Hezbollah has lowered its fighting age to 16. They are running low on the amount of Lebanese Shia men 18 and that can join their ranks. The Islamic State’s guerrilla war in the Qalamoun Mountains is bleeding Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s militant Shiite Hezbollah organization has begun sending fighters as young as 16 to the battlefields of Syria, an indication that the Shiite army is being stretched between fighting Sunni jihadis in Syria and a desire to keep a cutting edge in reserve for a possible future showdown with Israel.
Until now, Hezbollah had required fighters to be at least 18 years of age. The lowering of the age restriction could indicate that the Iran-backed party is feeling hard pressed as its cadres fight from Aleppo in north Syria to Deraa Province in the south, as well as dispatching advisers and trainers to the new battlegrounds of Iraq.
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Hezbollah had spearheaded a campaign between last November and early April to drive rebels from Qalamoun. But the renewed fighting sucked Hezbollah back into the area, and fighting has spilled across the border into Lebanon, where Hezbollah is battling a few thousand determined Syrian and Lebanese Sunni fighters drawn from an array of factions, including IS and Jabhat al-Nusra, Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.
Hezbollah’s adversaries have put up a stiff fight in the mountains east of the Shiite villages of Nahle and Younine, the Sunni town of Arsal, a bedrock of support for the Syrian rebels, and the Christian village of Ras Baalbek.
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Hezbollah generally does not disclose details of its fighting in Syria, but some of the mourners at the funeral provided an account of the battle, offering a rare insight into the intense fighting experienced by the cadres.
The 40-strong Haret Hreik unit was deployed onto a hill east of Nahle after another Hezbollah squad had seized it from Syrian militants. However, the Syrian militants used the rugged terrain to approach the Hezbollah men and launch a counterattack at close range. The Haret Hreik unit belatedly realized that they were ill-prepared. They had deployed with insufficient ammunition and the batteries on their walkie-talkies died so they could not call for back-up. And they didn’t have a single pair of binoculars to look for snipers.
The fighting raged for five hours against a Sunni force estimated at 250 fighters. One of the Hezbollah men, a grizzled veteran of Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, said it was the most intense combat he had ever experienced.
“They were only 10 meters from us, yelling ‘we are coming to kill you, O Rafideen’,” said the Hezbollah veteran, using a slur for Shiites popular with Sunni jihadis. He requested anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Hezbollah has an into a more ruthless enemy.