Perspective

"It's a good day for Assad. He has not only survived the past three years, but his army is intact and on a rebound, with his allies Hezbollah firmly behind him."
"[But the fall of Yabroud will reverberate in neighbouring Lebanon] pouring gasoline on sectarian divisions and likely bring more violence [into the country]."
Fawaz Gerges, director, Middle East Centre, London School of Economics

"Our armed forces are now chasing the remnants of the terrorist gangs in the area. This new achievement ... cuts supply lines and tightens the noose around terrorist strongholds remaining in the Damascus countryside."
Syrian soldier

Pro-government forces stand on a street in the Syrian town of Yabrud on March 16, 2014 after they seized full control of the rebel bastion in the strategic Qalamun region near the Lebanese border. (photo credit: Topshots/AFP/Joseph Eid)

"There's no doubt Yabroud had big strategic importance" to the rebels, a spokesman of the Islamic Front confirmed. Capt. Islam Alloush, speaking for the rebel coalition who fought in Yabroud, now streaming into Lebanon, commented that the rebels now had no way of supplying fighters outside of Damascus. The Syrian military surrounding a series of opposition-held areas, denying them food, power and clean water have a clear, unopposed hand, now.

Question: Did Capt. Alloush have a hand in routing his own rebel army?

But Hezbollah may just have a new headache on its hands. Those rebels, after all, have been rushing into Lebanon. Where the divisions between Sunni and Shia have accelerated enormously in the past month, thanks to Hezbollah's incursion into Syria, fighting alongside the Alawite regime of Bashar al-Assad; leading the battles in fact, on the border towns between Syria and Lebanon.

And in so doing gaining the bitter enmity of all Sunnis, whether those located in Syria and fighting the regime, or those living in Lebanon, sympathizing with their sectarian brethren in opposition to Syria's dictator. Hezbollah's battle-smarts have aided the Syrian regime well beyond their own capacity to counter the rebel forces, particularly the battle-hardened Sunni Islamist fanatics; a match for their own fanaticism.

 A small contingent of rebel fighters led by Jabhat a-Nusra continued to fight for control of areas in southern Yabroud Sunday. Photo courtesy of the Qalamoun Observation Unit.

The fall to the regime of Yabroud occasioned huge celebrations in Lebanon, even as it ignites polarizing sectarian tensions. Syria's violence has seeped into Lebanon causing gun battles and rocket attacks, killing Lebanese, just as Syrians are dying in the paroxysms of tribal and sectarian blood-letting.

For the rebels it is a disaster they may hope to recover from; the loss of their last major rebel-held town in the Qalamoun region.

Their cross-country highway from Damacus to Homs is gone. A mere week foollowing the seizure by the Syrian army of Zara, another rebel conduit from northern Lebanon into central Syria. The military was busy removing booby-traps and bombs, while hunting down the rebel holdouts in Yabroud. But the Islamic Front has claimed its fighters have left the hills overlooking Yabroud overnight.

Government warplanes chased the rebels into Lebanon, according to state media, not that the rebels had pre-empted the government move to surround and slaughter them. "We are moving from one victory to another ... chasing terrorists and gangs, and soon, all their hideouts will be destroyed", exulted Syrian Defence Minister General Fahd Jassem al-Freij.