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Hezbollah and Saudi Arabia Spar Over Syria
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by Steven Emerson
Free Syrian Army fighter prepares to shot RPG at the Syrian Army in Homs, Syria. Photo: wiki commons.
Saudi Arabia is believed to be making it easy for Sunni jihadists to make it to Syria to join the jihad against dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Nearly 1,000 Saudis have gone to Syria to fight with groups tied to al-Qaeda, Western officials say, “and they suspect that number will exponentially grow in the coming months,” Jamie Dettmer reported Monday for the Daily Beast. This is raising fears about a terrorist blowback similar to what happened after Saudis flocked to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union during the 1980s.
It also is ratcheting up the sectarian divisions driving much of the violence. Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah took the unusual step of naming Saudi Arabia as complicit in the November 19 suicide bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut. The blast killed 25 people, including the Iranian cultural attache. Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services financed the attack, Nasrallah claimed in the Dececember 3 interview, Al-Monitor reports.
Iran blames Israel for the attack.
Saudi Arabia is reacting to Iran’s involvement in the Syrian civil war, especially the use of Hezbollah – its terrorist proxy – to fight alongside Assad’s forces, Al-Monitor reports. Hezbollah fighters won back the strategic city Qusair in June after rebel forces had taken control. This was considered a turning point giving Assad’s forces the upper hand in the conflict.
Hezbollah officials believe Saudi involvement goes as high as Prince Bandar bin Sultan and is driven by a desire to exact a price for Hezballoh’s intervention in Syria. American officials say Saudi Arabia is looking the other way as an increasing number of jihadists and radical clerics make their way to Syria.
Prince Bandar tells American officials that he shares concerns about letting al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria grow in strength, but Dettmer reports, Saudi arms and supplies easily wind up in the hands of the Al-Nusrah Front and other jihadists.
While the long-term threats remain to be seen, the maneuvers are seen as prolonging a conflict that already has claimed 120,000 lives.
