AL-QUSAYR, Syria — Penduduk Qusayr di tengah Syria akhirnya pulang ke tanah air selepas pemergian pejuang Hizbullah, yang membantu tentera Bashar Assad merampas bandar itu sedekad lalu dan pergi dengan kejatuhannya.
Kebanyakan rumah kini hancur, selepas bertahun-tahun di bawah kawalan kumpulan bersenjata Lubnan, sekutu utama Assad yang telah menubuhkan pangkalan tentera dan kem latihan di sana.
“Kebanyakan kawasan di bandar Qusayr adalah terlarang kepada kami,” kata penduduk berusia 22 tahun Ali Khleif.
“Malah penduduk tempatan yang memiliki kedai dan pertubuhan di situ dilarang masuk.”
Tentera Syria merampas semula Qusayr, dekat sempadan Lubnan, pada Jun 2013 selepas serangan hebat diketuai pejuang Hizbullah.
Qusayr telah digunakan oleh pemberontak sebagai titik transit untuk senjata dan pejuang dari Lubnan, dan secara strategik penting bagi kerajaan Syria kerana ia dekat dengan jalan utama menghubungkan Damsyik ke pantai.
Hizbullah menggunakan bangunan “sebagai gudang senjata dan peluru,” kata Khleif.
“Selepas pembebasan, penduduk kembali ke kedai dan tanah mereka” dan telah menuntutnya semula, katanya.
“Kami akan mula membinanya semula.”
Hizbullah mengakui pada 2013 ia berperang di Syria untuk menyokong Damsyik, dua tahun selepas perang meletus apabila Assad secara kejam menindas pemberontakan pro-demokrasi.
Kini di Qusayr, bekas pos Hizbullah telah digeledah.
Imej bekas ketua kumpulan itu Hassan Nasrallah, yang terbunuh pada September dalam serangan besar Israel di pinggir bandar selatan Beirut, telah dikerat dan dimusnahkan.
Pertempuran 2013 bagi Qusayr memaksa ribuan orang melarikan diri, termasuk ramai penduduk Lubnan di kawasan itu, yang mengekalkan hubungan rapat dengan Lembah Bekaa Lubnan di seberang sempadan.
Pejuang Hizbullah meninggalkan kawasan itu dengan kejatuhan Assad minggu lalu, selepas pemberontak pimpinan Islamis melancarkan serangan kilat, menawan ibu negara pada 8 Disember.
Peguam Ayman Soweid, 30, berkata “semasa pendudukan Hizbullah di Qusayr, bandar kami dianggap sebagai jambatan darat untuk mengangkut senjata, khususnya dari Syria dan Iran, melalui Iraq, melalui kami ke Lubnan.”
Serangan Israel juga berulang kali melanda kawasan Qusayr.
Israel, yang telah melakukan ratusan serangan di Syria sejak 2011, terutama menyasarkan tentera dan kumpulan disokong Iran termasuk Hizbullah, jarang mengulas mengenai serbuan individu tetapi berulang kali berkata ia tidak akan membenarkan Iran meluaskan kehadirannya di negara itu.
Di tempat lain di Qusayr, Samar Harfouch, 38, sedang meninjau timbunan runtuhan.
Dia berkata dia kembali pada Sabtu hanya untuk mendapati rumahnya musnah.
“Ini adalah rumah saya, dan ini adalah rumah saudara lelaki suami saya – tiga rumah,” katanya kepada AFP, juga menunjukkan lebih banyak rumah saudara terdekat.
“Semua musnah,” katanya.
“Dua belas rumah menjadi runtuhan.”
AN-AFP
Syrians return to ruined homes in city that became Hezbollah hub
AL-QUSAYR, Syria — Residents of Qusayr in central Syria are finally returning home after the departure of Hezbollah fighters, who helped Bashar Assad’s forces seize the city a decade ago and left with his fall.
Many of the houses are now in ruins, after years under the control of the Lebanese armed group, a key Assad ally which had set up a military base and training camp there.
“Most areas in the city of Qusayr were off-limits to us,” said 22-year-old resident Ali Khleif.
“Even the local residents who owned shops and establishments there were prohibited from entering.”
Syria’s military retook Qusayr, near the Lebanese border, in June 2013 after a blistering assault led by Hezbollah fighters.
Qusayr had been used by rebels as a transit point for weapons and fighters from Lebanon, and was strategically vital for the Syrian government because it is close to a major road linking Damascus to the coast.
Hezbollah used the buildings “as warehouses for weapons and ammunition,” said Khleif.
“After the liberation, the residents returned to their shops and land” and have reclaimed them, he said.
“We will begin rebuilding them.”
Hezbollah acknowledged in 2013 that it was fighting in Syria in support of Damascus, two years after war erupted when Assad brutally repressed a pro-democracy uprising.
Now in Qusayr, former Hezbollah posts have been ransacked.
Images of the group’s former chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in September in a huge Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, have been slashed up and destroyed.
The 2013 battle for Qusayr forced thousands to flee, including many Lebanese residents of the area, which maintains close ties to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley across the border.
Hezbollah fighters abandoned the area with the fall of Assad last week, after Islamist-led rebels pressed a lightning offensive, taking the capital on December 8.
Lawyer Ayman Soweid, 30, said that “during Hezbollah’s occupation of Qusayr, our city was regarded as a land bridge for transporting weapons, specifically from Syria and Iran, via Iraq, passing through us to Lebanon.”
Israeli strikes have also repeatedly hit the Qusayr area.
Israel, which has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since 2011, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed groups including Hezbollah, has rarely commented on individual raids but has repeatedly said it would not allow Iran to expand its presence in the country.
Elsewhere in Qusayr, Samar Harfouch, 38, was surveying piles of rubble.
She said she had returned on Saturday only to find her home destroyed.
“This is my home, and these are the homes of my husband’s brothers — three homes,” she told AFP, also indicating more relatives’ homes nearby.
“All destroyed,” she said.
“Twelve homes reduced to rubble.”
AN-AFP