Hezbollah running low on cannon fodder?

BERLIN – The Lebanese militia organization Hezbollah recruited combatants in Europe to bolster Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime in its war against rebel fighters.

According to an article in the Beirut- based The Daily Star last week, officials from March 14 – a largely pro-Western Lebanese political coalition opposed to Assad’s interference – had received security information about new Eastern European mercenaries arriving at the Rafik Hariri International Airport, in groups, on their way to Syria, presumably to fight alongside Assad’s regime.

“According to the one Eastern European country’s intelligence unit, most of these fighters have professional military experience and have fought in Chechnya.”

The report appears to be the first article to document links between Hezbollah’s operations in Europe and its military support for Assad. The material and combatant support would likely be a violation of EU anti-terrorism laws banning Hezbollah military aid.

Prof. Gerald Steinberg, a political scientist at Bar Ilan University, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that “this is another example of the difficulties that the EU and its member states have in responding realistically to Hezbollah. The EU’s fiction that distinguishes between ‘political’ and ‘military’ wings left Hezbollah’s infrastructure, including fund raising, largely intact in Europe. This in turn facilitated the recruiting and dispatch of thousands of terrorists from Europe to Syria to fight with Hezbollah for the Assad regime. And given the painfully slow process with which the EU corrects foreign policy mistakes, it is probably too late to avoid further damage, particularly when these terrorists return to Europe.”

The Daily Star wrote the fighters originated from Eastern European countries.

The paper did not identify the names of its sources and it is unclear which Eastern European countries are supplying mercenary combatants for Hezbollah.