BEIRUT // The leader of Hizbollah says extremist fighters have been pushed out of large areas of a mountain range along the Lebanon-Syria border in fighting over the past week.
In a televised speech on Saturday, Hassan Nasrallah said Hizbollah fighters working with Syrian government forces had seized a large swath of the strategic Qalamoun region.
The Iranian-backed Lebanese group and Syrian troops are fighting ISIL and Jabhat Al Nusra, Al Qaeda’s Syria affiliate. The mountain range is close to Syria’s capital, Damascus, and links it to the coastal heartland of president Bashar Al Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Nasrallah said 13 Hizbollah fighters and seven Syrian soldiers had been killed in Qalamoun over the past week.
* Associated Press
