Report: Hezbollah, Iran Would Lead Syrian Counter-Attack

Maayana Miskin

An intelligence report prepared by a European country has found that Syrian President Bashar Assad has handed control of missile installations over to foreign fighters, Lebanon’s A-Nahar reports.

Assad has reportedly put control into the hands of Hezbollah and Iranian units.

Those two groups would be in charge of leading a counter-attack if the United States or other Western nations attack in Syria in response to recent chemical weapons use within the country.

The revelations come a week after reports from Lebanon which indicated that Hezbollah has mobilized many of its veteran fighters, presumably in anticipation of an upcoming US-led strike on Syria.


The bloody fighting in Syria has increasingly become an international sectarian affair, with the Shia Hezbollah group sending troops to boost Assad, while thousands of foreign Sunni Muslims – including several Israeli Arabs – have joined the Syrian rebels.

According to A-Nahar, parts of the intelligence report have been shared with diplomats from countries supplying troops to the UNIFIL force in southern Lebanon.

U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron have both argued in favor of international intervention in Syria in wake of the chemical attacks, and France has expressed a willingness to act as well. However, both Obama and Cameron have decided to wait for more domestic support before staging an attack.

Obama recently began a round of media interviews aimed at boosting support in advance of a vote in Congress on the issue.