Natalie Naccache for The New York Times
A Lebanese man who had been in Homs, Syria, fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
ARSAL, Lebanon — The patchwork of Sunni Muslim and Shiite villages arrayed along the northern border with Syria are heavily embroiled in the protracted struggle there, but with a distinctive twist.
Fighters from Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Shiite movement, cross the frontier to fight for Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, who is Alawite and whose sect dominates the government. Sunni Muslims sneak over to join the opposition. Once back home in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, however, both sides observe an uneasy truce.
“Inside they are slaughtering us, but as soon as we cross into Lebanon there is nothing between us,” said Abdullah, 22, a stocky Sunni farmer who now toils as both a fighter and a smuggler, using only one name to protect his identity. “I would say it is something normal to fight on the other side, given that we are against the regime while they are with it.”
Yet the confrontation over controlling the strategic border throws off sparks that could ignite a bigger conflagration given that it is part of the Sunni-Shiite contest to dominate the Middle East. “There is already a kind of chaos along the border which neither Lebanon nor Syria fully controls, so there is a fear that it will spread into Lebanon,” said Talal Atrissi, a Lebanese academic and expert on Arab-Iranian relations.
Recently nearly two dozen Lebanese Sunni jihadists were ambushed by the Syrian Army soon after they crossed the border, but details of the number killed, wounded or captured are still unconfirmed.
With the battle for Damascus heating up, more and more Syrian soldiers are leaving the border area to deploy in the capital, opening up new opportunities for the Lebanese fighters along the frontier.
Accusations that Hezbollah deployed several thousand fighters across Syria started soon after the uprising erupted in March 2011, not least because its Iranian-supplied arsenal and years of fighting Israel had forged it into one of the most able armed forces in the region.
But interviews with more than a dozen government officials, members of Parliament, fighters and analysts suggested a far more limited, but concentrated, engagement.
Hezbollah fighters have been sent to Syria to protect areas important to Shiite Muslims, ranging from a couple of Shiite villages near Aleppo to the tomb of Sayida Zeinab in Damascus, a holy pilgrimage site for the sect, analysts said. Hezbollah has also advised the Syrian Army on strategy and tactics for urban warfare, as well as training, they said.
The fighters’ main focus, however, has been dominating the Lebanese-Syrian border, an essential link in the supply chain for Iranian weapons coming to Hezbollah through Syria. The Syrian government also wants to limit the fighters and weapons coming to the Free Syrian Army, and Hezbollah wants to protect fellow Shiites and Alawites.
For similar reasons, Sunni fighters, particularly jihadists, have also deployed to Syria, seeking to bolster the insurgents and smuggle what weapons they can. The main difference is that Hezbollah deployed as an organization, while the Sunni effort seems more freelance, analysts said.
The number of fighters involved is difficult to assess, but it seems to be small, analysts said, based on circumstantial details like the several dozen funerals for fighters from both sects combined.
Hezbollah strongly denies that it is fighting in Syria, and it is not alone in that — Lebanese of all stripes say that Syria does not need more fighters. Hezbollah’s media relations department rejected requests for an interview for this article, but one senior official commented briefly.
“We are not involved in the fighting inside Syria,” he said, speaking anonymously because he was not given permission to comment publicly. “But since there were attacks on the villages of Shiites, Christians and other sects by the Syrian rebels, resulting in massacres, we have been involved in some activities on the logistics level.”
He declined to elaborate. In his many speeches, Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, generally avoids the topic of Syria.
Lebanon’s Shiites and Sunnis Fight in Syria, but Not at Home
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Lebanon’s Shiites and Sunnis Fight in Syria, but Not at Home
