BEIRUT - Syrian rebels and Hezbollah guerrillas battled Sunday in their worst clashes yet inside Lebanon, a new sign that the civil war in Syria is increasingly destabilizing its fragile neighbor.
Syria’s foreign minister, meanwhile, rebuffed an appeal by the U.N. and the Red Cross to let humanitarian aid reach thousands of civilians trapped in the rebel-held town of Qusair, under regime attack for the past three weeks. The Red Cross said many of the wounded are not receiving desperately needed medical care.
The latest confrontation between Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia and Syrian rebels, who have been fighting on opposite sides inside Syria,came at a time of increasingly incendiary rhetoric between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in the region.
One of the Arab world’s most influential Sunni clerics, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, urged the faithful to fight alongside Sunni rebels against Shiite Hezbollah and President Bashar Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Hezbollah’s involvement in the battle over strategic Qusair has also raised tensions with Syrian rebels who have threatened to target the militia’s bases in Lebanon, and with Sunnis in Lebanon who support the rebels.
Sen. John McCain, back from a surprise trip to Syria, on Sunday offered his bleakest assessment yet of the hostilities, saying that opposition fighters are being “massacred” and that Assad, with growing outside backing, is tightening his grip on power.
“Remember all this talk we’ve heard for the last year or two - it’s inevitable that Bashar Assad will fall?” McCain, R-Ariz., asked during an appearance on the CBS program Face the Nation. “Well, I think we can’t make that statement today.”
McCain, long one of the most outspoken voices in Washington for a muscular intervention in the Syrian conflict, visited there early last week to meet with the rebel forces that are fighting the Assad regime. He was the first U.S. senator to meet with the rebels there since fighting began two years ago. And on Sunday, he described what he said was a fast-deteriorating scene.
As he has done repeatedly since the conflict began, McCain called for the imposition of a no-fly zone over Syria and the creation of safe zones for rebels and refugees.
But President Barack Obama’s administration remains wary of inserting itself too directly into a complicated Middle Eastern conflict alongside uncertain allies and against increasingly well armed forces. So far, the U.S. has given the rebels only nonlethal material support.
McCain, however, cast skepticism on the notion that anything short of military support could turn the table. Secretary of State John Kerry has been trying to arrange peace talks between the Assad government and opposition leaders in Geneva, but no date has been set.
A senior Democratic senator, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, agreed on CBS that Assad’s forces had “regrouped,” adding: “He’s been able to reconstitute his forces.”
But like Obama, Reed insisted that “this calls for ultimately a political solution.” While the U.S. should not take any options off the table, said Reed, who, like McCain, is a member of the Armed Services Committee, the country should focus on achieving a political arrangement in Geneva.
McCain, however, warned that the fighting is likely to spread.
“It’s a slaughter, and the refugee camps are full, the Jordanians cannot last under the present situation, Lebanon is more and more tilting into chaos,” he said. “This has every likelihood of turning into a regional conflict.”
Meanwhile, clashes between Sunnis and Alawites broke out Sunday evening in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli, wounding at least 14 people, according to the state run National News Agency.
Also Sunday, three rockets from Syria struck northeastern Lebanon, a day after 18 rockets and mortar rounds hit Lebanon’s eastern Baalbek region, a Hezbollah stronghold.
From Saturday night into Sunday, Hezbollah encircled and ambushed Syrian rebels and allied Lebanese fighters whom they suspected of attacking Baalbek, a Lebanese security official said.
A Hezbollah fighter and several rebels were killed in the clashes in a remote area near the Syrian border, said the official.
The Lebanese TV station Al-Mayadeen, seen as sympathetic to the Syrian regime, quoted Lebanese security officials as saying 17 fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra, a rebel group linked to the global al-Qaida terrorist network, were killed in the fighting. The report could not be independently confirmed.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has linked his militia’s fate to the survival of Assad’s regime, but pledged in a televised speech last month that he would keep the battle out of Lebanon.
