The raging battles in the Syrian border town of Zabadani have claimed the lives of over 400 rebels and 60 Hezbollah fighters since the campaign started, a security source told The Daily Star Thursday. The source said that Hezbollah and the Syrian army continued to make major advances in Zabadani and are patiently executing their final push in the embattled town in order to curb the number of casualties. The source said that Hezbollah and the Syrian army killed more than 400 rebel fighters during their offensive on Zabadani, among them 154 foreigners. The allied forces currently hold 189 militants in captivity. Conversely, Hezbollah lost 60 fighters in the fighting. Eighty-seven Hezbollah fighters were wounded in the battles and their wounds range from medium to serious. Hezbollah and the Syrian army launched the offensive on Zabadani in early July. Zabadani is located 50 kilometers northwest of Damascus and 12 kilometers northeast of Lebanon's Masnaa border crossing. The town bears strategic significance for Hezbollah, as it once served as a logistical hub for the import of Iranian weapons. It also served as a base for party fighters and members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The operation in Zabadani follows on an earlier Hezbollah and Syrian army offensive that began in May which drove rebels out of much of the Qalamoun mountains along the Lebanon-Syria border. Late in August, a cease-fire agreement that arranged a pause in the fighting in Zabadani in return for Syrian rebels halting their own offensives in the Shiite villages of Kefraya and Foua, in Syria's Idlib province, collapsed.
