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The Takeover of the City of Yabrud
1. On March 15 and 16, 2014, the Syrian army, with
Hezbollah assistance, took over Yabrud, a city in the Qalamoun region
near the main road leading from Damascus to Homs. According to Lebanese
and Syrian media reports, Yabrud was conquered in a swift military move
that took less than 48 hours. According to the media, before the
takeover roads leading in were blocked, the hills overlooking the city
were occupied and artillery was fired to weaken the rebels inside the
city.
2. The Syrian army and Hezbollah's rapid takeover of Yabrud caused some
of the rebels to flee, reducing the number of casualties among the
attacking force, and possibly contributing to lessening the physical
destruction of the city. However, a senior source in the joint Syrian
army-Hezbollah operations room reported that the Al-Nusra Front, a
branch of Al-Qaeda and the most prominent organization among the rebel
forces which defended the city, had lost hundreds of operatives in
Yabrud as well as large quantities of military equipment (Al-Ra'i,
Kuwait, March 17, 2014).
3. After the takeover of Yabrud the Syrian army, with Hezbollah support, began clearing the regions near the Syrian-Lebanese border. In our assessment the main military effort was directed at clearing rebel fighters from the cities, towns and villages lying between the Damascus-Yabrud road and the Syrian-Lebanese border (the media noted Ras al-Eyn, Al-Zabadani, Ranqus, Maaloula, Ras Maara and others). The military effort has not yet ended and battles with the rebels continue in the area (as of the beginning of April 2014).
Yabrud and Al-Qusayr, two important cities lying near the Damascus-Homs road; Hezbollah participated in their takeover. In the campaign for Al-Qusayr Hezbollah played a leading role, while in the campaign for Yabrud Hezbollah operated as an auxiliary for to the Syrian army (Map: Google Maps)
Exposure of Workshops for Making Booby-Trapped Cars
4. Hezbollah's TV station reported that the Syrian army found a workshop in Yabrud where bobby-trapped cars were made and sent to Lebanon.
A car was found in the workshop with Lebanese license plates and
containing 200 kilos, or 440 pounds, of explosives. The car was supposed
to be detonated by a suicide bomber (Al-Manar, March 18, 2014). The
Lebanese TV station MTV reported that the Syrian army had found five car
bombs in the workshop. In addition, the Syrian army is also operating
in the region of Ras al-Eyn (southwest of Yabrud),
where another workshop for making booby-trapped cars sent to Lebanon was
found (Al-Manar, March 19, 2014).
An Al-Mayadeen TV correspondent reports on the workshop for car bombs discovered in Yabrud, showing where in the car the explosives were hidden (Al-Mayadeen TV, Lebanon, March 18, 2014).
A workshop found in Ras al-Eyn where weapons were manufactured. The booby-trapped car bears Lebanese license plates (Al-Ayam, Iran, March 20, 2014).
The Significance for Hezbollah of the Takeover of Yabrud
5. The city of Yabrud and its environs were a main center for
anti-Hezbollah attacks carried out by the organizations affiliated with
Al-Qaeda and the global jihad, especially the Al-Nusra Front. Hezbollah
repeatedly claimed that terrorist attacks were being planned in Yabrud,
and from there operatives infiltrated into Lebanon through the Sunni
Syrian city of Arsal in the northern Beqa'a Valley. In fact, at the end
of 2013, when the campaign for the Qalamoun region began, there was a
wave of attacks against Hezbollah led by the Al-Nusra Front, some
involving suicide bombers who blew themselves up in car bombs. Most of
the attacks centered on targets affiliated with Hezbollah and the
Shi'ites in Lebanese, especially in the southern suburb of Beirut where
Hezbollah has its headquarters.[1]
6. For that reason, Hezbollah considers the takeover of Yabrud as an important security and morale-boosting achievement.
After the takeover a Lebanese newspaper correspondent reported that the
Hezbollah leadership and the residents of the Shi'ite suburb of
southern Beirut were extremely satisfied, because they hoped the
takeover of Yabrud would release them from the nightmare of car bombs
blown up by suicide bombers (The Daily Star, March 19, 2014). The
feeling was described by Lebanese commentator Ibrahim al-Amin,
who is close to Hezbollah, and who has often reported its positions. He
said that "What happened in Yabrud will reduce the pressure on Damascus
and the Syrian regime. It will [also] limit the capabilities of those
who sponsor the suicide bombers who come to Lebanon. Slowly but surely
it will lock Lebanon's gates..." However, he said realistically, that
"What happened yesterday [the takeover of Yabrud] will not slam the door
on the confrontation and it will not permanently prevent suicide
bombers from reaching their civilian targets in Lebanon..." (Al-Akhbar,
March 17, 2014).
7. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah also spoke about
the takeover of Yabrud and the campaign in the Qalamoun region in an
interview with the Lebanese newspaper Al-Safir (April 7, 2014). He said:
1) Following the military action in Yabrud and the Al-Qalamoun region it could be said that the danger of attacks had been greatly reduced,
because the Syrian forces exposed workshops for making car bombs, in
both Yabrud and Ras al-Eyn. The security efforts of the Lebanese army
and security forces also contributed [to reducing the danger].
"Generally speaking we can say the danger has been sharply reduced but
we cannot say that it has completely disappeared. A great effort is required, both along the Syrian [-Lebanese] border and inside Lebanon."
