Hezbollah, Free Syrian Army on Brink of War?

[Valin]

Via Meadia:

2/21/13

 

A commander of the Free Syrian Army issued an ultimatum to Hezbollah yesterday, threatening to attack its positions inside Lebanon if it did not cease its operations in Syria. Hezbollah supports the Assad regime, and its fighters have consistently participated in attacks on the Syrian rebels. It even controls a number of villages on the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon and last weekend tried unsuccessfully to move deeper into Syria.

 

Brigadier General Salim Idris, the FSA commander, has had enough of that. “Hezbollah is abusing Lebanese sovereignty to shell Syrian territory and Free Syrian Army positions.” He gave Hezbollah a 48-hour ultimatum, threatening that “as soon as the ultimatum ends, we will start responding to the sources of fire.”

 

(Snip)

 

As usual, it’s best to take all this news with a grain of salt. The story is still fresh, and reports from the region are notoriously inaccurate. But if it checks out, this might be a concrete sign of a dangerous escalation in the Syrian civil war. Lebanon was never going to be able to remain totally apart from the war next door—many Lebanese and most political parties, including Hezbollah, have deep ties to combatants on opposing sides in Syria. That the FSA is now attacking targets inside Lebanon is not good news.