Hezbollah Fighter Talks Qusayr

For a good, brief description of the fighting on the ground to take Qusayr, check out the story, "Hezbollah fighter tells of Syria battle," by Alexandra Sandels and Jeffrey Fleishman in this morning's Los Angeles Times. A Hezbollah squad leader named Hassan tells of battling foreign-funded Islamist rebels of the Al Nusra Front, many from Libya and Tunisia, in door-to-door combat. There is no doubt after reading Hassan's account that this is an international conflict, and that so far the Shiite forces are much more motivated than the West and its Al Qaeda proxies. Interestingly -- because it is rarely if ever reported in the Western media -- the Hezbollah squad leader says that the fighting is heavy and daily around Sayyida Zainab, the Shiite shrine to Muhammad's granddaughter Zaynab:

"Hezbollah can't cover all of Syria," he said. "Those who say Hezbollah is all over [Syria] are stupid. You have some strategic places." 

One of those is the Shiite shrine Sayyida Zainab, which Hassan said he has been protecting on and off for months from Sunni militants who want to destroy it to ignite an Iraq-style sectarian war. He said the fighting was heavy each day he was stationed at the shrine. 

Hassan said that for him, the battle goes on "until the last breath." It is a fight, he said, that cannot be lost to Hezbollah's many enemies, including the United States. 

"I love the fighting," he said. "You are doing something you are convinced of. You are not being paid money to go. There is a difference."

The rebels don't have an answer for this level of commitment. The opposition's strategy at this point seems to be to do whatever it can to instigate direct military intervention by Israel and/or the West, thereby bringing superior firepower to bear on a fighting force that Sunni jihadists can't best in the field.

Michael Gordon is reporting this morning that "Syrian Opposition Won’t Attend Talks Unless Rebels Get Arms, Top Commander Says." The West is in a difficult spot:

“There is agreement on one point within opposition circles: the regime, Iran and Hezbollah, supported by Russia, aim to win; the U.S. aims for talks,” said Frederic C. Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former senior State Department official who worked on Syria transition issues. “This helps to explain the opposition’s reluctance to attend a Geneva conference and the difficulties it’s having organizing itself around a coherent goal.” 

At the State Department, Mr. Kerry and his aides have long said that it is vital to change Mr. Assad’s “calculation” about his ability to maintain his grip on power in order to facilitate a political transition. 

With Mr. Assad digging in and his forces making headway on the battlefield, any leverage the United States might be able to bring to bear on the Assad government appears to depend on the possibility that the British and French might send arms to the rebels later this summer, and the prospect that the United States might expand its assistance to the armed opposition, which has consisted of food rations and medical kits.

The Syrian opposition's position remains that talks can't begin unless Assad first agrees to step down. All more firepower will do is expand the conflict and guarantee world war in the Middle East. Even Cameron's bellicoseTory-led government is split over the wisdom of increasing arms traffic to the rebels.

The Syrian civil war roundup provided by Nick Cumming-Bruce and Rick Gladstone, "In Its Biggest Appeal Ever, U.N. Requests $5 Billion in Humanitarian Aid for Syria," in this morning's New York Times covers Putin's offer to supply replacement troops for Austrian members of the UN peace keeping force who are leaving the Golan Heights because of fighting between rebels and Syrian government forces at the Quneitra crossing. The Russian offer was promptly refused:

United Nations officials declined Mr. Putin’s offer. “We appreciate the consideration that the Russian Federation has given to provide troops to the Golan,” said Martin Nesirky, a spokesman for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. “However, the disengagement agreement and its protocol, which is between Syria and Israel, do not allow for the participation of permanent members of the Security Council in Undof.”

The Security Council issued a statement yesterday calling on Syria to allow humanitarian relief to reach Qusayr.

The World Food Program is feeding 2.5 million people in Syria, a number expected to increase to 4 million by the end of the year.