A group of Syrian rebels claims it killed four Hizbullah terrorists across the border in Lebanon this week. The “Syrian Mujahedeen Unit” posted a video on the Internet Tuesday, featuring one fighter saying his unit killed the men as they were crossing the border into Syria.
The Sunni Islamist rebel group claimed the victims were Shi’ite members of the Hizbullah terrorist organization now fighting alongside loyalists defending Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
It is not clear which “Mujahedeen” unit posted the video, but most of those which use the title are affiliated with the Jabhat al-Nusra – the Al Nusra Front terrorist organization, linked to Al Qaeda. The Al Nusra Front, outlawed in the United States and in the European Union, is part of the larger Islamic Front for the Liberation of Syria, a radical Islamist council that split off from the original Syrian National Council opposition group, whose military wing is the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
The Lebanon-based Shi’ite Hizbullah terrorist organization is generously funded and sponsored by Iran, as is the Alawite Assad regime. Alawites practice a form of Islam that is split off from Shia, also observed in the Islamic Republic (of Iran).
While Russia has made it clear it will continue to provide materiel support to the Assad regime, Saudi Arabia began recently sending missiles to help arm the rebel fighters, according to Arab media.
U.S. diplomat Dan Kurtzer noted Wednesday in a panel discussion at Israel’s fifth annual Presidential Conference in Jerusalem that the situation in Syria is not likely to end with the conclusion of this civil war, particularly if the Assad regime falls. “Another civil war is very likely to follow,” Kurtzer commented, explaining that if the rebels win, the competing secular and Islamist factions will most likely battle each other for control of the country next.
Even if the rebels lose, there is still a savage battle being waged between Al Qaeda and Hizbullah — proxies, perhaps, for Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The Syrian Mujahedeen Unit has also posted a second video, showing the identification cards of the four allegedly murdered men. In the second video were also displayed two pistols and two assault rifles the group said were taken from the men that were killed.
The Syrian civil war has spilled over the border into Lebanon in the past year. Both Assad forces and rebels have targeted areas in Lebanon where Sunnis are living side-by-side with Shi’ites, and where the two sects support different sides in the Syrian conflict.
According to the latest United Nations figures, at least 93,000 Syrians have died since the start of the war in March 2011. More than 1.6 million refugees have fled their homeland to neighboring countries. Millions of others have been displaced within Syria, left homeless by the shelling that has pummeled their homes into rubble.
