DHAKA: Hezbollah is preparing to defend Damascus from an invasion by the Syrian rebels following a possible US strike, as well as preparing for retaliation against Israel if the situation in the area calls for it.

Lebanese sources told Saudi newspaper Okaz on Thursday, reports The Jerusalem Post.

The sources told the paper that the Shia organisation recruited 10,000 fighters, who were tasked to defend the Syrian capital in the event the Syrian army fails to thwart attacks on it from both the rebels and the United States.

An attack on Israel, however, will only take place ‘after receiving a specific order [to do so] from Iran’, the sources told Okaz.

The sources added that Hezbollah has intentionally remained silent in recent days because ‘the organisation’s leadership understood right from the start that a military strike on (Damascus) is inevitable’.

Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on Tuesday that Hezbollah ‘called on all its officers and members to man their positions’ ahead of the planned US strike on Syria.

Hezbollah fighters have left their regular positions and checkpoints in southern Beirut, turning off their mobile phones so that they could not be traced, according to the witnesses.

The head of the anti-Hezbollah movement Al-Mustaqbal (‘Future’) expressed doubt of Hezbollah’s ability to respond to the impending military strike.

‘The masters of Hezbollah in Syria and Iran cannot respond,’ Moyin Marabi said.

‘So a criminal sect that acts as a militia and gets its instructions from its masters surely cannot respond either.’

BDST: 1635 HRS, SEPT 05, 2013
RoR/Jck