THE SHIITE JIHAD IN SYRIA AND ITS REGIONAL EFFECTS

46 n THE SHIITE JIHAD IN SYRIA
reaches of Damascus near the vital M5 Damascus–Aleppo highway. Following
combat in Barzeh, on December 13, 2013, the group moved into towns to the
north, notably Adra, which also abuts the M5 highway. These operations coincided
with Hezbollah and other Iraqi Shiite militia movements in the more
rural and mountainous area to the north known as Qalamoun, where LAFA
was also reportedly involved in the battles. LAFA’s operations commander, Ali
Diab al-Rihal, was reportedly killed fighting in Yabroud, a town in Qalamoun
where a major battle involved Iraqi Shiites and Hezbollah elements. 238
The Qalamoun campaign demonstrated the highly cooperative, if not
interlinked, nature of the many Shiite militia organizations operating in
Syria. In addition to Liwa Dhulfiqar’s movements, LAFA, AAH, and Afghan
fighters were all reportedly present in the area along with Lebanese Hezbollah.
Many of these deployments were announced from February to early
March 2014.
Zainab Reprise and Syria’s “Hezbollahzation”
The “defense of Sayyeda Zainab” theme has been embraced by foreign and
domestic Shiite fighters, including those with Lebanese Hezbollah. Indeed,
for Syrian Twelver Shiites, who make up just 2 to 4 percent of the country’s
population, Hezbollah is playing an outsize role when it comes to security,
ideology, and the future at large. The group also wields remarkable influence
over other Shiite groups operating within the country. And it has been aided
militarily by Iran, which has helped rebuild, retrain, and at times construct
from scratch elements that would later become Syria’s NDF, along with Syrian
Alawite groups.
The Hezbollah stance is especially pronounced when one looks at Nubl
and Zahra, two Shiite towns surrounded by pro-rebel forces since 2012. In
defending these towns, Hezbollah has not only showed its ability to reinforce
security but has also altered the conflict narrative 239 from the Assad
line emphasizing a secular “fight against terrorists” to an extension of the
“defense of Sayyeda Zainab.” This Zainab narrative has been promoted
regardless of local conditions and narratives, and was notable in the SSNP
example provided earlier.
This narrative shift was quite prominent in Busra al-Sham, a town best
known for its Roman ruins and also home to a minority Shiite population. In
2009, Khalid Sindawi noted that the area “had an indigenous Shiite population
for a century, but their Shiites have professed to be Sunnis.” 240 Neverthe-