Violence in Syria’s Homs and Hama Governorates have now spread across the border into neighboring Lebanon, and Syria’s new Islamist government has reportedly sent ground troops into the Lebanese border town of Hermel, sparking massive clashes. Both Lebanese clans and by some accounts Hezbollah were involved in the fighting.
Since taking over Syria in December, the al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has made much of its priority to move against Hezbollah inside Syria, as well as promising to combat the drug trade. That appears to be a major source of this new violence.
HTS was cracking down on many places in Anti-Lebanon, particularly the town of Haweek, which spans both sides of the Syria-Lebanon border near Qusayr. Haweek’s population is largely Lebanese on both sides of the border. HTS has presented this crackdown as having to do with Captagon pill smuggling.
The crackdown has rubbed some Lebanese clans the wrong way, notably the Zaiter and Jaafar clans, both of whom have long been accused of being involved in the Syrian Captagon trade. The clans reported raided the Syrian side of Haweek, killing two or three HTS members and capturing two others.
This only led to further escalation, with the HTS shelling areas inside the Lebanon border, including Hermel and the border village of Qasr. HTS forces reportedly captured three Lebanese in a new raid on Haweek, and looted several homes, burning another. One Lebanese soldier was reported wounded in the shelling in Qasr. Lebanese soldiers are reportedly rushing reinforcements to the area, though since then Syrian Army forces have entered Lebanon.
Where this all leads still remains to be seen, but so far Hezbollah and the clans appear to be doing most of the fighting on the Lebanese side. The Zaiter and Jafaar clans reportedly have close ties to Hezbollah, and their involvement in the fighting in the early stages probably isn’t accidental.
Neither side is really in the best of positions for a new border war. Syria just got done with a protracted civil war a few months ago, and has multiple internal clashes ongoing related to that. Israel has also invaded and occupied parts of southern Syria. Lebanon is in the midst of a ceasefire after an Israeli invasion, and Israel continues to occupy much of southern Lebanon.
I very much doubt that it has any relation to "drug trafficking". This is political and genocidal and could well escalate to war between Turkey and Iran, I guess.
Turkey and Iran? This move by HTS on unsuspecting border town serves one purpose — helping Israel by opening another front.
The wmquestion in my mind is — how can HTS pull such a stunt? It already is weak, and has lost much of its force to looting and smuggling. His already small force has been diminished ever since large scale looting hit Damascus. What good sre looted items if one cannot get them back into their countries of origin? For that they need experienced smugglers. Plenty of them around. But in return they need to smuggle stuff to Lebanon. I can imagine what. The trail to Hezbollah is being revived.
The most likely cause of this small scale raid is a complaint by US that smuggling to Hezbollah has resumed. So hit the suspected border town.
In this chaos, I would not be shocked if Joulani himself is part of smuggling profit sharing. HTS was always a mercenary oriented, opportunistic outfit. They can change outfits, but cannot change who they are.
As I see it the only thing they want to avoid smuggling from and to Lebanon are weapons and ammo: they’re together with Israel and the dubious government of Lebanon trying to besiege Hizbollah. I’m quite certain that Iran will not allow that and that they’re already planning how to topple HTS in Syria.
Topple HTS is to topple the UK and the US.
It is topple Taliban and Zionist style fascism, first and foremost.
Anyway, the USA and its poddle New Puerto Rico (as I call Britain these days) have been already defeated in three separate occasions by Yemen (three different US aircraft carriers were hit and had to retreat to safe port), so it’s clearly a very possible thing to do: the USA is weak now and will be in the foreseable future, as it’s a structural matter not just of the USA and its imperial decline crisis but of the rest of the world catching up to the West and deploying very ingenuous means to fight both military and civilian (socio-economic).
In any case, whoever expects the HTS regime to last is clearly not understanding the hatred that most Syrians have for it. It will collapse: Syria is a modern secularist country and has been so since I have memory. Militias are rising everywhere while Julani has no money to pay even the cops. And we all know what happens to Roman Emperors who fail to pay the “donativum” to the Praetorian Guard, right?
I am agnostic on this one until I see more evidence. What seems plausible is that clans are involved in the drug trade and Syria has an interest in disrupting that trade. I am skeptical about Hezbollah and HTS necessarily clashing given that they both have an interest in not weakening themselves. And if Hezbollah is acting according to its Islamic agenda, drugs are prohibited.
Are there any Syrians in this Syrian Army?