Hezbollah: ISIS Attack Along Syrian Border Thwarted

Syrian Military Backs Hezbollah in Fighting in Qalamoun Mountains

In recent weeks the Qalamoun mountain range along the border between Syria and Lebanon has become a major focus for Islamist factions trying to weaken Hezbollah, who has been a major ally of the Syrian government in the ongoing civil war.

Today, Hezbollah’s media wing reported a failed ISIS attack against one of their bases in Qalamoun, saying with the backing of Syrian military helicopters they managed to destroy a pair of ISIS armored vehicles and kill an unknown number of fighters.

ISIS isn’t the only one pushing in Qalamoun, as al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra also launched attacks on Hezbollah sites there. They were somewhat more effective, though Hezbollah has since retaken much of the lost territory in a counteroffensive.

Earlier in the war, Qalamoun was a key arms smuggling route for rebels, though increasingly the Islamist factions are there simply to fight Hezbollah, and ideally to spread the civil war into neighboring Lebanon, where they’ve launched a handful of border raids recently.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.