of Veteran troops they're dealing with. I don't think Iran or Hezbollah will allow for Syria to fall and I don't think this is a fight Saudia Arabia, Gulf states through proxy will be able to win. The military under Assad will continue to consolidate it's power and it'll eventually be a Syrian version of Lebanon completely fractured and separated by factions. If Assad was smart he'd form an alliance with the kurds and get as many Christians as he can to support him.
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