Hezbollah celebrates winning the battle for Qusayr

Hezbollah flags, placards and sweets in Beirut's southern suburbs to mark Qusayr's fall

The Qusayr boy with missing limbs

Hadi el-Abdullah (top right) and some of the injured trapped in Qusayr

Syria's army has overrun the strategic border town of Qusayr in Homs province after a blistering offensive spearheaded by thousands of fighters from Iran’s Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah movement.

Rebels said they had pulled out of Qusayr, which lies on a cross-border supply route with neighboring Lebanon and where they had fought fierce battles with government forces and Hezbollah guerrillas for some three weeks.

One Hezbollah fighter told Reuters they took the town in a rapid overnight offensive.

Hezbollah and Syrian forces fought hard to seize Qusayr, which had been in rebel hands for over a year, to reassert control of a corridor through the central province of Homs which links Damascus to the coastal heartland of President Bashar al-Assad's minority Alawite Shiites.

Hezbollah supporters in Beirut's southern suburbs celebrated the fall of Qusayr with gunfire, fireworks and placards and by handing out sweets and candy to passersby.

Iran, which is Hezbollah’s overlord and Assad’s key regional ally promptly congratulated Damascus on retaking Qusayr, according to Iran's Press TV.

A video uploaded to YouTube today by the Qusayr Media Center headed by citizen journalist Hadi el-Abdullah shows some of the hundreds of injured trapped in the town, including a boy with missing limbs.

Some are shown being moved from makeshift field clinics onto the back of pickup trucks.

Over the weekend the UN said it was “extremely alarmed” by reports there were as many as 1,500 wounded people in Qusayr.

Doctors had appealed for the Red Cross to be allowed in to treat the wounded, but Syrian officials said this would only be permitted once the rebels had been defeated.

Civilians who had managed to flee Qusayr described it as "a ghost town, heavily damaged and filled with the sound of bombs," the UN refugee agency UNHCR said yesterday.

Those who had escaped were mainly women and children, because men risked being killed at checkpoints, said spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.

“From the handful of interviews we have done so far, it appears that a new route for displaced people has opened up from the Qusayr area towards Arsal in Lebanon, about 100 kilometers away,” Ms. Fleming noted. She also said that some people flee to Lebanon while others are displaced internally.

The refugees -- mostly women and children -- said the difficult journey to the border has to be made by foot.

“Fighters are said to be targeting people as they try to flee. No route out of Qusayr is considered safe, and there are continued reports of between 700 and 1,500 injured civilians being trapped in Qusayr,” Ms. Fleming said.

“Those we have spoken to say it is unsafe to flee with men, who are at heightened risk of being arrested or killed at checkpoints along the way. None of the refugees was able or willing to identify those who are manning the checkpoints,” the spokesperson said.

She noted that one woman had told UNHCR staff that people in Qusayr were faced with a stark choice, “You leave and risk being killed . . . or you stay and face a certainty of being killed.”

NO GAME-CHANGER

The fall of Qusayr doesn’t change the strategic stalemate in Syria, according to Michael Hanna, senior fellow at Century Foundation think-tank

Speaking to The Guardian, he said:

It is obviously a big blow, not just tactically but psychologically, for the rebels. But we have seen these tactical ebbs and flows before ... People have made far-reaching conclusions that have assumed that these temporary shifts in momentum signify the beginning of the end for either side. I think that is simply premature.

There are still huge swaths of Syrian territory that, I think, are permanently out of control of central government. There are places in the country that are never going to be reclaimed. So I think it’s hard to think of a scenario whereby we can talk about Assad winning. These limitations are going to carry on into the foreseeable future.

It’s hard to see how this becomes a model for reclaiming control of the entire country.

Asked about Hezbollah's role in the battle, Hanna said:

Clearly having Hezbollah engaged in an open and dedicated fashion, not only infused new numbers into the fight, but also well-trained and disciplined fighters. Obviously they did make a very big difference in Qusayr, as has Iranian technical, logistical, and planning support.

Hanna was also pessimistic about the possibility of a diplomatic breakthrough at the Geneva-2 conference.

We are at a strategic stalemate and this is something that could go on for years. I imagine there is going to be a political settlement to this war at some point, but I don’t think that is in the near term ... There is not going to be any resolution or progress at Geneva, if the talks happen.

