Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV has been showing footage throughout the weekend of a siege on the Syrian city of Zabadani, the last rebel-held city in the Qalamoun mountain range area along the border between Syria and Lebanon.
Fighting in Qalamoun has been raging for months, with al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front attacking Hezbollah bases of operation in the area and trying to expand their holdings before a counteroffensive routed them almost entirely from the area. Zabadani is it for the rebels.
The footage of Zabadani showed a large amount of smoking rising from several points within the city. Security sources reported that some 80 barrel bombs have been dropped in the city by Syrian forces in the past three days.
Hezbollah reported it is sending more reinforcements to the area, and it is unclear how long the siege might last, but many of these cities remain effectively surrounded and cut off for quite some time before they fall outright to rebels.