Hezbollah-backed Syrian rebels enter Qusair – activists

PanARMENIAN.Net - Hundreds of rebels from northern Syria managed to enter the besieged city of Qusair on Friday, May 31 activists said, to help opposition forces battling government troops backed by the Lebanese group Hezbollah, according to Reuters.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said hundreds of fighters from the Tawheed brigade, an Islamist group that is powerful in Aleppo in the north, had entered the town.

The brigade confirmed the report on its Facebook page.

The two-week battle for Qusair is aimed at securing supply routes near the Syrian-Lebanese frontier, which both sides accuse the other of using to bolster their forces inside Syria.

For Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, seizing Qusair would also allow him to cement control of a belt of territory between the capital Damascus and his stronghold on the Mediterranean coast.

Fighters coming to support Qusair's embattled rebel forces had been bogged down for days on the outskirts of the town, once home to about 30,000 people.

Rebels have lost more than two-thirds of the town to Assad and Hezbollah forces, but say they are still hunkered down in central Qusair. They had faced a tight blockade that prevented fighters or supplies from entering and the wounded from leaving.