Hizbullah's control over border areas with Syria prevents refugees' return

BEIRUT -- Hizbullah's control over Syrian towns near the Lebanese border, where its fighters have acquired property and established drug production facilities, is preventing many Syrian refugees in Lebanon from returning, local activists said.

The Iran-backed Lebanese party is the dominant force in towns and villages near the border such as Qusayr, al-Qalamoun, al-Zabadani and in rural Homs, with areas it controls stretching to rural Aleppo and the eastern desert (Badiya).

Syrian regime forces took control of al-Qusayr and its surrounding villages in June 2013 with major support from Hizbullah, forcing many to flee to northern Syria or across the border into the Lebanese town of Arsal.

In the ensuing years, Hizbullah has turned al-Qusayr into its main base, using it as a launch point for military operations that have extended into other areas, especially along the Lebanese border.

In the process, Hizbullah has taken over the property of Syrians who fled the onslaught in areas the regime controls, in particular al-Qusayr, al-Qalamoun, Homs, rural Damascus, the Syrian capital and Daraya.

"Hizbullah is responsible for the displacement of Syrians and the occupation of Syrians' property in al-Qusayr and Madaya," said Syrian Network for Human Rights director Fadel Abdul Ghani.

It has controlled some parts of Syria for years, he said, which has prevented many former residents who fled the area from returning.

If Hizbullah leaves the Syrian villages and towns where it has established a presence, he said, many Syrian refugees would be able to return from Lebanon.

Land in Hizbullah's grip

A media activist who goes by the alias Ahmed al-Qusayr, which he adopted after leaving al-Qusayr in 2013, told Al-Mashareq he would return to his hometown once Hizbullah and the Syrian regime release their grip.

"Hizbullah has fully controlled al-Qalamoun and al-Qusayr since June 2013, after abusing and displacing local residents," he said.

"This has prevented people from returning, even those who wanted to return after getting permission from the regime to do so."

The Iran-backed party did not stop at displacing the local population, he said, but also proceeded to acquire lands and houses from many of them.

It has been using some of this land to cultivate drugs.

Hizbullah's control extends into regime-controlled areas, and associates of Hizbullah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are actively buying refugees' homes and lands to prevent them from returning to Syria, he said.

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad does not want the refugees to return to Syria, said Turki Mustafa, a Syrian researcher whose work focuses on Hizbullah.

Hizbullah has confiscated the homes of displaced Syrians in most of the towns and villages of western al-Qalamoun, Wadi Barada, Daraya and the Eastern Ghouta of Damascus, he told Al-Mashareq.

It also has a heavy presence in southern rural Idlib and rural Daraa, he said.

"Those who returned were imprisoned, recruited, forcibly disappeared, or killed on the spot," he said. "And those who survived found their homes and livelihoods looted and their rights violated."

Threats to returnees

In September 2021, Amnesty International published "a list of horrific violations committed by Syrian intelligence officers against 66 refugees who returned to Syria, including 13 children", said Lebanese affairs researcher Sahar Mandour.

"Syrian intelligence officers subjected returning men, women and children to arbitrary detention, torture, rape, sexual violence and forcible disappearance," she told Al-Mashareq.

Hizbullah is the main obstacle to the return of Syrian refugees from Lebanon, as is the al-Assad regime, said former justice minister Ashraf Rifi.

Both have destroyed homes and villages and have threatened people with violence or death, he told Al-Mashareq.

"The majority of Syrian refugees fled from al-Qusayr, Qara, al-Qalamoun and Yabrud, near Lebanon's eastern borders, as Hizbullah displaced them in mid-2013," he said.

"Since then, it has extended its control over the entire region and closed it off to its original residents," Rifi added.

"Hizbullah has turned these areas into warehouses for its ammunition and drug factories," he said. "Al-Qalamoun and al-Qusayr have become the world capital of Captagon, while the original inhabitants are forbidden to return to them."