BEIRUT, Lebanon — The leader of the powerful Lebanese militant group Hezbollah decisively committed his followers on Saturday to an all-out battle in Syria to salvage the rule of President Bashar al-Assad. He said the organization, founded to defend Lebanon and fight Israel, was entering “a completely new phase,” sending its troops abroad to protect its interests.
“It is our battle, and we are up to it,” the leader, Hassan Nasrallah, declared, in his most direct embrace yet of a fight in Syria that Hezbollah can no longer hide, now that dozens of its fighters have fallen in and around the strategic Syrian town of Qusayr. Outgunned Syrian rebels have held on for a week there against a frontal assault by Hezbollah and Syrian forces.
The speech signaled a significant escalation in Hezbollah’s military involvement in Syria, enmeshing the group more deeply in the war across the border. It could put new pressure on the Obama administration and on Europe, where more countries have begun pushing to list the group as a terrorist organization as the United States does. It was also likely to further inflame tensions in Lebanon, where Syria’s civil war has spilled over into sectarian violence.
Mr. Nasrallah, a shrewd political operator, appears to be calculating that the West, thrown off balance by the rise of jihadist factions among the Syrian rebels, will not jump in. His confidence showed that he had little fear of the United States’ call for a political solution while allowing Saudi Arabia and Qatar to arm the rebels. Instead, Mr. Assad can head into negotiations planned for next month with a stronger hand, while the Syrian opposition is as divided and disorganized as ever.
“They wouldn’t do this if they thought there was going to be some kind of reaction,” said Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “They’re basically calling Obama’s bluff.”
Ali Rizk, the Beirut bureau chief for Press TV, the satellite channel of Hezbollah’s patron Iran, said Mr. Nasrallah had revealed that “Hezbollah is in it militarily and is in it very deeply.”
Noting that Mr. Nasrallah, who had long equivocated about the depth of the group’s involvement, promised his supporters victory, Mr. Rizk said, “Victory means you’re in it to the very end and you’re going to go all the way. Hezbollah is going to go all the way.”
Mr. Rizk, who acts as Mr. Nasrallah’s English interpreter and often speaks to Hezbollah officials, said Mr. Nasrallah was “convinced that the outside powers aren’t going to do anything,” particularly because the West was “taken aback” by the rise of jihadist groups like Al Nusra Front among the rebels. He said that American hesitance might be convincing Hezbollah leaders of what Syrian officials have believed for some time: that the United States is edging closer to the position of Russia, which is pushing for a negotiated settlement that leaves open the possibility of a political role for Mr. Assad or some of his government.
A senior administration official, however, said that despite Hezbollah’s increasing activity in Syria, the United States remains convinced that neither Mr. Assad nor the armed rebels are strong enough to emerge victorious.
“Our assessment still remains that there is not going to be a military victory,” the official said. “The regime is not strong enough to battle back and give Assad a crushing victory. But the armed opposition is not militarily strong enough to emerge victorious.”
The official described the situation inside Syria as essentially “a standoff” and said American officials did not believe that Hezbollah’s increased activity in recent weeks fundamentally changed the United States’ position on diplomatic efforts to remove Mr. Assad from the country.
American officials insist that any political transition must end with Mr. Assad’s leaving power. Mr. Tabler said that there were few hopes for results from the talks and that there would be a parallel effort to increase aid to more moderate elements of the Syrian opposition.
Hezbollah’s deeper plunge into Syria aids Mr. Assad’s concerted strategy of pushing for military gains to strengthen his negotiating position. By contrast, the Syrian opposition continues to waffle on basic decisions like choosing a leader and whether to attend the peace talks.
Hezbollah has essentially become the ground assault force for the Syrian Army, an unprecedented role for the group, in the battle for Qusayr and its province, Homs, which links Damascus with the government’s coastal strongholds.
“In Qusayr, the ones who are engaging on the front lines, the man-to-man firepower, that’s Hezbollah,” Mr. Rizk said. “They’re playing this infantry role, which might even get bigger, especially in the border areas.”
