Special to WorldTribune.com

NICOSIA — Sunni rebels have sustained heavy casualties in the latest  offensive by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Opposition sources said at least 130 rebels, most of them Palestinians, were killed in Army operations that captured two suburbs south of Damascus on Oct. 11.

“The Army and their agents — the Iranian militia of Hizbullah and some Iraqi Shi’ites loyal to Teheran — have executed 130 men in areas near Al Ziyabiya,” Free Syrian Army spokesman Louay Mokdad said.

FSA said the killing in Al Ziyabiya took place on Oct. 10 during the Assad offensive. The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said additional rebels were trapped in the town.

The sources said the Assad offensive was aided by Iranian proxies, particularly Hizbullah. They said more than 1,000 Hizbullah troops and Iraqi Shi’ite militia units, accompanied by Syrian Army main battle tanks, stormed the Palestinian refugee camp of Husseiniya as well as the nearby town of Thiabiya.

“Hizbullah was used primarily for sniper fire, and they proved very
effective,” the source said.

The rebels consisted mostly of Palestinians from three brigades. The
sources said the Palestinians appealed in vain for help from other rebel
units.

Instead, Islamist rebel militias attacked Assad forces in the nearby
town of Sayida Zeinab. But the sources said the rebels were driven back by
Hizbullah and Iraqi Shi’ite militias. At the same time, the
Western-supported FSA reported shelling Damascus.

The sources said the rebels were steadily losing their strongholds south
of Damascus, which blocked supplies to Syrian Army units near the Jordanian
border. They said the Assad offensive appeared to reflect new methods of
urban warfare operations in which main battle tanks and artillery
effectively supported ground troops.

Al Qaida has called on Islamist rebels to unite amid severe infighting.
The two leading Al Qaida factions have been identified as Nusra Front for
the Defense of the Levant and the rival Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.

“They must rise above organizational loyalties and party partisanship,”
Al Qaida commander Ayman Zawahiri said.

  Al Ziyabiya, Bashar Assad, Free Syrian Army, Hizbullah deal heavy blow to rebels in Damascus suburbs, Syrian Army, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Thiabiya