Beirut: Forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad have now seized all of the Qusayr area in central Syria, state television reported on Saturday, as troops overran the last rebel bastion in the area.
“Our heroic troops have restored safety and security in Eastern Bweida,” the channel said.
The village was the last insurgent-held area in the Qusayr area, which is strategic because of its proximity to the Lebanese border and because it lies on the route linking Damascus to the coast.
Qusayr fell on Wednesday to regime control after a nearly three-week assault by troops and Hezbollah, in the clearest sign yet of the Lebanese Shiite group’s commitment to the Al Assad regime.
Hundreds of people who fled Qusayr as it fell had taken refuge in Eastern Bweida.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was concerned for the fate of hundreds of fighters and civilians, among them wounded people.
Syrian state television broadcast footage of a barren village devoid of signs of life.
Hezbollah also announced the news of Eastern Bweida’s fall on its own television channel, Al Manar.
As the regime consolidated its grip on Qusayr, amateur video distributed by pro-Hezbollah activists showed unidentified men raising a black flag with the Shiite cry “Ya Hussain” inscribed on it, in a new sign of escalating sectarianism.
While most rebels in Syria are Sunnis, Hezbollah is Shiite and backs the Al Assad clan, who belong to the minority Alawite sect.
North of Qusayr, a car bombing near an army post in an Alawite area of Homs city killed at least seven people on Saturday, the Observatory said.
An official source who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity put the death toll at five, adding that six others were wounded.
Rebel areas of Homs city have been under tight army siege and daily bombardment for a year.
Activists say the regime plans to take down all remaining rebel areas in Homs.
“The army is closing in on us. We are dying a slow death, and soon the fighters will start staging counter-attacks,” warned Abu Bilal, an activist in a rebel-held district of the provincial capital.
Meanwhile, despite the dangers of fleeing, scores of people have poured this week into the majority Sunni town of Arsal in neighbouring Lebanon, a local official there told AFP.
“Some 30 families arrived today from the Qusayr area,” Ahmad Al Hojeiri of Arsal municipality told AFP.
“Their situation is very bad - they arrived exhausted. They have nothing. Some came here on foot,” Hojeiri said, adding that the local authorities were short of funds and were “only managing to provide basic assistance”.
More than 500,000 Syrians fleeing the conflict there have sought refuge in Lebanon, which is becoming increasingly drawn into the Syrian war.
