Syria forces accuse Hezbollah of attacks, sponsoring smuggling at border

Hezbollah has launched attacks on Syrian security forces and is sponsoring cross-border smuggling gangs, the new Syrian authorities said on Monday, according to state media.

Syrian forces clashed with smuggling gangs this week, most of whom were affiliated with Hezbollah, but did not target Lebanese territory, Lieutenant Colonel Moayed al-Salama said in a statement carried by official news agency SANA.

Hezbollah was allied to former Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, who was toppled by Islamist-led rebels in December.

The new authorities in Damascus launched anti-smuggling operations last week at the Lebanese-Syria border, where the Iranian-backed group holds sway.

Salama was reported as saying: "most smuggling gangs on the Lebanese border are affiliated with the Hezbollah militia, whose presence now poses a threat at the Syrian border because it sponsors drug and weapon smugglers".

"We have developed a comprehensive plan to fully control the borders," said the official, whom SANA described as the commander for the western region in the Border Security Administration.

Nadim Madkhana, the head of border security for the Homs province neighboring Lebanon, told AFP that security operations were "nearly finished" and now focused on "regaining control" of border areas that witnessed clashes.

He said Syrian forces remained "vigilant... for fear that the armed groups that have crossed into Lebanon would return".

- 'Good coordination' -

Madkhana also told AFP there was "good coordination between the Syrian army border security and the Lebanese army" at the border.

On Saturday, the Lebanese army said it responded to incoming fire from across the Syrian border, two days after the new authorities in Damascus said they had launched operations against smugglers there.

The army did not name those responsible for firing towards Lebanon.

Earlier, Salama said Syrian forces "did not target the Lebanese interior, despite shelling from the Hezbollah militia reaching our units".

He blamed "the defunct regime" for turning "the Syrian-Lebanese border into corridors for the drug trade in cooperation with the Hezbollah militia, promoting the presence of armed smuggling gangs".

Operations "were limited to Syrian border villages, targeting the armed smuggling gangs and remnants (of the Assad government) and militias who fought with them", he added.

Syrian forces seized "farms, warehouses and factories for the production and packaging of hashish and captagon pills", he said, referring to the potent synthetic drug which Syria mass-produced under Assad.

They also found presses specialized in printing counterfeit currency, he said, as well as as shipments of weapons and drugs that were about to cross in.

Syria shares a 330-kilometre border with Syria, with no official demarcation at several points, making it porous and prone to smuggling.

Assad's fall in December disrupted Hezbollah's arms supply lines through the land border with Syria.