The confusion about Hezbollah’s role in Syria begins with misunderstandings over the nature of the Syrian war, which marked the single most successful soft war campaign in modern history.
Part 1 of this article will unpack this reality, which is widely misrepresented in mainstream media. Part 2 details Hezbollah’s key operations in Syria, and how its efforts prevented the U.S. plot for regime change in the region.
Part 1: Syrian War in Context
Syria became a target in the West from the late 70s because of the Assad government’s push for independence and alignment with the Soviet Union, in order to build military capabilities that would balance the Israeli entity’s growing military clout right at its border. Assad’s popularity at this time was largely a result of his political vision, which promoted Arab unity and supported resistance to the occupation in Palestine.
According to deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem, Syrian cooperation with Lebanon was focused on strengthening the country for this task, but still remained minimal at this time; support consisted of security issues and armament, but did not extend to a full political relationship.
Bashar Al-Assad continued his father’s trajectory and with growing popularity, which worked directly against U.S. interests. He outrightly forbade deals with Israel and continued to act as a supply line for the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance.
This support was key to facilitating Lebanon’s liberation from the Israeli invasion in 2000, and the Gazan resistance’s successes in 2008, which saw hundreds of rockets being launched at settlements. This forced the occupation to put a ceasefire agreement on the table to end the assault.
The war itself was being led from the Gazan resistance base in Damascus, with the strategic support of the late Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani, emphasizing the growing synergy between the axis members.
As the resistance continued to be victorious, the coalescence of a regional resistance axis formed with the backing of Iran and Syria was becoming a cause for concern. New methods to weaken this alliance were constructed; it was thought that destabilizing Syria would result in a domino effect whereby Iran and Hezbollah would follow. The media began to follow the same line of argument throughout the war, openly making the case that the best way to protect Israeli interests– and by extension American regional interests– was through the destabilization of Syria.
These suggestions aligned with the long established goals of the Israeli occupation. The occupation of Palestine was always just the start; the Yinon plan, for example, is widely known to have proposed the idea of exacerbating sectarian divides in West Asia to facilitate the creation of the Greater Israel plan, which sought to expand Israeli territory beyond state borders.
Civil War or Foreign-backed Imposed War?
Though Western media has romanticized the Syrian civil war as one that started off as a peaceful protest against an authoritarian government, this depiction severely underestimates the bloody reality, when a number of violent proxies quickly took over the movement.
An example is the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a rebel group made up of foreign fighters mainly from Afghanistan, Turkey, Libya, and Chechnya. Classed as ‘moderate’ rebels, this group was funded and armed from 2013-2017 by the U.S. under operation ‘Timber Sycamore’, with the sole aim of removing President Assad from power.
Once the group began pillaging through the Kurdish controlled Northeast Syria, the media referred to it only as a ‘Turkish backed rebel group,’ glossing over any and all involvement the U.S. had in funding and arming its campaign.
According to Tim Anderson, it is now widely known that much of the Syrian opposition groups stemmed from the Al-Qaeda network in Syria (Jabhat al Nusra, allied with the Saudi-backed ‘Islamic Front,’ an umbrella group that merged the former Free Syrian Army groups), who were responsible for countless atrocities across the country. Naturally, this made their strongholds a target of the Syrian Army and wider resistance.
Though some groups like the FSA are referred to as ‘moderate’ rebels, most of these terrorist networks worked together. For example, the U.S.-backed leader of the FSA, Abdul-Jabbar Aqidi, was open about working closely with ISIL and Jabhat Al-Nusra. When the U.S. declared Al-Nusra as a terrorist organization in 2012, 29 FSA groups defended it, declaring “we are all Al-Nusra.” Over time, the term ‘Free Syrian Army’ became a vague one that blurred the lines between many insurgent groups.
“[The FSA] had no central authority, no chain of command, no cohesion, etc. ‘FSA’ became the whitewashed moniker for any militant fighting the Syrian army.” – Sharmine Narwani
FSA holding ISIS flags (Photo from Substack.com)
Alongside Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the U.S., the IDF played a key role in funding and arming these groups and their affiliates, as echoed by the former IDF’s Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot in 2019, despite denying this during the peak of the war. Prior to this acknowledgement, Israel would officially claim that humanitarian aid to rebels fighters was the extent of their involvement.
