Hizbullah Negates Clashes with Syrian Army
Hizbullah slammed as “lies” all media reports that alleged that clashes erupted between fighters of the party and the Syrian army in the Syrian province of Aleppo lately, the National News Agency reported on Saturday.
“A number of local and Arab media outlets launched a series of lies in the past few days on the field situation in Syria, alleging that clashes erupted between Hizbullah and the Syrian army on one hand and between Hizbullah and allied factions on the other. We strongly denounce these allegations and lies,” said a Hizbullah statement issued on Saturday.
“We deny these allegations that are spread by a propaganda machine that is used to falsehood, twist the truth and launch misleading campaigns. It is linked with local and Arab intelligence apparatuses that aim to raise the wretched morale of groups associated with America, Israel and the takfiri paraphernalia,” it added.
On Friday, the Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat reported that verbal disputes between Hizbullah and its ally the Syrian army escalated into unprecedented fierce clashes in the past two days in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo.
“Several fighters from both sides were killed, amid reports that groups of Hizbullah fighters were bombed by regime warplanes,” said the daily
A Syrian opposition source noted that “it is not the first time that the two allies engage in clashes,” the Syrian opposition's National Coalition official Samir Nashar told the newspaper that “the fighting resulted from an exchange of sectarian insults and mutual accusations of betrayal on the battlefield.”
Another National Coalition source told Asharq al-Awsat that “the disputes between the two sides are not new.”
The Hizbullah statement concluded that the “fighters that were killed in Aleppo and other Syrian regions are martyrs as the result of direct violent clashes with the terror and takfiri groups and not as claimed by the media.”
Hizbullah's intervention in the conflict alongside regime forces has helped Damascus achieve several military victories and allowed the party to clear most of the Lebanese-Syrian border region from rebels and jihadists.
Since 2013, the Lebanese, Iran-backed party has sent thousands of combatants -- between 5,000 and 6,000, according to the expert on Hizbullah Waddah Sharara -- to help the regime fight both rebels and jihadists.
They send 2,000 fighters at a time in rotation, Sharara says.
Experts say Hizbullah has lost 1,000 to 2,000 fighters in the conflict, including senior commanders.
Source: Naharnet
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/211663 |