The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #143239   Message #3385005
Posted By: Keith A of Hertford
02-Aug-12 - 07:10 AM
Thread Name: BS: Homs horror (Syria, 2012)
Subject: RE: BS: Homs horror (Syria, 2012)
Putin is coming to London.
Perhaps some of the Olympic spirit of co-operation will rub off on him.
Other parties.
Reuters last week) - Lebanon's powerful Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah has publicly tied its future to Bashar al-Assad, but as the tide turns against the Syrian president it is silent on whether it will join the fight to support him.

The stakes are high for the group which fears that toppling Assad will pave the way for increased Western pressure - if not war - on its strongest ally and founder, Shi'ite Iran. By losing Assad the group would also be deprived of its strategic partner and main supply line for its arsenal.

"Hezbollah is at a point of enormous strategic uncertainty. (Syria's uprising) is not an existential threat, they are too well armed. But now they face a threat from two sides," a Western diplomat in Lebanon said, referring to Hezbollah's foe Israel and a potentially hostile post-Assad Syria.

Hezbollah has shown no sign of abandoning Assad and Lebanese officials close to the group say it won't stand idle if the battle worsens. Some said it will fight Israel. Others said it will deploy some of its fighters to secure the border with Lebanon, from which rebels are attacking Syrian frontier posts.