40 Years On: Hezbollah’s Past, Present, and Future [Part 4]

By Mohammad Youssef

The ‘Israelis’ and their allies have never stopped their sinister plots and conspiracies against Lebanon in general and Hezbollah particular. They continued to carry out aggressions and assassinations against Hezbollah leaders. Nevertheless, and to their dismal, this has never affected the resistance’s morals; on the contrary, it has given extra motive for the group to build further its military capabilities and to elevate its experience. The culmination of all of this came when the United States, ‘Israel’, and their allies, with conspiracy and logistics from Gulf states, also began their war against Syria, which came to be known as the war of takfiri terrorist groups to oust Syrian President Bashar Asaad.

This happened in 2011, after years of their massive pressure on Syria. It was when they lost every hope they had to tempt Syria to join their alliance, or at least to accept being part of their consortium. They took advantage of the dire economic situation to sow discord and fuel the social tension in certain parts across Syria. They openly sent arms and brought thousands of their takfiri terrorists from all over the world to fight a war against the Syrian government and people.

Scores of unprecedented horrific mind-blowing massacres and atrocities were perpetrated by those groups who captured sizable parts of Syria to announce their so-called caliphate, which they referred to as the ‘Islamic State’, but were commonly known by the Arabic acronym of ‘Daesh’.

Close to the northern parts of Lebanon, tens of Lebanese villages and thousands of Lebanese citizens used to live there. The takfiri groups started to attack, kidnap, and even kill them. Many warnings were sent to the takfiri groups to stop their aggressions, otherwise the people there, who happened to be Hezbollah followers and supporters, and even some of them are within Hezbollah military body, will have no other choice than defending themselves.

When Hezbollah knew for a fact that those groups have a systematic plan to displace those Lebanese villagers and their families from where they have been living since more than a hundred years, the party’s leadership took a decision to defend them. Later on, the leaders of the takfiri groups and their military forces started to attack the Lebanese villages with booby-trapped cars and rockets. Beirut’s Southern suburb [Dahiyeh] was not an exception. One of the first attacks was by rockets that were launched from the mountains surrounding Dahiyeh from the east, and later suicide attacks with cars started to take place.

The keen and sighted Hezbollah leadership was wise enough to take an early decision that helped Lebanon and Syria eradicate this existential threat.

The first battle Hezbollah got engaged in with the takfiris was in Qusayr, the area facing Hermel region in northeastern Lebanon. This war drew the lines and announced officially Hezbollah’s military participation in Syria.

For the first time in its history, Hezbollah fought a war where its different military divisions had to coordinate and fight together in a systematic plan like a regular army. The battle for Qusayr ended with a significant victory Hezbollah scored upon liberating the entire town from the takfiris, thus guaranteeing the safety and security of the Lebanese citizens and villages in that region, and representing a point of strategic transformation in the war against Syria which was to be won later by the Syrian Army and its allies, mainly Hezbollah. This victory also paved the way for the second liberation in 2017 when Hezbollah fought a fierce war against the takfiris in all the northeastern Lebanese areas. Again, in this battle, Hezbollah offered countless sacrifices for the sake of Lebanon.

Hundreds of Hezbollah fighters fell martyrs and thousands have been wounded, but Lebanon and the Lebanese have once again been saved and protected.

To be continued…