A Foreign Policy report found that 12 rebel groups were being armed and funded, with additional finances to buy arms on the Syrian black market to protect the occupation’s border.
Journalists reporting on the ground, such as Sharmine Narwani, found that FSA and Al-Nusra fighters near the Lebanese border were paid high salaries of around $200,000 a month by the Israeli entity in Beit Jinn alone prior to their surrender.
These groups carried a violent and racist ideology which warranted the pillaging of many ethnic minority villages, including Alawites, Christians, Assyrians, Armenians, Druze, and Shias. The Adra Massacre is just one example of this violence, which saw the killing of 100-200 Syrian Alawites.
Tim Anderson argues that the May 2012 Houla massacre was carried out by the Farouq Brigade, an offshoot of the FSA that was falsely blamed on the Syrian government, becoming another pretext for economic sanctions; Anderson documents 15 independent witnesses of the crime.
In 2013, the FSA in coalition with other insurgent groups poisoned Aleppo’s main water supply. Despite the UN being informed of the incident, it did not receive condemnation.
Much of this reporting is missed in Western media because of its over-reliance on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which provides sources collected by Rami Abdulrahman, an open supporter of the FSA who is based in Coventry, England.
Wikileaks found that the U.S. State Department funneled $6 million dollars since 2006 to ‘opposition’ groups and anti-Assad television station Barada TV, operated by associates of SOHR.
Journalists like Eva Bartlett who were on the ground from 2014 paint a very different picture. In a UN speech, Bartlett explained that since 2012, Aleppo had been inhabited by a number of different terrorist factions like the Al-Nusra front and the FSA, which had caused much suffering to the local population, including limiting access to humanitarian aid and basic necessities.
She confirmed the fabrication of many stories aimed at delegitimizing the Russian-Iran led faction, and the overplaying of sectarian divides to make people believe that Sunnis were against Assad. This is while key cities like Aleppo are majority Sunni, but overwhelmingly supportive of the Syrian Army and government.
A 2012 DIA leaked intelligence report showed U.S. satisfaction with the strength of extremist groups within the so-called Syrian opposition, and the growing possibility of Syria falling into Al-Qaeda’s hands as it served to ‘isolate’ and destabilize Syria. This works against official statements that the U.S. was ‘only funding moderate rebels’.
This picture is colored further by the U.S. goal established after 9/11, corroborated by the famous whistleblower General Wesley Clarke, to destabilize seven countries in five years; Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.
“In sum we can conclude that the US has built a command relationship with all of the anti-Syrian terrorist groups, including Al-Nusra ISIS, either directly or through its close regional allies, the Saudis, Qatar, Israel and Turkey. Washington has attempted to play a ‘double game’ in Syria and Iraq, using its old doctrine of ‘plausible deniability’ to maintain the fiction of a ‘war on terrorism’ for as long as is possible.” – Tim Anderson
This was the era in which sectarianism was used as a tool to secure American interests. Sunnis were pitted against the resistance, which was dubbed the rise of a ‘Shia Crescent’ in the Muslim world. The aim was to align the Muslim Ummah with the American strategy and to fight the real resistance to American hegemony.
These groups were used by Washington to extinguish the threat that the Syrian government posed to NATO interests. This was a NATO, Zionist-led war aimed to facilitate regime change, to cut off the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance’s supply line, protect the Israeli entity from geographic isolation, and to facilitate the theft of Syrian natural resources and access to oil pipelines.
It is worth mentioning that between 2011 and 2022, the Syrian energy sector lost $107 billion as a result of the U.S. occupation, bombing, and theft by terrorist gangs. This was thought to bring the U.S. and the Israeli occupation one step closer to dismantling Hezbollah and the wider resistance.
This is not to say that there was no legitimate Syrian opposition demanding real political reforms; rather, this had been overshadowed early on by America’s regime change plot, which took advantage of the opposition and hijacked the movement.
