The successful intervention of Hizbullah in the battle for the Syrian town of Al-Qusayr has increased the risk of Sunni-Shia fighting spilling over into neighbouring Lebanon.
IHS Global Insight perspective | |
Significance | Hizbullah's intervention on behalf of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's administration helped the Syrian Army take control of Al-Qusayr, and their backing is likely to be seen as having saved the army in the battle for the town. |
Implications | Lebanese Sunni and the Syrian insurgents' foreign backers will seek to pressurise Hizbullah by forcing it to fight on multiple fronts. Meanwhile, the Syrian Army and Hizbullah will now move to secure the Lebanon-Syria border, Homs and Damascus provinces, and Aleppo. |
Outlook | The fighting in Lebanon between Sunni and Shia is at serious risk of escalation, especially along the border and in Sidon, Tripoli, and Beirut. The Syrian Army may gain control of additional urban centres, but will be unable to fully secure Damascus, Aleppo, and most rural areas. |
Al-Qusayr's significance
The Syrian Arab Army, backed by the Lebanese Shia militia Hizbullah, captured the town of Al-Qusayr yesterday (5 June). The town's proximity to the Lebanese border and easy access to the city of Homs and the rest of the province had made it a critical smuggling route for the insurgents, who had been using it as a base to threaten government supply lines connecting the Alawi heartland along the coast to the capital, Damascus.
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Hizbullah fighters in Lebanon celebrate the capture of Al-Qusayr PA 16725194 |
The Syrian Army's reliance on Hizbullah and local militias
In April 2013, the Syrian government established and began deploying the National Defence Forces. Composed of volunteers from areas that remain loyal to the Syrian government, the National Defence Forces allowed the Syrian Army to release resources dedicated to local security and deploy them in an offensive capacity against insurgent strongholds. Moreover, as of 25 May, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah announced his organisation's full commitment to backing the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad against the insurgents. This step was preceded and followed by the deployment of an unconfirmed number of fighters to Al-Qusayr. These two factors allowed President al-Assad's forces to boost their numbers with trained men whose loyalty is assured. Shia fighters from Hizbullah would be extremely unlikely to defect to the side of the insurgents, given the increasing role of salafi extremists among opposition fighters, while members of the National Defence Forces' loyalty is assured as they are primarily used to guard local communities, and occasionally to fight in nearby towns in their home provinces which are seen as threatening stability in their local communities.
Next steps for government forces
The capture of Al-Qusayr will allow the Syrian Army to attempt to take on the insurgents in other parts of Homs Province, including Rastan and Talbisseh, and neighbourhoods within the city of Homs itself. The government forces' and Hizbullah's priority will then shift to Damascus Province, particularly areas near the Lebanese border, and the city of Aleppo, where pro-government militias are massing along with the Army.
From its current position, the Syrian government will attempt to reassert control over additional urban areas, but will probably be unable to fully secure Aleppo or Damascus for at least several months, if at all, given their much larger size and the ability of insurgents to access supply lines from neighbouring countries. The government will almost certainly be unable to capture, hold, and secure rural areas in Aleppo, Idlib, and Damascus Provinces. This will ensure that the insurgents will not be defeated completely, and that the civil war will continue for at least until the middle of 2014. This could lead Hizbullah to send more and more fighters to Syria; unconfirmed reports have surfaced claiming that Hizbullah has already sent 4,000 fighters in total to Damascus and Aleppo, though these numbers are almost certainly very heavily exaggerated.
Outlook and implications
As Hizbullah's involvement in Syria deepens, and produces more results in favour of the Syrian president, the Lebanese Sunni Salafis and the Syrian insurgents' foreign backers, primarily Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, will seek to further support the opposition forces by forcing Hizbullah to fight on multiple fronts. This raises the risk of fighting between Sunni and Alawi in Tripoli, and between Sunni and Shia in the Bekaa, Hermel, and Akkar regions. Lebanon will also be at high risk, with instability growing in Beirut's Tariq Jdeedeh, Corniche al-Mazra'a, and Sports City areas, and the city of Sidon. Violence in Lebanon would considerably worsen in the increasingly likely event that Palestinian Sunni groups in the refugee camps in Lebanon are used as proxy fighters by Syria's opposition. On 30 May, gunmen from the Shia party, Amal, and from Palestinian refugee camps fought one another for a few hours in Beirut, near the Sports City and the Chatila refugee camp, most likely in a dispute over the intervention of Lebanese Shia in Syria.