BICOM

Hezbollah forces and Syrian opposition groups were yesterday involved in the heaviest fighting between the two sides in Lebanon, increasing fears that violence from Syrian’s civil war could overspill significantly into the wider region.

Over the past week, Hezbollah fighters have openly led an Assad regime offensive to wrest control of the Syrian town of Qusair, currently controlled by the rebels. This has led to Syrian opposition leaders demanding that Hezbollah withdraw its’ forces from Syria.

Tension between the two sides reached a new level over the weekend. On Saturday, rebel forces reportedly fired eighteen rockets and mortars at the Hezbollah stronghold of eastern Baalbeck in Lebanon. Yesterday, Hezbollah fighters apparently encircled and attacked a group of Syrian rebels and Lebanese allies in a remote region near the Syrian border. According to Lebanese TV station Al-Mayadeen, seen as sympathetic to the Syrian regime, seventeen members of Jabhat al-Nusra, an extreme Islamist Syrian opposition group died in the incident.

At the same time, the battle between Hezbollah forces and Syrian rebels in Qusair continues. The Times and the Telegraph report this morning that Assad’s government has refused to allow international aid agencies into the town to treat wounded civilians until the fighting has stopped.

Over the weekend, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said that his government would lodge a complaint with the United Nations over what he described as “extensive” Israeli air force flights over southern Lebanon. Israeli officials have not commented on the allegations. Meanwhile, Israel Hayom reports that a website has revealed the hitherto unknown identity of the new head of Hezbollah’s military wing. Apparently, Moustafa Amin Bader El-Din took over from his brother-in-law Imad Mughniya, who was killed in 2008 in an operation widely attributed to Israel.