32 die as Syrian army and Hezbollah storm town

Syrian troops supported by Hezbollah militants have launched an offensive to retake a major town near Lebanon from rebels, the heaviest fighting yet involving the Lebanese armed group, opposition activists said.

A girl wears the colors of the Syrian revolutionary flag during a protest in Jordan. Picture: AP

At least 32 people were killed yesterday when rebel fighters clashed with mechanised Syrian army units and Hezbollah guerillas in nine points in and around the town of Qusair, which is six miles from the border with Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, they said.

Speaking from Qusair, activist Hadi Abdallah said Syrian warplanes bombed the town in the morning and shells were hitting the town at a rate of up to 50 a minute.

“The army is hitting Qusair with tanks and artillery from the north and east while Hezbollah is firing mortar rounds and multiple rocket launchers from the south and west,” he said.

“Most of the dead are civilians killed by the shelling.”

The region near the Orontos River has been segregated into Sunni and Shiite villages in the civil war that grew out of protests against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

It is vital for Mr Assad, who belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, to keep open a route from Shiite Hezbollah’s strongholds in the Bekaa to areas near Syria’s Mediterranean coast inhabited by co-religionist Alawites.

Opposition sources say Syria’s coastal region could serve as an Alawite statelet in case Mr Assad falls in Damascus, in a potential fragmentation of Syria along ethnic and sectarian lines that raises the prospect of many more deaths.

Syrian Television said the army is “leading an operation against terrorists in Qusair”, with troops reaching the town’s centre.

The regime’s offensive on Qusair comes as the United States and Russia push a joint effort to get Mr Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country’s civil war.

The US-Russian plan, similar to one set out last year in Geneva, calls for talks on a transition government and an open-ended ceasefire.

The United Nations says at least 80,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which started with peaceful demonstrations against four decades of family rule by Mr Assad and his late father.

Meanwhile, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned at a weekly cabinet meeting yesterday that the Jewish state was prepared to act if there were more arms shipments to Hezbollah from Syria.

“We are following the developments and changes there closely and we are prepared for every scenario,” he said.

Israeli warplanes carried out two rounds of air strikes on Damascus early this month on what officials have said were sophisticated missiles bound for Hezbollah.