Hizbullah, Syrian Army Seize Control of Strategic Tallet Moussa Hill

Hizbullah and the Syrian army seized control Wednesday of the strategic Tallet Moussa hill in Syria's Qalamoun, as they pressed on with a major offensive against militant groups in the border region.

“The Syrian army and the fighters of the resistance (Hizbullah) have taken the strategic Tallet Moussa hill in Qalamoun,” Hizbullah's al-Manar television reported.

The peak provides a line of sight over the border area.

Al-Manar said the allies have also made “major advances in their pursuit of takfiri groups in the mountains of Qalamoun, east of the Lebanese border.”

Syrian forces and Hizbullah fighters are now in control of “more than 50 percent of the outskirts of Ras al-Maara,” al-Manar added.

It said the advancing forces continued their onslaught Wednesday on the heights of the strategic Mount al-Barouh, where “tents belonging to the militants were torched and two military vehicles were destroyed, which left several of them dead or wounded.”

Syrian state television said "army forces in cooperation with the Lebanese resistance (Hizbullah) pursued the remnants of terrorist forces in the Tallet Moussa area."

Hizbullah and the Syrian army also seized control of “strategic” Southern Aqabat al-Faskh hill west of Ras al-Maara, the Tallet al-Harf and Dahr al-Hawa hills, and “the entire al-Khashaat heights which lie in Lebanese territory on the border with Syria,” al-Manar said.

It noted that the al-Khashaat area lies east of the outskirts of the Lebanese town of Nahle and “overlooks several border crossings and a large chunk of Arsal's outskirts.”

Sky News television meanwhile said five Hizbullah fighters were killed in Wednesday's clashes in Qalamoun.

According to LBCI TV, Hizbullah is now in control of “40 square kilometers of Lebanese territory east of Nahle's outskirts, from Aqabet al-Bayda in the south to Qornet Abdul Haq in the north.”

Last week, Hizbullah and Syrian forces controlled the strategic heights of Assal al-Ward in Qalamoun.

Some 3,000 Islamist-led militants are in the Qalamoun region, a Hizbullah commander recently said. He said Hizbullah and Syrian troops surround the Qalamoun from the north, the east and the south, as well as part of the west, squeezing the militants who remain there.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday that 18 Hizbullah fighters, 31 pro-regime troops and 36 rebels had died since battles restarted in Qalamun on May 4.

In April 2014, regime and Hizbullah fighters took control of most of Qalamun, but hundreds of rebel fighters remain entrenched in the mountainous region.

Jihadists have also launched attacks inside Lebanon from bases in the area, and Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said last week that the situation there required "radical treatment."

Hizbullah cites fear of militants sweeping through Shiite and Christian villages in Lebanon's Bekaa as one of the main reasons for its involvement in Syria.

The group's critics, however, argue that the group's intervention has acted as a magnet for the extremist groups that have launched deadly bomb attacks inside Lebanon.

Y.R.