Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian conflict – where the group has been critical in allowing the Bashar al-Assad regime to erode years of opposition gains – had long ago drawn heated condemnation from across the Arab world. Even efforts by the Iran-backed group to demonize Israel are being met with eyerolls from Arab media outlets. Meanwhile Gulf leaders – which regularly criticize Hezbollah in the starkest terms – seem set to economically act against Lebanon, which Hezbollah dominates politically and militarily.

Now the group’s tactics are also coming in for harsh denunciations. Last week video surfaced allegedly showing Hezbollah fighters dragging severely wounded rebel fighters out of vehicles and executing them with machine guns. The footage was said to have come from the battle over Qusayr earlier this year.

Diana Moukalled, a Lebanese journalist and documentary film maker who focuses among other things on war zones in the Arab world, wants to know where the attention – let alone the outrage – is:

Why hasn’t Hezbollah denied the authenticity of the video—uploaded onto YouTube—allegedly showing Hezbollah fighters executing gravely wounded Syrians in Al-Qusayr?… The video… clearly depicted Hezbollah fighters killing helpless wounded Syrians, as their commander had urged them. Some fighters were reluctant about killing the wounded so their commander told them to execute them as stated by the “religious order.”…

Some were sure that the party would immediately declare that those involved were not Hezbollah fighters and that the circulated images do not represent the party’s ethics… Hours and days passed by and the party did not comment on the video.

Hezbollah’s video proves once again that the party’s involvement in Syria has trapped it into a tornado-like conflict that is unlike any other war. The party is now part of a machine that oppresses the Syrian people, its members are now classified as war criminals who should be prosecuted. This is now a crystal clear fact for the Arab and international community.

Meanwhile criticism is also growing over the tactics that Hezbollah has embraced to deal with the blowback its participation in Syria and tactics have generated. The group has had fortify its strongholds in the aftermath of jihadist violence, prompting renewed criticism of the state-within-a-state that the terror group has carved out inside Lebanon. Top figures in Lebanon have taken to saying as much in as many words.

[Photo: Julien Harneis / Wiki Commons]