BICOM

A senior IDF source has said that President Assad’s forces in Syria are in disarray and are increasingly reliant on Hezbollah which itself is suffering significant losses.

During a widely reported media briefing, the official said, “I don’t want to predict, but Syria is in the worst situation since the beginning of the fighting.” Although Assad still exercises control in heavily Alawite areas such as Latakia, the source said “the situation is more complicated and difficult” in other areas of the country, even the capital Damascus. Assad also faces ISIS making gains near the Turkish border. Apparently, Assad’s forces are “at a low level of fitness for fighting.” Summarising, the source said, “The whole thing is falling apart and Assad is mostly relying on Hezbollah.”

Hezbollah has fought alongside Assad’s troops on many occasions since Syria’s civil war began, but has recently increased its commitment to do so and has been bogged down in a battle against the al-Nusra Islamist opposition group on the Lebanon-Syria border. The IDF official said that Hezbollah had recently increased the number of its fighters in Syria and had seen around 100 killed in just the last week. As many as 2,000 Hezbollah fighters may have died in the conflict. Media reports suggest that Iran is sending senior officers, arms and money to support Assad and Hezbollah.

The IDF officer said that Hezbollah’s continuing alliance with Assad had proven to be “no small amount of embarrassment” to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. In addition, he said that Israel has observed a recent movement of Hezbollah troops from south Lebanon bordering Israel to Syria, which “points to their distress.”

By Israel’s assessment, Hezbollah is thought to have around 100,000 rockets at its disposal, ten times the volume of projectiles it could access during the Second Lebanon War. However, the Israeli military source concluded “The last thing they [Hezbollah] want is to open a front with us.”