A view through a bullet hole of Nubbul and Zahra Shia villages that the Syrian rebels plans to siege in Aleppo.
BEIRUT: Syrian rebels in the northern province of Aleppo yesterday threatened to seize two Shia villages that back President Bashar Al Assad unless they surrendered to the opposition.
Activists say both Nubl and Zahra villages had been reinforced by Assad’s allies in the increasingly sectarian war, among them fighters from Iran and Lebanon’s powerful Shia guerrilla group, Hezbollah.
“We announce our intention to liberate Nubl and Zahra from the regime and its shabbiha (pro-Assad militia), and from the Hezbollah and Iranian elements,” the rebels said in an Internet video.
The 27-month-old conflict, which pits mostly Sunni insurgents against Assad, from an offshoot of Shia Islam, has already killed more than 100,000 people and driven 1.7 million Syrians to seek refuge in neighbouring countries.
Assad’s forces, spearheaded by Hezbollah, have made a number of gains since they seized the border town of Qusair last month. There have also been heavy clashes in Aleppo and surrounding districts, fuelling expectations that Assad aims to re-establish control of Syria’s largest city.
On Sunday rebels shot down a helicopter close to Nubl, which activists said had been carrying supplies to the villages. Authorities in Damascus said they were taking Education Ministry employees to supervise school exams. Seven employees and the helicopter crew were killed, they said.
A video released by activists a few weeks earlier showed an army officer apparently recruiting Shia villagers in Zahra and Nubl to form fighting units to support the army against the rebels.
“In order to prevent a single drop of blood from being spilled and to find a peaceful solution, we have set the following conditions,” the video statement by the rebels said. Among the demands were the surrender of Assad’s forces and their weapons, followed by a power sharing deal between the locals and the rebels.
“If there is no response (to rebel demands for surrender) there will be a major military operation on those two villages,” the statement said.
The sectarian nature of the conflict has set regional Sunni Muslim powers — notably Gulf Arab states and Turkey — against Assad’s Shia Iranian and Hezbollah allies in a deepening proxy war on Syrian soil.
Deputy US Secretary of State William Burns, speaking at the end of a visit to neighbouring Lebanon, condemned Hezbollah’s military intervention in Syria.
“Despite its membership in the Lebanese government, Hezbollah has decided to put its own interests and those of its foreign backers above those of the Lebanese people,” Burns said.
Hezbollah’s role in Syria, along with Sunni Islamist fighters smuggled over the border to fight for the Syrian rebels, has exacerbated sectarian tensions in Lebanon which is still scarred by its own 1975-1990 civil war.
Fighting has broken out in the Mediterranean cities of Tripoli and Sidon, while rockets have been fired at a Hezbollah district of southern Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley. Reuters