These same opposition groups disassociated from the movement once it became clear that they were doing more harm than good, and that the majority of the FSA fighters were from abroad and not representative of the Syrian masses. Membership consisted of fighters from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Chechnya to name a few.
President Assad responded to many of these calls positively through a number of significant reforms in the early years of the war.
Many of these reforms were viewed skeptically, ignored, or portrayed as too little too late in Western media, despite some starting in 2011, the same year that the movement took off. A few years later, President Assad won the 2014 Syrian elections with 88.7 percent of the votes and a 73.4 percent voter turnout rate.
The election was discredited by the U.S. even before taking place, but it provided further quantifiable evidence that Assad’s government was not hated; rather, it maintained its legitimacy among the Syrian masses long after the start of the war.
Foiled Plots and New Beginnings
Had the plot for regime change succeeded, Syria would not be where it is today. It would have been left with a political vacuum inevitably filled by rebel groups, who would have continued the destabilization campaign.
Israel would have moved one step closer to achieving the “Greater Israel” plan. The supply lines would have been cut off for the wider resistance, and current refugees pouring into Syria would have no safe haven.
This event has become one of the main barriers to Islamic unity, causing a deep divide along sectarian lines drawn by the West. Israeli propaganda has been easily accepted as fact without investigation, and Syria has faced international isolation – but a change is underway.
A Shift in the Global Power Balance
The war contributed to a reshuffling in the balance of power at a global level with the rise of Russia, China, Iran, and the establishment of new institutions such as BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Eurasian Union, and more.
These alliances protect the interests of the Global South outside of U.S. supervision. They also strengthen the bond between the regional resistance and Russia.
Syria was the battleground which confirmed that the era of irregular warfare was in full swing: wars would now be fought through “sanctions, propaganda, political subversion activities, destabilization, increased terrorism, [and] proxy fights.”
Despite this, Syria has emerged from the rubble intact. It continues to be a thorn in the side of U.S. interests in the region, an obstacle to the expansion of Israeli interests, and a supply line and transfer point for the wider resistance.
Not only did the war fail to weaken the resistance, but it facilitated a surge in its power, capabilities, alliances, and awareness of new warfare tactics through which further battles with the U.S. would be fought.
Part 2: Where it Began
Hezbollah’s involvement in the war was vital in preventing Syria from falling into rebel hands. The group took part in key liberation operations, which targeted strategic locations that ultimately led to the insurgent group’s defeat.
Though Hezbollah had won a series of defensive wars against the Israeli occupation, Syria marked Hezbollah’s first offensive battle. Its success proved Hezbollah’s adaptability to unfamiliar terrain and new forms of warfare.
Hezbollah entered the battlefield when the Farouq Brigades, an offshoot of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and affiliated rebel groups, began attacking border villages, seeking further control over towns in the countryside of Qusayr to access border crossings and supply lines between Lebanon and Syria.
This put Lebanese populations at risk. The military capabilities of these armed groups far exceeded expectations, which suggested that they were dealing with an issue that was much bigger than Syria.
“…I will state our vision clearly upon which we base our actions. We consider the control of these groups over Syria or over specific Syrian provinces, especially those adjacent to Lebanon, as a great danger to Lebanon. And it is a great danger to the Lebanese people.”
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“All Muslims and Christians are threatened. With this mentality, this trend, this ideology, and this creeping Takfiri project in the region, funded and supported by the US, because this is the only remaining way for America to destroy the region and regain its hegemony over it in the face of the awakening of the people and the rise of their will.” Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah
The primary consideration for their entry was the Lebanese people, proving that it acted in defense of its own – despite attempts to paint it as a puppet that blindly followed the orders of Iran.
The Key Strategic Victories
Liberation of Tell Mondo; the First Step to Victory
The first victory for Hezbollah took place at the military site of Mando Hill, which had been taken over by rebel groups affiliated to the FSA and neighboring areas, inching closer towards Lebanese territory.
Its strategic position was significant in that it neared neighboring villages such as Qadesh, which was another town inhabited by rebel forces. Its height gave those in control of it a vast overview of neighboring areas, and added to the city of Qusayr’s strategic importance.
