More than two-thirds of participants in a four-day
online survey that ended yesterday believe Hezbollah, Iran’s cat’s-paw in
Lebanon, is the new adversary of Arabs and Muslims.
The one-question
survey by Aljazeera.net asked: “Do you think Hezbollah has turned out to be
an enemy of Arabs and Muslims?”
A total of 453,943 respondents (or 72.8%) said yes,
compared to 169,605 (or 27.2%) who said no.
Almost half of the respondents (49.18%) were from
Saudi Arabia. The others were from Lebanon, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq,
Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Turkey, Jordan, the UAE, Palestine, Morocco, the UK,
Germany, France, the U.S., Canada and Australia.
One-question surveys are event driven, allowing
respondents to give an immediate response with just one click to an important
event.
In this case, the survey that closed yesterday got
underway last Saturday, when Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, whose militiamen
are openly fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army, told
supporters Assad’s war “is ours, and I promise you victory.”
In his televised weekend address to Hezbollah
loyalists in Mashghara, Nasrallah
said his party would not let Assad fall to the U.S., Israel and the (Sunni) Takfiris.
He said, “Syria is the linchpin and backbone of the
Resistance” and his party “cannot stand, arms folded, while its back is
broken.”
To underscore the Syrian
regime’s military alliance with Hezbollah, Assad’s office says he is set to
give an interview to Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV channel tomorrow, Thursday.
The interview would be
broadcast simultaneously on Syria's official television channels at 9 p.m.
local time (18:00 GMT), the president's office announced on its
Facebook page.
Today,
member states of the UN Human Rights Council will consider a resolution
condemning the presence of foreign combatants in Qusayr, as fighting over the strategic
town in Homs province intensifies.
The
draft resolution, referring to Hezbollah, condemns the presence of foreign
fighters siding with the government as a serious threat to regional security.
It
demands access for United Nations and other humanitarian agencies to all
civilians affected by the conflict by authorizing cross-border delivery of
humanitarian aid as an urgent priority.
Hezbollah seems to be shrugging off the international
outcry over its involvement in the Syria war and a 24-hour ultimatum set yesterday by
General Salim Idriss, chief of staff of the Free Syrian Army, to end it.
Rami
Abdul Rahman, head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told
AFP news agency today Hezbollah has sent extra fighters to link up with Syrian
elite Republican Guards troops in the assault on the rebel stronghold of Qusayr.
“The preparations
indicate they are gearing for a major offensive” on neighborhoods in the north
and west of the town the rebels have been holding for a year, he said.
“Despite the intense
bombardment, the rebels are resisting fiercely,” Abdul Rahman said.
He said Sunni
militiamen from Lebanon had joined the battle on the side of the Syrian
opposition fighters.
“The fighting is
becoming more and more sectarian (Shiite vs. Sunni) in character,” he added.
Strategically
placed close to Syria’s border with Lebanon, Qusayr is home to 25,000 people,
most of them Sunnis.
Syria’s regime is
dominated by Alawite Shiites, while the majority of the population is Sunni.
Control of Qusayr is
essential for the rebels as it is their principal transit point for weapons and
fighters from across the border in Lebanon.
It is also strategic
for the regime because it is situated on the road linking Damascus with its
coastal heartland.
