Special to WorldTribune.com

NICOSIA — Sunni rebels have been targeting fighters from the
Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah in the civil war in Syria.

Sunni rebels said at least 12 Hizbullah fighters were killed near the
Syrian city of Homs in mid-February. The rebels said the clashes took place
between Hizbullah units loyal to the regime of President Bashar Assad and
the Free Syrian Army.

“There was an ambush and the Hizbullah people were killed,” a rebel
source said.

The source said FSA has been battling Hizbullah on a nearly daily basis around Homs and along the Syrian border with Lebanon. The source said Hizbullah has captured six Shi’ite villages in southwestern Syria near Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

“Hizbullah has been deployed as part of a strategy to prevent the fall
of the Damascus-Homs axis, regarded as vital to the Syrian regime,” FSA spokesman Fahd Al Masri said.

Rebel sources said Hizbullah is believed to have deployed 10,000 fighters in Syria. They said the fighters were assigned to units that range from Syrian special forces, Shabiha militia and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Hizbullah is believed to have played a major role in the Assad
offensive around Homs, which links Damascus to the Alawite-controlled
Mediterranean coast. On Feb. 14, the Syrian Army captured a key district in
Homs, which sparked a flight of the rebels.

FSA said Hizbullah launched an offensive in Syria, backed by artillery
and Air Force units loyal to Assad, on Feb. 16. FSA military spokesman Louay
Al Meqdad said Hizbullah, under the command of Mustafa Bader Eddin and Wafiq
Safa, was attacking rebel strongholds in the first such operation since the
revolt began in April 2011.

“Hizbullah’s invasion is the first of its kind in terms of organization,
planning and coordination with the Syrian regime’s Air Force,” Al Meqdad
told the Lebanese daily An Nahar on Feb. 18. “This is the first time that
Hizbullah is conducting a land invasion backed by artillery and tanks
in villages and Lebanese border towns it controls in Syrian territory.”

  Bashar Assad, Bekaa Valley, Free Syrian Army, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Shabiha militia, Syrian rebels fighting Iran-backed Hizbullah for control of ‘Damascus-Homs axis’