2) Hassan Nasrallah denied the Lebanese media reports of a
"strangulation" of the southern suburb resulting from the security
measures taken, and that it had led local residents to flee to other
areas of Lebanon. He claimed that the attacks in the southern suburb had
in fact increased support for Hezbollah's military involvement in
Syria, based on public opinion polls, information and research he had.
Nasrallah claimed that the feeling of the general Lebanese public, not
only the Shi'ites, was that Hezbollah's involvement in Syria protected
Lebanon from terrorist groups based in Syria. Moreover, he said, the
Lebanese public even felt that Hezbollah's military intervention in
Syria should have come sooner.
3) As in the past, Nasrallah denied reports in the Arab media that Hezbollah had suffered many losses in the Qalamoun region
[Hezbollah losses in Syria are a sensitive internal Lebanese issue].
Those reports, he claimed, were wishful thinking and not facts. For
example, regarding the claim that Hezbollah had lost 500 operatives in
Al-Qalamoun, he asked, "Is it possible to hide 500 shaheeds in a society
like Lebanon's? Not even one could be hidden, to say nothing of 500."
8. From the Al-Safir interview it is clear that Hezbollah closely follows developments in Lebanese public opinion, both Shi'ite and non-Shi'ite,
regarding sensitive and controversial issues, such as Hezbollah's
military involvement in Syria. To that end, according to Nasrallah, the organization is assisted by public opinion polls.
He told Al-Safir that after the attacks in the southern suburb several
people who could not decide where they stood on the issue of Hezbollah's
involvement in Syria, and even some of those who opposed, it had
changed their minds. Nasrallah added that the [results of the]
public opinion polls were supported by clandestine contacts Hezbollah
had with political forces and religious and sectarian leaders in Lebanon.
He said, "Some of them cannot not say in public what they say in
private, fearing repercussions or negative consequences in the future,
or lest their relations with other countries in the region or embassies
in Lebanon suffer."
Hezbollah Losses
9. In the takeover of Yabrud Hezbollah suffered far fewer losses than in the takeover of Al-Qusayr (June 2013).
In our assessment the main reason was Hezbollah's main role in the
campaign for Al-Qusayr and its secondary role as an auxiliary force
supporting the Syrian army in the battle for Yabrud (also the reason
why, in our assessment, less military force was used at Yabrud than at
Al-Qusayr). Another reason was the fierce resistance put up by the rebel
forces at Al-Qusayr as opposed to the weak fighting in Yabrud, which
made a swift takeover of the city possible (lasting
only two days, March 15-16, 2014). In our assessment another reason was
the military capability of the Hezbollah operatives, who accumulate
considerable experience in urban warfare as the fighting in Syria
continues, decreasing their losses.
10. Thus Hezbollah was able to rack up another achievement in its
involvement in the civil war in Syria without suffering significant
losses. According to an ITIC name count of Hezbollah operatives killed
in Syria in March 2014, 28 operatives were killed, most of them in the campaign for Yabrud.[2]
In comparison, 120 Hezbollah operatives died in the campaign for
Al-Qusayr, most of them (114) in the two weeks of fighting inside the
city, until it was conquered (June 5, 2013).[3]
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11. Hezbollah' death toll in the takeover of Yabrud and in the
fighting in the Qalamoun region (which is still ongoing) raise the
overall number of deaths of Hezbollah operatives during the Syrian civil
war to 337. That is the number of names the ITIC has
identified. There were several dozen additional deaths the ITIC did not
identify or were not reported by Hezbollah in the media (for example,
MIAs). Therefore, in our assessment the overall number of Hezbollah operatives who have died in Syria so far is about 360 (updated to April 1, 2014).
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Hezbollah props up Bashar Assad after the battle in Yabrud (Al-Watan, Qatar, March 20, 2014)
[*]The full version of this bulletin can
be found in Hebrew on our website. The English is being translated and
the full version will shortly be available.
[1]For further information see the February 11, 2014 bulletin
"Using suicide bombers as weapons: The leading modus operandi in the
Al-Nusra Front and Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria's struggle
against the Syrian regime in Lebanon."
[2]An examination of the names of the 28 Hezbollah operatives killed in March showed that most of them (16) were killed in the battle for Yabrud. Another was killed in the fighting in the region of Al-Qalamoun. It was reported that ten others were "killed carrying out their duty of jihad" or "killed in the fighting in Syria." It campaign be assumed that at least some of them were killed in the battle for Yabrud and/or battles in the Al-Qalamoun region. Only one death in March was explicitly reported as having occurred in the agricultural area around Damascus.
[3]For further information see the June 27, 2013 bulletin "Hezbollah Operatives Killed in Syria – Update."
[2]An examination of the names of the 28 Hezbollah operatives killed in March showed that most of them (16) were killed in the battle for Yabrud. Another was killed in the fighting in the region of Al-Qalamoun. It was reported that ten others were "killed carrying out their duty of jihad" or "killed in the fighting in Syria." It campaign be assumed that at least some of them were killed in the battle for Yabrud and/or battles in the Al-Qalamoun region. Only one death in March was explicitly reported as having occurred in the agricultural area around Damascus.
[3]For further information see the June 27, 2013 bulletin "Hezbollah Operatives Killed in Syria – Update."
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