Hezbollah is also fighting near Damascus — Mr. Assad’s other top military priority — around the Sayida Zeinab shrine, a holy site particularly revered by the group’s Shiite Muslims.
But Mr. Rizk said there were limits to how much Hezbollah could turn the tide, and that it was unlikely to send a large force toward the rebel-held northern cities of Aleppo and Idlib.
“Even some members of Hezbollah say taking back all the territory that Assad has lost is impossible,” he said. “In the near future, the focus is to secure Damascus, Homs, the most important strategic sites as a prelude to a political solution.”
Mr. Nasrallah delivered his speech via videotape to supporters rallying in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to commemorate the 13th anniversary of the end of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon after years of battling Hezbollah’s guerrillas, which the group considers its greatest victory.
He seemed to be preparing his followers for the heavy price in lives and political capital that the organization could pay as it embarks on a contentious intervention in a neighboring country, a move that could deeply destabilize Lebanon.
Mr. Nasrallah evoked Hezbollah’s tenacity during its 2006 war with Israel — signaling that the organization considered the fight in Syria as important as its founding mission, opposing Israel and driving it out of Lebanon.
That he would equate a battle with fellow Arab Muslims in another country to the 2006 conflict, in which much of Hezbollah’s heartland in southern Lebanon and Beirut’s suburbs was hard hit by Israeli airstrikes, is “nothing short of amazing,” Mr. Tabler said.
Sectarian passions have heated as Hezbollah, a Shiite group, and Iran back a government dominated by Alawites, who follow an offshoot of Shiism, against mainly Sunni Muslim rebels. The likelihood that Hezbollah’s involvement comes at the behest of Iran against rebels backed by its rival, Sunni Saudi Arabia, has raised fears of a regional conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.
Mr. Nasrallah has long appeared to calculate that backing Mr. Assad, who provides Hezbollah with a crucial conduit for weapons from Iran, is more important than preserving the admiration that many Syrian Sunnis have long felt for Hezbollah as a champion of the underdog.
Hala Droubi contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Michael D. Shear from Washington.
“It is our battle, and we are up to it,” the leader, Hassan Nasrallah, declared, in his most direct embrace yet of a fight in Syria that Hezbollah can no longer hide, now that dozens of its fighters have fallen in and around the strategic Syrian town of Qusayr. Outgunned Syrian rebels have held on for a week there against a frontal assault by Hezbollah and Syrian forces.
The speech signaled a significant escalation in Hezbollah’s military involvement in Syria, enmeshing the group more deeply in the war across the border. It could put new pressure on the Obama administration and on Europe, where more countries have begun pushing to list the group as a terrorist organization as the United States does. It was also likely to further inflame tensions in Lebanon, where Syria’s civil war has spilled over into sectarian violence.
Mr. Nasrallah, a shrewd political operator, appears to be calculating that the West, thrown off balance by the rise of jihadist factions among the Syrian rebels, will not jump in. His confidence showed that he had little fear of the United States’ call for a political solution while allowing Saudi Arabia and Qatar to arm the rebels. Instead, Mr. Assad can head into negotiations planned for next month with a stronger hand, while the Syrian opposition is as divided and disorganized as ever.
“They wouldn’t do this if they thought there was going to be some kind of reaction,” said Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “They’re basically calling Obama’s bluff.”
Ali Rizk, the Beirut bureau chief for Press TV, the satellite channel of Hezbollah’s patron Iran, said Mr. Nasrallah had revealed that “Hezbollah is in it militarily and is in it very deeply.”
Noting that Mr. Nasrallah, who had long equivocated about the depth of the group’s involvement, promised his supporters victory, Mr. Rizk said, “Victory means you’re in it to the very end and you’re going to go all the way. Hezbollah is going to go all the way.”