Qusayr gets an FSA boost and a mean Russian blow

Col. Aqidi in Qusayr town center (top), checking trenches (left) and with Hani el-Abdallah

Col. Aqidi checking on wounded Dr. Fayez Matar and with Drs.Saleh (top right) and Qassem

Col. Abdul-Jabbar Aqidi, member of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) Military Council headed by Gen. Salim Idriss, showed up on the frontlines and bombed streets of Qusayr yesterday, saying: “If there’s a will there’s a way” to come into the embattled town.

Aqidi, who is former chief of the Military Council of Aleppo, will presumably assume overall command of opposition forces defending Qusayr, which is under a bloody siege by Syrian troops and Hezbollah guerrillas.

Standing in the devastated town square, he told Hadi el-Abdullah, recognized spokesperson for Qusayr via Skype, he would be staying in the town to defend it.

Aqidi later visited some of the injured in makeshift facilities and talked to a skeleton of medical staff tending to hundreds of people wounded in the onslaught by government forces.

Dr. Fayez Matar is one of the wounded and the remaining medical staff includes Dr. Saleh and Dr. Qassem.

Activists counted 12 airstrikes and two surface-to-surface missiles against Qusayr today.

Russia yesterday blocked a UN Security Council declaration of alarm over the blockade of Qusayr, Security Council diplomats told Reuters.

Britain, president of the 15-nation council, had circulated a draft statement to fellow members voicing "grave concern about the situation in Qusayr, Syria, and in particular the impact on civilians of the ongoing fighting."

Qusayr, near the Syrian-Lebanese border, is usually home to an estimated 30,000 people. Fighting for control of the town has raged for two weeks.

Council statements must be agreed unanimously. Russia blocked the draft text, saying it was "not advisable to speak out as the UN Security Council didn't when Qusayr was taken by the opposition," a council diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Another diplomat confirmed the remarks.

Moscow's move to block the statement highlights the deep chasm between Russia and Western nations on how to deal with the Syria war. Russian diplomats in New York did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Dead children in Qusayr

The draft statement, obtained by Reuters, also urged forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebels trying to oust him "to do their utmost to avoid civilian casualties and for the Syrian Government to exercise its responsibility to protect civilians."

It appealed to Assad's government "to allow immediate, full and unimpeded access to impartial humanitarian actors, including UN agencies, to reach civilians trapped in Qusayr."

Diplomats said Russia told council members the best way to deal with Syria was through intensive diplomacy. However, one council diplomat noted that Russia continues to sell weapons to Assad's government.

Moscow and Washington are trying to organize a peace conference in Geneva this month that would involve the government and rebels. There has been wrangling over who should participate in the conference and no date has been set for it.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius suggested today that the conference could take place in July. He said the Syrian government and the opposition must attend what he called "the last chance" for a negotiated solution.

"It's not just about getting round the table and then asking what are we going to talk about. It needs to be prepared. That is why I say that the July date would be suitable," Fabius said.

Both the UN and the Red Cross have issued near simultaneous appeals for immediate access to be granted to Qusayr, where conditions are reported to be desperate.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos and UN human rights head Navi Pillay have all called for the protection of civilians and urged that thousands of trapped residents be allowed to flee the city.

Wounded children in Qusayr

Ban reminded the Damascus government of its responsibility to protect civilians who come under its control, including from the threat of militias. He also called on the warring parties to allow trapped civilians to flee.

In a separate statement later in Saturday, Ms. Amos and Ms. Pillay said they were “extremely alarmed” by reports that there are as many as 1,500 wounded people in the city in urgent need of immediate evacuation for emergency medical treatment.

“The general situation in Qusayr is desperate,” Ms. Amos and Ms. Pillay said based on information they are receiving.

This includes “reports that civilian neighborhoods continue to be indiscriminately attacked, and that other major violations of human rights and international humanitarian law are being committed,” according to the statement.

Activists say escape routes for civilians have become unsafe. They reported this week that Syrian forces attacked a convoy of civilians seeking to flee Qusayr.

In Geneva, the Red Cross expressed alarm over the situation in Qusayr, and appealed for immediate access to deliver aid.

"Civilians and the wounded are at risk of paying an even heavier price as the fighting continues," said the head of ICRC operations in the region, Robert Mardini.

The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the fact both the UN and ICRC have issued urgent statements at the same time is an indication of how desperate they believe the situation has become.