Syrian troops supported by Hezbollah militants launched an offensive to retake a major town near Lebanon from rebels today, the heaviest fighting yet involving Lebanese armed group, opposition activists said.
At least 32 people were killed when rebel fighters clashed with mechanised Syrian army units and Hezbollah guerillas in nine points in and around the town of Qusair, 10 km from the border with Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, they said.
Speaking from Qusair, activist Hadi Abdallah said Syrian warplanes bombed Qusair in the morning and shells were hitting the town at a rate of up to 50 a minute.
“The army is hitting Qusair with tanks and artillery form the north and east while Hezbollah is firing mortar rounds and multiple rocket launchers from the south and west,” he said.
“Most of the dead are civilians killed by the shelling.”
The region near the Orontos River has been segregated into Sunni and Shi‘ite villages in the civil war that grew out of protests against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
It is vital for Dr Assad, who belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, to keep open a route from Shi'ite Hezbollah's strongholds in the Bekaa to areas near Syria's Mediterranean coast inhabited by co-religionist Alawites.
Opposition sources say Syria's coastal region could serve as an Alawite statelet in case Dr Assad falls in Damascus, in a potential fragmentation of Syria along ethnic and sectarian lines that raises the prospect of many more deaths.
Sources in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley said shells fired by rebels hit the edges of the town of Hermel, a stronghold of Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, but no casualties were reported.
Syrian Television said the army is “leading an operation against terrorists in Qusair”, with troops reaching the town’s centre.
“Our heroic forces are advancing toward Qusair and are chasing the remnants of the terrorists and have hoisted the Syrian flag on the municipality building. In the next few hours we will give you joyous news,” the television said.
The United Nations says at least 80,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which started with peaceful demonstrations against four decades of family rule by Dr Assad and his late father.
The protests were met by bullets, sparking an armed uprising that turned into a civil war mainly pitting majority Sunnis against the Alawite sect, which has controlled Syria since the 1960s.
Peace talks ‘unrealistic’
In an interview published in an Argentine newspaper, Dr Assad said proposed peace talks for Syria would not curb “terrorism” in the country and it is unrealistic to think they would succeed.
Speaking in Syria with the newspaper Clarin, Dr Assad said he was doubtful that mediation the United States and Russia have proposed could settle a deadly conflict that has convulsed the country for two years.
“There is confusion in the world between a political solution and terrorism. They think a political conference will halt terrorists in the country. That is unrealistic,” he said in reference to insurgent groups seeking to unseat him.
Rebels demanding Dr Assad’s resignation have also voiced skepticism about the proposed peace talks.
Dr Assad reiterated he would not resign and said peace talks would not make sense because the opposition was too fragmented to negotiate an agreement.
“No dialogue with terrorists,” he said. Videotaped excerpts of the interview were posted on Clarin’s website.
The Syrian conflict started with mainly peaceful demonstrations against Assad, but turned into a civil war in which the United Nations says tens of thousands of people have been killed.
Islamist militants have emerged as the most potent of the anti-Assad rebels.
On Friday, the outlook for talks appeared to hit run into trouble.
The United States chided Russia for sending missiles to the Syrian government, while France made clear it would oppose any meeting if Assad's regional ally Iran were invited.
Russia’s position is that Tehran should be part of any solution.