Shortly after Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pledged Sunday, May 19, to maintain Israeli
operations in Syria against the passage of advanced Iranian weapons to
the Lebanese Hizballah, Syrian troops and their Hizballah comrades
stormed Al-Qasayr, the northwestern town which commands the high road
from Syrian Homs to Lebanon’s Hermel Mountains.This was a major
victory: Iranian arms for Hizballah can now go through from Syria to
destination unobstructed.

In more than two
years of battling the Assad regime, this was one of the rebels’ most
devastating losses after three weeks of bitter fighting and the last of a
whole row of recent setbacks.

Bashar Assad in contrast has gained huge advantages from his al Qusayr victory, as DEBKAfile’s military sources report:

1. It cuts off the
Syrian rebels’ main supply and communications route via Lebanon through
which their Arab backers Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE to send them
fighters, arms and funds.

2.  Rebel positions in
the nearby town of Homs become increasingly vulnerable, as the Syrian
army regains control of the main highway links between Damascus, Homs
and Aleppo.

3.  After the rebels were pushed out of Al-Qasayr, Turkey remains their only accessible source of supplies.

However, Turkish Prime
Minister Tayyip Erdogan has made a sudden U-turn. He had promised
publicly to lobby for no-fly zones in his meeting with President Barack
Obama at the White House Friday, May 17, to shield rebel forces in
different parts of the country from Syrian air strikes. Instead, Edrogan
threw his support between the international conference sponsored by
Washington and Moscow for resolving the Syrian conflict.

This told the rebels that the supportive Turkish channel was closing down.
It
is obvious to them that the conference can only succeed if Washington
comes over to the Russian-Iranian-Hizballah side and agrees to the
perpetuation of the Assad party’s role in any future government.

As yet, neither of the
contestants has agreed to attend the conference for which no date has
been set. However, Turkish backing and arms supplies through its
territory are expected to shrink progressively to squeeze the rebels
into accepting a formula which would be tantamount to bowing to the
defeat of their uprising.

4. For Israel, the fall
of al Qusayr means that while rebel supply routes are shut down, supply
routes open up for the free movement of Iranian weapons from Syria
straight to HIzballah strongholds in Lebanon. This would be Hizballah’s
reward for its military aid to Assad’s army.

If Prime Minister
Netanyahu was serious about his promise Sunday to cut off Hizballah’s
weapon routes from Syria, he has three primary options to choose from –
none of them easy, to say the least.

a)  Military
intervention in al Qusayr before the Syrian army and Hizballah clinch
their takeover of this strategic byway town. This would catapult Israel
into full-blown war with Syria and Hizballah and is therefore a
non-starter.

b)  Bombardment of the convoys carrying arms from Syria to Lebanon.
This
won’t do much good. Having learned its lesson from the three
Israeli air strikes against arms convoys and depots this year, Syria has
now transferred the hardware disassembled into component parts and
passed them out among smuggling rings ato move them under cover of
dark into Lebanon.

c)  Attacks on the
destination of those weapons – Hizballah depots in the Hermel – after
their delivery. This would almost certainly trigger Hizballah war action
against Israel.

http://www.debka.com/article/22980/Syrian-Hizballah%E2%80%99s-capture-of-Qusayr-opens-direct-weapons-route-to-Lebanon

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