By Nohad Topalian | 2024-07-11

BEIRUT -- Hizbullah has blocked farmers from accessing land near Dabaa military airport, northeast of the Syrian city of al-Qusayr in Homs province, preventing them from harvesting their wheat and barley.

Residents of al-Damina village say the Iran-backed party is keeping people off their land through threats and direct targeting, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported May 22.

Activists in al-Qusayr who spoke to Al-Fassel confirmed this account, noting the irony that the farmers being kept from their land are loyal to the Syrian regime.

A source from Dabaa village told the Observatory that landowners near the airport in Dabaa, Masoudiyah and al-Qusayr have refrained from cultivating their agricultural lands for years.

This is out of fear of Hizbullah, which has detained landowners on accusations of sharing information and photographs of military sites, the source said.

"The villages of al-Damina al-Gharbiya, al-Ghassaniya, Abu Houri, al-Zariya and al-Buwayda in the vicinity of Dabaa airport and near al-Qusayr are loyal to the regime and Hizbullah," said activist and al-Qusayr native Ahmed Abu al-Huda.

Yet the party prevented the farmers from harvesting their crops, because their lands are near the airport, he told Al-Fassel.

Returning from Lebanon, displaced residents of the al-Qusayr area discovered that Hizbullah had uprooted their apricot trees and planted cannabis in their place, he said, and prevented them from accessing their land.

"Hizbullah considers Dabaa airport a strategic area for its goals, and al-Qusayr is an essential artery for drug cultivation and a crossing point for the transport of Iranian weapons to its strongholds in Lebanon," Abu al-Huda noted.

Hizbullah's drone training

Hizbullah "has absolute control over Dabaa airport and trains its elements on the operation of one-way drones, specifically the Shahed 136," Syrian strategy researcher and opposition figure Mustafa al-Nuaimi told Al-Fassel.

"Hizbullah uses the airport to train its elements on the manufacture and development of drones that are shipped in disassembled parts to it by Iran to Syria," he said.

"The party runs the Iranian drone and missile programs at Dabaa airport and then transports them to the areas under its control in the southern suburb of Beirut and southern Lebanon," al-Nuaimi explains.

Hizbullah restricts access to agricultural land in these areas as it considers the lands of Syrian farmers "to be its private property," he said.

"It also considers the city of al-Qusayr the most important pillar of its project inside Syria, as it is a hub on the border between Syria and Lebanon for the transport of weapons, equipment and drones to the south," he said.

"That's why it has absolute control over al-Qusayr."