Lebanon's Hezbollah faithful ready to die in Syria

 

Lebanon's Hezbollah faithful ready to die in Syria

Karim Abu Merhi, AFP

Last updated: April 30, 2013

 

Hezbollah commander Hussein Habib's family is still mourning his death in

Syria, where he fought alongside regime soldiers. But they say they are

ready to offer another son up as a "martyr".

 

In their town of Baalbek and other strongholds of Shiite movement Hezbollah

in eastern Lebanon, it's no longer a secret that the group's members are

crossing the border to bolster the ranks of government troops battling

rebels.

 

Supporters of the movement, a long-standing ally of Syrian President Bashar

al-Assad, proudly describe the fighters they say are defending Shiite land

and religious sites in Syria.

 

Habib, a Hezbollah field commander, was killed in the countryside around

Qusayr in Syria's central Homs province, according to his family.

 

He died about two weeks ago, they say, but they are still waiting for his

body to be returned.

 

"We're tortured by the fact that his body hasn't been delivered and is with

the gunmen (rebels)," says Fatima Habib, a cousin.

 

She says Habib was born in a village in the Qusayr countryside in Syria, but

lived in Baalbek.

 

"He went to defend his family and his home," she says.

 

"We have lost someone dear to us and the situation is hard but if other

people from the family were needed, it would be no problem for them to go

and be martyred."

 

Habib, a married father of two, is known in the area as a senior fighter

with Hezbollah, but his family insists he was killed fighting alongside the

so-called Popular Committees -- groups of local pro-regime militia in Syria.

 

A few kilometres (miles) from Baalbek is the entrance to the town of Qasr in

the Hermel region, which has been targeted by Syrian opposition shelling.

 

The sympathies of residents are clear: posters of Assad hang in the streets

and locals refer to opposition fighters as "terrorists," just like Syrian

state media.

 

"Terrorists were oppressing thousands of Lebanese in Syrian border villages

and they asked the resistance (Hezbollah) to help defend their land and

their honour," says Abu Fadi Kanaan.

 

As he speaks, he looks over from the roof of his house into Syria, where

black smoke is rising from Qusayr in the aftermath of a regime air raid.

 

"We protect our homes in these villages," he says. "Yes, we send our

children to defend them and we are ready to fight the battle."

 

The narrative advanced by Habib's family and Kanaan -- of Lebanese residents

of Syria fighting to defend their homes -- is the official party line that

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah first outlined last October.

 

He pointed to the plight of 13 villages inside Syria that are home to

Lebanese citizens, saying Hezbollah members in the town "have bought weapons

in order to defend themselves against armed Syrian and non-Syrian groups."

 

"The party has nothing to do with their decision, but I cannot tell them not

to go fight," Nasrallah said.

 

But the claim is belied by the fact that dozens of bodies of fighters killed

in Syria have been brought to Hezbollah strongholds in southern and eastern

Lebanon for burial.

 

-- 'National and moral duty' --

 

And senior Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nabil Qauk, speaking at a mourning

ceremony for a fighter killed in Syria in April, described the group's

actions in Syria as "a national and moral duty."

 

"Hezbollah's martyrs are the martyrs of the entire nation because they are

defending their Lebanese compatriots," he said at the ceremony in south

Lebanon.

 

One expert estimates between 800 and 1,500 Hezbollah fighters are now in

Qusayr, with more further north at the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine near Damascus.

 

Kanaan brushes aside critics who say Hezbollah has strayed from its stated

focus of "resistance" to Israel.

 

"We're keeping an eye on Israel... and these (rebels) are Zionists as well,"

he says.

 

"We have the right to defend Lebanese wherever they are, and particularly if

they are Shiites," he adds, accusing rebel forces of trying to "finish us

off."

 

Syria's opposition has reacted with dismay and anger to Hezbollah's role,

and in recent weeks has openly targeted towns like Qasr in response.

 

At the entrance to the town of Hermel, some 15 kilometres from the Lebanese

border with Syria, 54-year-old Ali Shamas is on the roof of a three-floor

building under construction, holding pieces of shrapnel in his hands.

 

They come from a rocket that hit the building, which he had planned to move

into with his family.

 

He wants the Lebanese government to protect the region.

 

"If you don't do your duty," he warns the government, "the resistance and

the people are ready to defend themselves."

 

C AFP 2013

http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/news/lebanons-hezbollah-faithful-ready-to-die-

in-syria_14719

 

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