Civil Conflict, Religious War

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the Arab world's most influential Sunni clerics spoke directly to the faithful, urging them to do their duty to Islam and go out and confront Shia Muslims. He cited the declaration by Hezbollah's chief Hassan Nasrallah that the militia under his commanding direction has an obligation to aid their Shia brethren in Syria, and that their intention was to wipe out the rebel Syrian majority Sunnis.

That declaration had its response when Yusuf al Qaradawi delivered his message to majority Sunnis and in so doing threw down the gauntlet, jibing and jeering at his own Sunni sect for being 'weak' in their response to that declaration of all-out war on the part of Hezbollah Shiites against Syrian Sunnis.

Mohamed Abdel Wahab

"Every Muslim trained to fight and capable of doing that (must) make himself available. Iran is pushing forward arms and men (to back the Syrian regime), so why do we stand idle? The leader of the party of the Satan comes to fight the Sunnis.... Now we know what the Iranians want.... They want continued massacres to kill Sunnis. How could 100 million Shiites (worldwide) defeat 1.7 billion (Sunnis)? Only because (Sunni) Muslims are weak", he challenged.

Raising the stakes, raising already-sky-high tensions in the region. Ensuring that what will result from this violent eruption in Syria that the entrance of Hezbollah has ensured will be an oncoming train-wreck of Muslim against Muslim, one sect fired with violent hatred for the other. Nothing particularly new in any of this, other than the wholesale scale. And that presages a potential bloodbath.

Drawing in the Sunnis in Lebanon to fight alongside their Syrian sect-mates, just as the Shia in Syria are jubilant that Shia-led Hezbollah has come to their aid. And in Lebanon itself Tripoli saw clashes between Sunnis and Alawites, with rockets from Syria striking northeastern Lebanon. A day earlier rockets and mortar rounds made their way into a region in Lebanon that represents a Hezbollah stronghold.

The Hezbollah chief responded to criticism by Lebanon's government by claiming that Hezbollah's entry into the war in Syria on behalf of President Bashar al Assad was a preemptive move on their part, to ensure that the war doesn't slip over the border into Lebanon, threatening its security and stability. Whereas in fact, what they have done by openly declaring their fealty to Bashar and conflict with Syrian Sunnis, is to effectively open Lebanon to full-fledged conflict.

The Syrian regime is basking in the pleasure of knowing it is finally achieving the upper hand in its confrontation with the rebels and their Sunni-based foreign jihadists supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. It seems that the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus once securely in the hands of the rebels have been restored to the regime, with the rebels driven out of their sphere of control, and their exit cut off, their ability to mount attacks in secure areas of Damascus no more.

Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem has calmly informed the UN and the Red Cross that aid agencies will be permitted to evacuate the wounded, the civilians facing food, water and medicine shortages in Qusair soon enough; when the regime has succeeded in routing and destroying the rebels who have held the strategic town for a year. Only with the conclusion of the military operation will access be permitted.

And if indeed as seems likely the regime emerges victorious over that battle, the central province of Homs will fall again into the hands of President al-Assad. Regardless in the end, of which of the combatants emerge with victory spread pridefully over their beaming faces, a deluge of more bad news will certainly continue. For with victory, revenge follows.

Since the combatants are not only the regime and the rebels but the two religious factions, the sects will see to it that their vitriolic hatred of one another is not easily appeased.