Fierce fighting in Qusair as Syrian troops launch major operation

Fighting was today raging in the strategic town of Qusair after Syrian troops launched a major operation on “terrorists.”

State media said the army had “restored security and stability” to most of the rebel-held town - a claim denied by activists.

At least 50 people have been killed since yesterday and the fighting has spilled over the border into Lebanon.

Lebanese Hezbollah fighters attacked the rebel-held town alongside Syrian troops yesterday in what activists said was the fiercest fighting in Syria’s two year-old civil war involving the group. About 30 Hezbollah militants and 20 Syrian soldiers were reported to have been killed.

Speaking from Qusair near the border with Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, activist Hadi Abdallah said Syrian warplanes bombed the town in the morning and shells were hitting the town at a rate of up to 50 a minute.

“The army is hitting Qusair with tanks and artillery from the north and east while Hezbollah is firing mortar rounds and multiple rocket launchers from the south and west,” he said.

Syrian state media said army units have pushed deeper into the strategic town near the Lebanese border and are fighting street battles with the rebels.

The SANA news agency says President Bashar Assad’s troops took control of most of Qusair today.

But the state news service also says government forces are still fighting “terrorists” in several town districts.

Fighting has raged around Qusair, in Homs province, for weeks.

In Lebanon, at least five people were injured in clashes between supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and rebel backers in Tripoli, according to the national news agency.

Meanwhile Israel has threatened more attacks on Syria to rein the militia in, highlighting the risks of a wider regional conflict if planned peace talks fail.

Assad has poured scorn on the idea that the U.S.- and Russian-sponsored conference planned for Geneva next month would end fighting.

“They think a political conference will halt terrorists in the country. That is unrealistic,” he told the Argentine newspaper Clarin.

Meanwhile Oxfam has warned that Jordan and Lebanon were in urgent need of help to support hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees who had fled the fighting.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in Syria since March 2011.