BEIRUT — Eighteen rockets and mortars rounds from Syria slammed into Lebanon on Saturday, the largest cross-border salvo to hit a Hezbollah stronghold since Syrian rebels threatened to retaliate for the Lebanese militant group’s armed support of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The rockets targeted the Baalbek region, the latest sign that Syria’s civil war is increasingly destabilizing Lebanon. On Friday, the Lebanese parliament decided to put off general elections, originally scheduled for June, by 17 months, blaming a deteriorating security situation in the country.
In Qatar, an influential Sunni Muslim cleric whose TV show is watched by millions across the region, fanned the sectarian flames ignited by the Syria conflict and urged Sunnis everywhere to join the fight against Assad.
“I call on Muslims everywhere to help their brothers be victorious,” Yusuf al-Qaradawi said in his Friday sermon in the Qatari capital of Doha. “If I had the ability I would go and fight with them.”
“Everyone who has the ability and has training to kill … is required to go,” said al-Qaradawi, who is in his 80s. “We cannot ask our brothers to be killed while we watch.”
He denounced Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, as “more infidel than Christians and Jews” and Shiite Muslim Hezbollah as “the party of the devil.”
He said there is no more common ground between Shiites and Sunnis, alleging that Shiite Iran — a longtime Syria ally that has supplied the regime with cash and weapons — is trying to “devour” Sunnis.
The Syrian conflict, now in its third year, has taken on dark sectarian overtones. It has escalated from a local uprising into a civil war and is not increasingly shifting into a proxy war.
Predominantly Sunni rebels backed by Sunni states Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are fighting against a regime that relies on support from Alawites, Shiites and Christians at home, and is aided by Iran and Hezbollah. The Syria conflict is also part of a wider battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional influence.
Sunni fighters from Iraq and Lebanon have crossed into Syria to help those fighting Assad, while Shiites from Iraq have joined the battle on the regime’s side.
Sectarian tensions rose sharply when Hezbollah stepped up its involvement in the war in mid-May by joining a regime offensive against the rebel-held Syrian town of Qusair, about 6 miles from Lebanon. The town has since become one of the war’s major military and political flashpoints, with international concern growing over civilians believed to be trapped there.
On Saturday, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nation’s two top officials dealing with human rights and humanitarian issues said they were alarmed by reports that thousands of civilians are trapped in Qusair and that hundreds of wounded people are in urgent need of medical care.
The U.N. officials called for a cease-fire to allow the wounded to be evacuated. They said more than 10,000 people have fled to two nearby towns and need food, bedding, water and medical care.
The Red Cross said it has requested access to Qusair and is prepared to enter the city immediately to help the civilians there.
Syria’s political opposition cited Hezbollah’s role in the war and the dire situation in Qusair as reasons for not attending peace talks with the regime in Geneva, which the U.S. and Russia had hoped could be launched at an international conference this month.
Qusair has also become a rallying cry for rebels demanding Western weapons shipments, with the commander of the main Western-backed rebel group warning this week the town could fall soon if such arms are not delivered.
A regime victory in Qusair would deal a demoralizing blow to the rebels and solidify Assad’s control over the central province of Homs, the linchpin linking the capital Damascus with the Alawite strongholds on the Mediterranean cost.
For the rebels, holding the town means protecting their supply line to Lebanon. Rebels have sent reinforcements to the town to try to stem the regime advances. Both sides have suffered heavy casualties.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s role in Syria set off a mounting backlash from the rebels who threatened to target the militia’s bases in Lebanon if the militant group does not withdraw its fighters.
Over the past week, Syrian rebels have fired dozens of rockets on Lebanon’s northeastern region of Hermel, across the border from Qusair, but Saturday’s attack was the first on the Baalbek region, a Hezbollah stronghold.
