With vital support from Hezbullah militants, the Syrian regime forces have dealt a severe blow to Islamist militants after capturing the strategic border town of Yabroud, cutting off the main supply route of weapons from neighbouring Lebanon. The fall of Yabroud comes just days after the Syrian regular army seized another strategic village, the village of Zara, which used to be a conduit for rebels from Lebanon into central Syria. The military operation in Yabroud appears to have been rapidly concluded with an unexpected collapse of the fighters of the main Islamist rebel alliance, the Islamic Front. Though a long and fierce battle was anticipated, the Syrian Army alongside Hezbollah managed to capture Yabroud in a matter of days. In Syria, this has been taken to be a significant step as Yabroud was one of the main strongholds of the opposition on the Syrian-Lebanese border. On the Syrian level, the fall of Yabroud dashed the hopes of the Islamist rebels to take control of the strategic Al-Qalamoun mountains, which are the a link between Damascus and Homs in the West and accordingly putting an end to the initial plan to form a strip from the Lebanese to the Iraqi borders. But the outcome leaves unanswered several questions concerning the effect this will have on Lebanon. Yabroud is supposed to be the main link for the opposition between Syria and Lebanon. In particular, Yabroud coincides with the Lebanese village Arsal, which has been sympathetic with the Syrian extremist groups as well as a site of operations for their activities within Lebanon. Given its role as a facilitator of the movement between Syria and Lebanon, the loss of Yabroud suffered by extremist Islamist groups can lead to different outcomes. On the one hand, the absence of a strategic link between the two would badly affect other militant Islamists operating in Lebanon and consequently lead to their gradual decline and eventually dismantling. Yet the absence of a bridge that ensures a continuous support from the Lebanese side may also push militants currently present on Lebanese soil to pursue their struggle on the Western side of the border. Such attempts would involve a swift organization of the scattered forces in order to strike against Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army where possible. The latter option seems, however, unlikely for two reasons. First, the weakening of the Syrian opposition and its rapid collapse in Yabroud has instigated the beginning of a reevaluation concerning the political position certain groups in Lebanon have undertaken. We can see this most obviously in Arsal, where a split with regard to welcoming escaping combatants from Yabroud has emerged. Though many injured militants have been taken into the hospitals of the town, others who have escaped from Yabroud were not welcomed and found themselves trapped in the outskirts of Arsal. Second, the relative steadying of the political situation in Lebanon after the formation of the government should push in the direction of a strict solution concerning the security threats that have been present over the past year. The Lebanese Army had already begun its work in seizing car bombs prior to their explosion and continues to do so today. Importantly, during the past few days, and after the collapse of the fighters of the Syrian opposition, several vehicles already equipped for bombing have been seized. But there's a double consequence for the increasing activity of the Lebanese Army in locating and dismantling terrorist activity. It is true that those threats have become concentrated in certain regions away from the capital and closer to the area of conflict on the Syrian border. For instance, the latest suicide car bomb did not target the southern suburbs of Beirut, Hezbollah's stronghold, but instead was steered towards the Bekaai village, Nabi Osman. However, this has also led to a new development, which is the explicit targeting of the Army. The last few days have witnessed an increase in attacks on the Lebanese Army in Tripoli and near Arsal. What is clear is that the result of the battle of Yabroud imposed a strategic change on terrorist activity in the vicinity of the Syrian-Lebanese border. Such a shift has limited security threats more or less to areas around the border. But the limiting of terrorist activity will require a firm decision to undertake security operations that need to be coupled with a political decision to terminate violent extremist activity. Whether this will occur or not will depend largely on the decisions the new government in Lebanon endorses.
