Special to WorldTribune.com

ABU DHABI — Iran has recruited thousands of Hizbullah troops to
defend the headquarters of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Arab diplomatic sources said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
has deployed thousands of Hizbullah fighters to battle Sunni rebels in
Damascus.

The sources said Hizbullah units were working with IRGC and the
Syrian Army in the battle against rebels in the suburbs of the Syrian
capital.

“The Syrians don’t have enough troops willing to fight, and the Iranians don’t want to commit more men,” a diplomat said. “The easiest and quickest solution has been to deploy Hizbullah units from eastern Lebanon.”

On Jan. 6, the Saudi newspaper Al Watan reported that Hizbullah has sent 5,000 fighters to Damascus to stop the current rebel campaign against Assad. The daily said Hizbullah has sustained heavy losses, with at least 300 killed in January.

The sources said the Hizbullah fighters arrived in Damascus in December. They said many of the Hizbullah troops were taken from bases in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley as well as Shi’ite villages inside Syria.

Over the last six months, Hizbullah has been battling Sunni rebels,
including those aligned with the Free Syrian Army near the Syrian border
with Lebanon. The sources said Hizbullah has sought to carve out a Shi’ite
enclave in western Syria that would connect to the Alawite-ruled coast of
the Mediterranean Sea.

“There could be more than 10,000 Hizbullah troops in Syria, many of them
fighting alongside or even within Syrian units,” the source said.

  Alawite-ruled coast, battle for Damascus, Free Syrian Army, Hizbullah from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley battling Syrian rebels in Damascus suburbs, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Sunni rebels