Hezbollah Send Syrian Help Troops Prevent Rebels From Taking Homs

Syria's condition in the midst of a government military war with rebels/PHOTO via X The White Helmets @SyriaCivivilDef

JAKARTA - Lebanese Hezbollah armed groups sent a small number of "supervisory forces" from Lebanon to Syria to help prevent anti-government fighters from seizing the strategic city of Homs.

"Homs must not fall," one source told Reuters on Saturday, December 7.

The source said senior officers were deployed overnight to oversee several Hezbollah fighters who had been in Syria near the border with Lebanon for years.

A Syrian military officer and two regional officials close to Tehran also told Reuters Hezbollah's elite forces had crossed from Lebanon and took positions in Homs.

The move reflects a dramatic overhaul on the Syrian battlefield since Monday, when sources close to the group said Hezbollah had no intention of deploying troops to Syria for now.

At the time, the insurgent movement led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former Al-Qaeda affiliate, had captured the city of Aleppo in northern Syria. However, on Thursday, they seized Hama/Hamat a city in the center of Syria and attacked Homs.

Homs, Syria's largest province, borders Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan and offers Iran a major transportation route to bring military equipment to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Lebanese security sources say Homs is important as a waduk' for Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed armed groups.

The loss of the city of Homs will isolate the capital Damascus from the Syrian government's stronghold in the western region.

Western officials told Reuters the Hezbollah fighters feared they would be attacked by Israel if they were deployed to Syria.

Hezbollah and Israel exchanged fire on Lebanon's southern border for nearly a year in hostilities sparked by the Gaza war, before Israel launched an attack in September, killing most of Hezbollah's supreme leader.

The fighting ended with a ceasefire taking effect on November 27, the same day the insurgent attacks in Syria began.