The goal of obtaining control of the hill and surrounding areas was to prevent militants from reaching northern Lebanon from Qusayr, which passed through Mando Hill.
This battle marked the first time in which Hezbollah and Syrian Army soldiers would fight side by side in an alliance that would prove strategically important for the rest of the war. As the first victory, it had a significant effect on the morale of rebel fighters who were not expecting defeat, and Hezbollah, which made a decision to expand the siege to neighboring areas.
According to Hezbollah’s sources, 16 surrounding villages were liberated in just four days, and more supply routes for the rebel groups across the area were severed.
The Battle for Qusayr
The city of Qusayr, located in Homs province, had been taken over by Jabhat al-Nusra in cooperation with other affiliate groups, becoming a key stronghold for the rebel forces. Qusayr was a strategically important area, as it gave insurgents access to roads that connected Syrian provinces and Lebanon, providing them with the potential to expand their reach into Lebanese territory to facilitate cross-border movement of arms.
The operation began by liberating the surrounding countryside village after village, slowly enclosing around the city. This prepared them for the future battle in the city by preventing the possibility of rebel reinforcements from neighboring towns, as well as weapons transfer between insurgent groups.
When it reached the city, Hezbollah faced a set of new challenges, for it was tasked with fighting in densely urbanized terrain, against a numerically superior force that was well-trained and familiar with the surroundings.
Until this point, Hezbollah had fought defensive wars against the Israeli occupation, excelling in guerilla-style asymmetric warfare. For the first time, Hezbollah had launched an offensive on an already fortified city, with little time to adjust to the new circumstances.
Hezbollah’s tactical mastery was on full display during this battle. It attacked with precision, maneuvering efficiently with the help of armored vehicles that surprised the rebel groups. It also adopted a familiar strategy traditionally used against the Israeli entity: attacking from multiple directions to split forces, reducing the efficacy of enemy attacks.
This tactic took advantage of its deployment positions in relation to the Syrian Army, effectively transforming a formality into a strategic plus point. It was able to make a seamless transition into the new, urban style of warfare in only a matter of days.
This level of adaptability is uncommon for most armed groups. Even today, the Israeli occupation struggles to adapt to the topographic differences between Gaza and Lebanon despite multiple confrontations with both, as it requires stealth and precision in unfamiliar territory.
It is for this reason that Israeli is currently struggling to conduct even a ‘limited’ ground invasion into Lebanon, as Hezbollah forces consistently push its forces behind the Blue Line.
Hezbollah’s strategic planning ultimately led to the liberation of Qusayr, which lasted from May to July 2013. For the rebel forces, losing Qusayr was a significant moral and strategic blow. The importance of a stronghold can be measured by the defensive preparations taken to prepare for war. Insurgent defenses were reportedly located around the outskirts of the city in a circular formation, in order to encompass the city.
It was also a psychological blow that would affect the insurgents for the remainder of the battle with Hezbollah. Insurgent forces were on a high after experiencing multiple victories, and did not consider the loss of Qusayr as a possible outcome. By the admission of the U.S.- instated FSA Military Council leader Abdul-Jabbar Aqidi, fighters were demoralized and some began to retreat.
Abdul-Jabbar Aqidi with Al-Nusra fighters and ISIS flags
(Photo from Substack.com)
The war proved Hezbollah’s strategic intelligence and adaptability, raising its status from a guerrilla group on the periphery of the axis, to a formidable and central player. This is confirmed by the substantial international reactions garnered.
Soon after, Obama called Michel Sleiman to discuss concern over Hezbollah’s advancements, Friends of Syria called for strengthening rebel forces to counter the influence of Hezbollah, and pressure mounted from members of the European Union to classify the group as a terrorist organization.
The liberation of Qusayr was a decisive win that effectively altered the balance of power in the war; it opened up a supply line from West Bekaa and cut off rebel access to arms, which placed the Syrian Army forces and Hezbollah in an advantageous position for future operations, and prevented arms smuggling into Lebanon.
