Syrian National Council Says Hizbullah 'Mass Graves' Unearthed in Syria

The conflict, pitting a Sunni-dominated rebel movement against Assad, has raised sectarian tensions in Lebanon and Lebanese Sunni fighters have also been killed while fighting alongside Syrian rebels.

(DAMASCUS) - The opposition Syrian National Council on Tuesday claimed that it has documented the presence of a number of mass graves containing the bodies of hundreds of Hizbullah fighters who were killed in Syria.

“We have discovered a number of mass graves in which Hizbullah used to bury its members after every battle on Syrian territory, instead of repatriating the bodies to Lebanon,” SNC spokesman Mouayyed Ghizlan told CNN.

“For Hizbullah, these cemeteries have two objectives: the first is avoiding the traumatization of the dead's families and thus avoiding a strong outcry from the Lebanese public opinion, and the second is hiding the real number of casualties and preventing the Syrian fighters and rebels from knowing the real figures,” Ghizlan added.

Hizbullah has dispatched fighters to battle alongside the Syrian regime against rebels seeking the overthrow of President Bashar Assad.

The party had justified its intervention in Syria by saying it was backing popular committees defending Lebanese-inhabited border towns in Syria from attacks by rebels and extremists. It had also admitted that its fighters were guarding Shiite holy shrines in Damascus province.

But in a speech in May, Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said his party will stay involved in the Syrian conflict, after having helped government forces recapture the key town of Qusayr from rebels.

"Where we need to be, we will be ... To defeat this very, very dangerous conspiracy (against Syria) we will bear any sacrifices and all the consequences," said Nasrallah.

"The alternative (to the Assad regime) is chaos and the rule of these groups," he said, referring to extremist Islamist rebel groups he said were part of an "American-Israeli-takfiri plot."

The conflict, pitting a Sunni-dominated rebel movement against Assad, has raised sectarian tensions in Lebanon and Lebanese Sunni fighters have also been killed while fighting alongside Syrian rebels.

Naharnet.com

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