Hezbollah is the most dominant faction in Lebanon’s patchwork of ethnic and religious groups. A backlash against Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria and a creeping destabilization of Lebanon could hurt the group’s standing at home.
Events in Lebanon could spin out of control, even if rival Lebanese groups don’t want Syria’s war to be exported to Lebanon, said Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut. With Lebanese fighters increasingly engaged on opposite sides in Syria, “the worst is yet to come” in Lebanon, he said.
Earlier this week, Lebanon’s parliament put off general elections scheduled for this month for another 17 months, citing a deteriorating security situation.
Syrian activists reported new fighting in Qusair, about six miles from the Lebanese border. Local activist Hadi Abdullah, speaking by Skype, reported heavy shelling and regime airstrikes on the town, saying at least four people were killed and more than 30 were wounded.
Thousands of civilians are trapped in Qusair, he said, including hundreds of wounded. Hezbollah seized the water station and cut off water, he said, and the food supply is low.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported at least three killed in Qusair on Sunday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross and U.N. humanitarian agencies expressed alarm over the fate of thousands of civilians believed trapped in Qusair, including many wounded.
They called on both sides to allow aid to reach civilians. The Red Cross said many of the wounded are not receiving the medical care they need and that food, water and medical supplies are scarce. The U.N. agencies called for an immediate cease-fire to allow civilians to leave the town.
On Sunday, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon called Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem to express concern over the situation in Qusair, according to Syria’s state-run news agency SANA.
Al-Moallem told the U.N. chief that the Red Cross and other aid agencies would not be able to enter Qusair until the cessation of military operations, SANA said.
So far, neither side has been able to deliver a decisive blow in Qusair.
A regime victory would solidify Assad’s control over the central province of Homs, the linchpin between the capital, Damascus, and the Alawite strongholds on the Mediterranean coast. For the rebels, holding the town means protecting their supply line to Lebanon.
The town has become emblematic for the state of Syria’s civil war - recent military gains by the regime but not enough to dislodge the rebels completely, and inaction by a divided international community.
Last month, the U.S. and Russia, who are on opposite sides of the conflict, sought to revive the idea of peace talks between the regime and Syria’s political opposition. But prospects for launching talks at an international conference in Geneva faded after the main Western-backed opposition group said it wouldn’t attend as long as Hezbollah fights in Syria and the situation in Qusair remains dire.
Both rebels and pro-regime forces have abducted political foes, members of rival sects and others, including journalists, to settle scores or for ransom. Among those snatched were two Orthodox bishops who were abducted in April. The pope assured families of hostages that he prays for them.
In other developments, gunmen in Iraq killed three Syrian truck drivers Sunday morning on a main highway linking Baghdad to Syria and Jordan, police officials said.
The gunmen stopped the trucks near the remote western town of Rutba, they said, then killed the drivers and burned their vehicles.
The gunmen also kidnapped four Iraqis in the same area on Sunday, according to police.
The deputy governor of Anbar province, Dhari Arkan, blamed security forces guarding the highway for failing to protect motorists despite many checkpoints and units deployed along the highway.
“Once again, we are seeing shameful performance and negligence by members of the security forces, who are after salaries, not securing the country,” Arkan told The Associated Press in a phone interview.
Last month, gunmen kidnapped eight Iraqi policemen on the same highway.
In March, dozens of Syrian soldiers who had crossed into Iraq for refuge were ambushed with explosives, gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades in Iraq’s western desert. The attackers killed 51 of the soldiers, heightening concerns that the country was being drawn into Syria’s civil war.
Both Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites have taken sides in Syria’s civil war, which pits mostly Sunni rebels against a regime dominated by a Shiite offshoot sect.
Information for this article was contributed by Karin Laub, Sameer N. Yacoub, Sarah El Deeb and Yasmine Saker of The Associated Press; and by Brian Knowlton of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/03/2013