Liberation of the Qalamoun Mountains and the City of Yabroud
The next battleground after Qusayr was the Qalamoun region. This location was strategically important due its closeness to the city of Arsal, which was the only passage for armed groups to enter into Lebanon due to a strategic road which connected key regional areas together from Damascus to the Lebanese mountains. During the battle of Qusayr, only two of the 20 crossings had been secured.
This became especially important when the number of terrorist attacks in the form of car bombings in Lebanon claimed by Syrian rebel groups became more frequent. The goal of this operation was to put an end to the car bombings by targeting the source and foiling the plot.
The plot was tracked down to Yabroud, another fortified city and rebel stronghold, from where the car bombs were being manufactured and smuggled into Lebanon.
The challenges Hezbollah faced in Qalamoun were just as, if not more complex as those in Qusayr; the topography of the area was difficult to manage in that it contained both elevated mountains and vast exposed land masses, making it difficult to establish secure positions.
Insurgent forces were better prepared for confrontation, having already witnessed Hezbollah’s tactical style, and were keen on reversing their failures in Qusayr.
In cooperation with the Syrian Army, Hezbollah developed a two-pronged strategy to deal with these challenges. One axis would be focused on gaining control of the rest of the crossings, and another would focus on advancing toward the bombing sites in Yabroud.
To execute such a strategy, Hezbollah would have to fight a blend of mountain and urban warfare, which was different from its previous experiences.
The liberation of both of these areas allowed Hezbollah to gain control of car bombing manufacturing sites, smuggling routes, and weapon depots once rebel groups fled. After this, the car bombings in Lebanon significantly decreased.
If the liberation of Qusayr changed the balance of power during the confrontation, the liberation of Yabroud cemented it. The downfall of yet another rebel stronghold made it clear that the Syrian Army and supporting forces had gained the upper hand.
These successes would continue with the liberation of Musa hill and surrounding locations, which connected the pockets of newly liberated lands, removing the remaining rebel forces that had retreated to mountainous areas like Ras al-Ain.
When One falls, the Rest Follow
Hit after hit, these strategic blows eventually led to Syria’s victory with Bashar al-Assad still in power. By the end of 2017, Syria, Russia, Iran, along with the Lebanese and Iraqi resistance, had liberated all of Syria’s major cities and most regions.
Hezbollah’s support was key in purging Al-Qaeda from the Qalamoun mountains near the Syrian-Lebanese border. Though small pockets of rebel groups remained by 2019, the threat had largely been overcome.
The effects of this victory have been lasting, even showing themselves during the current genocide in Gaza. It cemented the position of the axis in the region, and foiled the Israeli occupation’s desire to extend its influence over its neighbors to maintain security.
Hezbollah in Perspective
From a purely strategic perspective, Hezbollah played a critical role in reducing the threat of terror groups taking over the entire country. It played a hand in some of the most delicate operations, liberating the most strategic lands.
On an internal level, it helped the group evolve its combat performance. Waging an offensive operation required an entirely new set of skills with little time to adapt. Hezbollah proved to be highly flexible and quick to adapt to different forms of warfare.
It also provided the organization with a chance to deepen ties with the Syrian resistance by fighting side by side, as the fruits of this alliance are now being witnessed in real time.
The media’s attempt to portray Hezbollah as a sectarian proxy does little to explain why it supported secular Syria, why it engaged in the liberation of Christian villages against terror groups, or why it has aligned itself with the Sunni Palestinian resistance.
Much of the negative sentiment around Hezbollah’s role in the Syrian war stems from a failure to identify the main aggressor due to the sheer level of propaganda which obscures the full picture.
Though the soft war campaign against Syria and Hezbollah was extremely successful in the West, it cannot be denied that the purpose for which it was carried out miserably failed. Syria is on the rise again, with the same leadership in power that the U.S. sought to bring to its knees.
This reality is largely a result of the growing synergy between the axis members, who achieved their primary goal of preventing the U.S. destabilization attempt.
Additional sources:
- Naim Qassem, Hizbullah: The Story From Within
- Al Manar, The Secrets of the Second liberation, Episodes 1-8
- Tim Anderson, The Dirty War Against Syria
- Tim Anderson, The Axis of Resistance: Towards and Independent Middle East
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