Sweets Distributed in Dahiyeh in Celebration of 'Qusayr's Fall'
Social networking websites were buzzing on Wednesday with pictures of young men distributing sweets in Beirut's southern suburbs in celebration of the “fall” of the Syrian town of Qusayr in the hands of Syrian regime forces and Hizbullah fighters.
Banners reading “Qusayr has fallen” and Hizbullah's yellow flags were erected on trees planted in a road median, next to which supporters of the party were distributing sweets to the passengers of the passing cars.
Meanwhile, activists on social networking websites circulated a picture of Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah with the slogan “Qusayr welcomes you … the Sayyed always fulfills his promises” on it.
The Syrian army vowed on Wednesday to trounce rebel fighters across Syria hours after recapturing Qusayr with the help of Hizbullah following a more than two-week assault on the strategic town on the border with Lebanon.
Both sides in the conflict value Qusayr, which lies along a land corridor linking two Assad strongholds, the capital of Damascus and an area along the Mediterranean coast that is the heartland of his minority Alawite sect.
For their part, Syria's rebels conceded they had lost the battle for the strategic town but vowed to fight “thousands of Lebanese mercenaries.”
Earlier, Syria state television said the army "totally controls" Qusayr, with the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground, also confirming that Qusayr had fallen.
Syria's main opposition group said that the armed uprising against the regime of Assad will carry on despite Qusayr's fall.
Later on Wednesday, Hizbullah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said “Qusayr's achievement dealt a severe blow to the American-Israeli-Takfiri scheme.”
Hizbullah chief Nasrallah had previously justified the group's involvement in Syria by saying they were defending Lebanese-inhabited border villages inside Syria and Shiite holy sites.
But during a May 25 speech marking the 13th anniversary of Israel's military withdrawal from Lebanon, Nasrallah said the Takfiris are the “most prevailing group in the Syrian opposition,” warning against a defeat against them in the ongoing war in Syria.
He said: “If Syria falls in the hands of the Takfiris and the United States, the resistance will become under a siege and Israel will enter Lebanon. If Syria falls, the Palestinian cause will be lost.”
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