Special to WorldTribune.com

TEL AVIV — Despite reports of a withdrawal, Israel continues to determine a large Hizbullah role in Syria.

Officials said Hizbullah has not significantly reduced its presence in Syria in wake of the recapture of much of the western and central portions of the country.

The officials said Hizbullah remained the leading force in President Bashar Assad’s urban warfare campaign against Sunni rebels.

“It is the elite force today fighting against rebels in Syria,” Israel Army Maj. Gen. Noam Tibon said.

Tibon, head of the Army’s Northern Command, asserted that Hizbullah was fighting in every significant counter-rebel operation by the Syrian Army. The general said in many cases Hizbullah was assigned the lead role in combat operations.

“It is fighting in the most dangerous and tough areas in Syria and actually leading the struggle,” Tibon told a conference by the Israeli daily Jerusalem Post on Oct. 24.

The Israeli assessment came in wake of European reports of a withdrawal
by Hizbullah from Syria. On Oct. 4, the British newspaper Times, citing the
success of Assad’s counter-rebel campaign in the spring of 2013, asserted
that Hizbullah withdrew most of its 10,000 troops from Syria and maintained
no more than 3,500, much of them in the Damascus area.

“There were close to 10,000 fighters in Syria but it’s less than that
now, a few thousand,” the Times quoted a senior diplomatic source as saying.

In his address, Tibon did not offer a figure for the Hizbullah presence
in Lebanon. But he suggested that Hizbullah and other Iranian proxies would
remain in Syria to protect the Assad regime.

“We must understand that this is not a war in Syria where Syrians are
fighting against Syrians anymore,” Tibon said.

  Bashar Assad, Israel: Hizbullah remains ‘elite force’ fighting rebels for Assad in Syria, Maj. Gen. Noam Tibon