From Basim:"But the move has put a strain on Hezbollah, which has paid a price in lives and prestige, with many analysts saying the toll in three years in Syria must have exceeded the 1,276 from 18 years spent battling Israel’s occupation.
PS (also from Basim): "I understand this habit among Western correspondents not based in Beirut, but for one who is, and who is a self-styled expert on Hizbullah, I don't know why Blanford repeatedly refers to Hasan Nasrallah with the honorific title of "Sheikh" when everyone knows it is properly "Sayyid."
Some are wearily asking – albeit in muted tones for now – where Nasrallah, a leader in whom they traditionally place absolute trust, is taking Hezbollah, the Shiite community, and Lebanon. “Nasrallah has taken the Shiites to dangerous places.... He started a war with our neighbors that we will feel for generations,” says Sheikh Sobhi Tufayli, a founder of Hezbollah and its first secretary-general, who was expelled in 1998 and is today a bitter critic of Nasrallah and the party leadership.
Military camps dot the wooded flanks of Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley where the huge influx of Hezbollah recruits over the past nine years have received basic training. Some later travel to Iran for advanced training in multiple disciplines, from firing artillery rockets and antitank missiles to learning parachuting skills and underwater sabotage, according to sources close to Hezbollah.
“We are fighting each other to see who can go to Syria first. We are stronger than ever,” says Abu Khalil, a Hezbollah veteran who has served more than 20 tours in Syria.
But one fighter with more than a decade’s experience admits that he wants to leave, having tired of watching his friends die in Syria and angry at the corruption he says he sees around him. Hezbollah once had an enviable reputation for financial probity, but in recent years, as it swelled in size, it has been marred by allegations of internal corruption. “It’s not only me. There are people who want to quit who have had enough of it,” the veteran fighter says, speaking on condition of anonymity."
PS (also from Basim): "I understand this habit among Western correspondents not based in Beirut, but for one who is, and who is a self-styled expert on Hizbullah, I don't know why Blanford repeatedly refers to Hasan Nasrallah with the honorific title of "Sheikh" when everyone knows it is properly "Sayyid."
I think the name given to his most recent fictional creation, "Abu Khalil", is one deliberately meant to annoy you."