Mr. Rizk, who acts as Mr. Nasrallah’s English interpreter and often speaks to Hezbollah officials, said Mr. Nasrallah was “convinced that the outside powers aren’t going to do anything,” particularly because the West was “taken aback” by the rise of jihadist groups like Al Nusra Front among the rebels. He said that American hesitance might be convincing Hezbollah leaders of what Syrian officials have believed for some time: that the United States is edging closer to the position of Russia, which is pushing for a negotiated settlement that leaves open the possibility of a political role for Mr. Assad or some of his government.
A senior administration official, however, said that despite Hezbollah’s increasing activity in Syria, the United States remains convinced that neither Mr. Assad nor the armed rebels are strong enough to emerge victorious.
“Our assessment still remains that there is not going to be a military victory,” the official said. “The regime is not strong enough to battle back and give Assad a crushing victory. But the armed opposition is not militarily strong enough to emerge victorious.”
The official described the situation inside Syria as essentially “a standoff” and said American officials did not believe that Hezbollah’s increased activity in recent weeks fundamentally changed the United States’ position on diplomatic efforts to remove Mr. Assad from the country.
American officials insist that any political transition must end with Mr. Assad’s leaving power. Mr. Tabler said that there were few hopes for results from the talks and that there would be a parallel effort to increase aid to more moderate elements of the Syrian opposition.
Hezbollah’s deeper plunge into Syria aids Mr. Assad’s concerted strategy of pushing for military gains to strengthen his negotiating position. By contrast, the Syrian opposition continues to waffle on basic decisions like choosing a leader and whether to attend the peace talks.
Hezbollah has essentially become the ground assault force for the Syrian Army, an unprecedented role for the group, in the battle for Qusayr and its province, Homs, which links Damascus with the government’s coastal strongholds.
“In Qusayr, the ones who are engaging on the front lines, the man-to-man firepower, that’s Hezbollah,” Mr. Rizk said. “They’re playing this infantry role, which might even get bigger, especially in the border areas.”
Hezbollah is also fighting near Damascus — Mr. Assad’s other top military priority — around the Sayida Zeinab shrine, a holy site particularly revered by the group’s Shiite Muslims.
But Mr. Rizk said there were limits to how much Hezbollah could turn the tide, and that it was unlikely to send a large force toward the rebel-held northern cities of Aleppo and Idlib.
“Even some members of Hezbollah say taking back all the territory that Assad has lost is impossible,” he said. “In the near future, the focus is to secure Damascus, Homs, the most important strategic sites as a prelude to a political solution.”
Mr. Nasrallah delivered his speech via videotape to supporters rallying in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to commemorate the 13th anniversary of the end of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon after years of battling Hezbollah’s guerrillas, which the group considers its greatest victory.
He seemed to be preparing his followers for the heavy price in lives and political capital that the organization could pay as it embarks on a contentious intervention in a neighboring country, a move that could deeply destabilize Lebanon.
Mr. Nasrallah evoked Hezbollah’s tenacity during its 2006 war with Israel — signaling that the organization considered the fight in Syria as important as its founding mission, opposing Israel and driving it out of Lebanon.
That he would equate a battle with fellow Arab Muslims in another country to the 2006 conflict, in which much of Hezbollah’s heartland in southern Lebanon and Beirut’s suburbs was hard hit by Israeli airstrikes, is “nothing short of amazing,” Mr. Tabler said.
Sectarian passions have heated as Hezbollah, a Shiite group, and Iran back a government dominated by Alawites, who follow an offshoot of Shiism, against mainly Sunni Muslim rebels. The likelihood that Hezbollah’s involvement comes at the behest of Iran against rebels backed by its rival, Sunni Saudi Arabia, has raised fears of a regional conflict between Sunnis and Shiites.
Mr. Nasrallah has long appeared to calculate that backing Mr. Assad, who provides Hezbollah with a crucial conduit for weapons from Iran, is more important than preserving the admiration that many Syrian Sunnis have long felt for Hezbollah as a champion of the underdog.
Hala Droubi contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Michael D. Shear from Washington.