Hezbollah Assists Syrian Army in Al-Qusayr Fighting 5-20-2013

“The jihadists of the Islamic Resistance and the Syrian Arab Army win the purification battle in al-Qusayr,” declares Abbas Mohamed, a Hezbollah partisan in this video published on his Facebook page. On Monday the FSA issued a counter-statement claiming it had killed dozens of Hezbollah fighters and destroyed multiple Syrian Army tanks and several Hezbollah military vehicles during fighting Sunday.

Syrian state news agency SANA, said the Syrian army has entered al-Qusayr to “restore security” and has “eliminated a number of terrorists.” The opposition earlier said the city was targeted by heavy artillery bombardment and airstrikes. Hadi al-Abdallah, a citizen journalist from Homs, reported that 58 were killed and 600 were injured in the attacks on al-Qusayr. “Forty thousand people under siege in al-Qusayr are being exposed to genocide,” he told Al-Jazeera.

President Bashar Assad, however, has recently denied the involvement of Hezbollah fighters in the Syrian war. “We have an army and security forces in Syria. We have Syrians who can defend their country, so we don’t need Iran or Hezbollah to defend Syria,” Assad said in an interview with the Argentine daily Clarin published over the weekend.

A rebel setback in al-Qusayr will leave open supply routes from Lebanon for Hezbollah fighters and weapons to pass in and out of Syria freely. Video courtesy of Abbas Mohamed.

[Pro-Hezbollah page: Al-Qusayr has fallen to jihadists]