The Syrians have not forgotten that during the civil war, Hezbollah was a key supporter of the hated dictator Bashar al-Assad and helped to keep him in power when he seemed, at times, to be toppling.
By Hugh Fitzgerald, Frontpage Magazine
The war in Yemen between the Royalists, backed by Saudi Arabia, and the Republicans, backed. by Egypt, took place between 1962 and 1970, with most of the fighting over by the mid-1960s.
In this war, Egypt sent tens of thousands of troops to Yemen, and the Egyptians suffered major losses in both men and weaponry. This left Egypt’s military in a weakened state when Nasser decided to make war on Israel in mid-May 1967.
In Libya, Muammar Qaddafi was deposed and killed in 2011. By 2014, the country was convulsed by a civil war, and that war, which lasted until 2020, pitted a government based in Tobruk in the east, under General Haftar, against the Government of National Unity, or GNU, which was based in Tripoli in the west.
And now those rival forces appear ready to begin a hot war yet again. The Libyans have been inflicting damage on each other for many years; it’s apparently what they do best.
In 1980, just a year after Khomeini came to power in Iran, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein calculated that Iran’s military was in chaos, with most of its officers — who had been loyalists of the Shah — having in the Khomeini regime been discharged or demoted, if they were lucky, and imprisoned or executed if they were not.
So Saddam invaded Iran, and thus began the Iran-Iraq war that lasted from 1980 to 1988, with a terrific loss of life on both sides. Estimates of the casualties on both sides range from one to two million, with at least 500,000 dead, most of them on the Iranian side.
The war ended with no clear winner, though Iraqi forces did withdraw from Iran. That long war used up men, money, and materiel on both sides, and from the viewpoint of Infidels, it ought to have gone on forever.
There are many other intra-Arab and intra-Muslim conflicts, both political and military, that we might note. In North Africa, Morocco and Algeria are still at daggers drawn, and in the past have even come to blows over who should control the Western Sahara, an area which has now been annexed by Morocco.
In Yemen, there is a continuing civil war between the Shi’a Houthis, who control one-third of the country, and are backed by Iran, and the Sunnis in the eastern part of the country, who are supported, with money and weapons, by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In Sudan, the Sudanese Armed Forces have been fighting the Rapid Support Forces for the last year, with no end in sight. There are internal conflicts in Bangladesh, between those who oppose and those who supported Sheikh Hasina, who was forced into exile in 2024.
In Pakistan, the millions of supporters of of Imran Khan threaten to bring down the government, that has the backing of the military.
In Afghanistan, the ruling Taliban is now forced to fight attacks from ISIS — rival groups of fanatics who deserve each other. None of these conflicts involve non-Muslims; all of them weaken their Muslim protagonists.
Now comes news of the latest intra-Muslim clash. The Syrian army, under the direction of Syria’s de facto leader Abu Muhammed al-Julani (Ahmed al-Sharaa), has just pushed into Lebanon and attacked Hezbollah forces.
The Syrians have not forgotten that during the civil war, Hezbollah was a key supporter of the hated dictator Bashar al-Assad, and helped to keep him in power when he seemed, at times, to be toppling.
They have cleared Hezbollah from its former strongholds in Syria, but now they are on the offensive in northern Lebanon, pushing Hezbollah’s forces away from the Syrian border.
The Syrian regime headed by al-Julani is determined to end Hezbollah’s role as a smuggler of weapons and drugs. But with Iran now deprived of a way to deliver money and weapons to Hezbollah through Syria, as it once did, Hezbollah has to rely solely on drugs and weapons trafficking to survive.
The drugs, especially fentanyl, end up in the rich Gulf states, where the idle rich, mostly young people, consume them in great quantities.
The countries involved would like that drug trafficking to stop, and al-Julani, who is hoping to obtain financing from those same states — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait — to rebuild his country, is happy to oblige.
The weapons Hezbollah traffics in are likely intended not only to arm its own members in Lebanon, but also those in Syria, such as Alawites and others who supported Assad, who want those arms as protection against attacks from the new government in Damascus.
More on the Syrian army’s assault on Hezbollah forces just inside Lebanon, which began on February 6 and were continuing as of February 8, can be found here:
“Syrian army advances into Lebanese territory, clashes with Hezbollah,” by Rizik Alabi, The Media Line, February 6, 2025
For the first time since the fall of the Assad regime and the decline of Hezbollah’s influence in Syria, Syrian Army forces aligned with the new Syrian administration have entered areas of Hermel, Lebanon, sparking fierce clashes with Hezbollah fighters.
The fighting, which began early Thursday [Feb. 6], escalated as Syrian forces repelled Hezbollah’s attempted advances near the Syrian town of Al Qusayr, a longtime stronghold of the Iran-backed group….
The fighting began when the Syrian army went inside Lebanon to areas of Hermel, in order to drive Hezbollah forces further away from the border.
In response, Hezbollah attacked Al-Qusayr, which had once been a stronghold of the terror group, but since the fall of Assad has been occupied by the Syrian army, from three sides. Hezbollah’s forces were unable to push the Syrians out.
Instead, the Syrians managed to push Hezbollah back further into Lebanon, and even to push Hezbollah, after fierce fighting, out of the Lebanese town of Hawik, a center of its smuggling operations.
Amid the escalating violence, The Media Line obtained footage from Damascus showing Syrian Army personnel captured by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Reports suggest that these prisoners were being treated in violation of international detention standards. Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports indicate that the Syrian Army had also captured Hezbollah fighters.
Videos of Syrian army troops now being held by Hezbollah, and reports of their mistreatment, will only deepen the anger of the Syrian army and the Syrian people at this public humiliation.
If harm should come to any of those Syrian captives, the Syrian army will almost certainly expand its assault on Hezbollah, pushing the terror group back, ever further, into Lebanon, killing as many of its operatives as it can.
As the Syrians know, Hezbollah is in the most weakened state of its existence because of the damage wrought by the IDF.
Thousands of its combatants have been killed, while many more thousands have been wounded thanks to the “exploding pagers,” while Hezbollah’s enormous arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles has been reduced by Israeli airstrikes to 20% of its pre-war number.
Hezbollah has in the past smuggled drugs — tens of millions of fentanyl pills — to consumers in the rich Gulf states through Syria; now, the regime of Al-Julani has been interrupting and closing down that route, and this direct attack on Hezbollah forces is part of that effort.
Hezbollah is trying to keep those routes open, hence the violent flare-up on the Lebanese-Syrian border. The smuggling of weapons from Lebanon to Hezbollah allies in Syria, such as the Alawites, is another enterprise that Al-Julani wants to shut down.
Hezbollah is now on its back foot. The Syrian Army, having managed to hold onto the Lebanese town of Al-Qusayr despite being attacked from three sides by Hezbollah, and also having seized control of other former strongholds of Hezbollah, including the town of Hawik, is likely to press its advantage.
What should we in the West do? Nothing Or rather, pull up a chair, and watch. And hope that both sides win.
