With the bodies from the battle over the border at Qusair, comes the violence, as civil conflict between Syria’s Iranian-backed ruler and Sunni rebels spreads across the Middle East; the Shi’ite militia’s drive to save Syria’s president is testing Lebanon’s own fragile, sectarian peace and raises the stakes in a broader struggle for power in the region and the wider world.

Having long denied its engagement in Syria behind President Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollah has committed itself this week to the fight for the strategic small town of Qusair, sending hundreds of men and losing dozens wounded and between 20 and 50 killed.

Their coffins, escorted by stern-faced Hezbollah gunmen and corteges flying the movement’s yellow banner, stream back to Shi’ite villages in the northeastern Bekaa Valley, ending any discretion about its backing for Assad and his Alawite minority.

For all that staff at hospitals taking in the wounded around the town of Hermel keep doors closed to journalists and insist “There’s nothing to see”, the war has widened its scope.

And with Sunnis and Alawites in the nearby Lebanese port of Tripoli also engaged in the fiercest communal fighting yet, the spread of violence beyond Syria is accelerating.

Already sectarian killing has surged in Iraq, bombs have hit Turkey and Israeli air strikes in Syria targeted Iranian arms for Hezbollah while world powers remain divided among themselves as they try to push Syria’s rivals into holding peace talks.

For Rami Khouri at the American University of Beirut, Hezbollah’s Syrian venture risks rebounding into Lebanon and could even – in a very worst case – fuel a regional war:

“It would vastly increase the likelihood of massive internal Lebanese strife between pro- and anti-Hezbollah groups, broadly pitting Sunnis and Shi’ites against each other, while also inviting another major war with Israel, or possibly participation in an American-Israeli/Iranian-Syrian war.”

RISKS FOR HEZBOLLAH

Hezbollah, armed by Iran since Lebanon’s civil war in the 1980s, outguns Beirut’s weak central government as well as other factions, including Sunnis, Christians, Druze and Palestinians.

But in nailing its colors to Assad’s bid to crush a Sunni uprising, the Shi’ite movement has alienated fellow Arabs in the region who once respected it, at least for fighting Israel. It may also irk Lebanese Shi’ites, who have counted on Hezbollah’s protection locally but are not necessarily enthusiastic about dying for Iran in its rivalry with Arab powers and the West.

Rafik Nasrallah, a political analyst in Beirut who is close to Hezbollah, said the movement had been obliged to intervene in Syria to protect Lebanese interests and it had taken into account the prospect of a violent reaction from rival groups:

“There is no Lebanese state, there are groups in the security apparatus here that serve different regional powers or countries,” Nasrallah said. “Hezbollah’s job is to protect Lebanon and its borders, it is doing what it has to do.

“This is a decisive battle,” he said of Qusair, near Homs, which rebels have held to secure supply routes from Lebanon and to disrupt movement between Damascus and Syria’s Alawite region.

“Hezbollah believes that this battle is of great strategic importance, and they will bear the consequences,” he added, as reports from Syria indicated Hezbollah fighters and Assad’s troops had made some gains after days of fighting in the town.

On the frontlines, the intervention appears to have hardened sectarian attitudes among rebels fearful of losing a key position: “The fall of …. Qusair will completely change the struggle in Homs province from a revolution into a major assault on Alawites and Shi’ites wherever they are,” said a fighter who uses the name Abu Bilal, speaking to Reuters from Homs.

“Rebel battalions here all agree on this. And every side of this conflict knows this is what is at stake in Homs.”

Hezbollah’s forces are tiny beside the tens of thousands of troops, with tanks and jet aircraft, that Assad can call on even after Sunni desertions from his army. But it does have thousands of guerrillas, many of whom saw action against Israel in 2006.

Hezbollah’s alliance with Assad has not been an easy one for it on the regional stage, but its leaders remain unapologetic, arguing it is crucial to their “axis of resistance” – the term it uses for its anti-Israel alliance with Tehran and Damascus.

The “Party of God”, once admired across the Arab world as a bulwark against Israel, is now derided as “Hezb al-Shaytan” – Party of the Devil – and a sectarian catspaw of non-Arab Iran.

Former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri, a Sunni with powerful allies in Saudi Arabia, said this week: “Hezbollah has chosen to copy Israeli crimes against Lebanon and its people and apply them to the inhabitants of the Syrian city of Qusair.

“It has become the spearhead of a crime carried out by the regime against its people, which can also be described as the Iranian defense army of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.”

“RESISTANCE”

Hezbollah, in turn, has sought to shore up its pan-Arab credentials by accusing its rebel enemies at Qusair of being sponsored by Israel and Western powers – thus justifying its intervention as part of its “resistance” to the Jewish state.

“Israel is in Qusair … The attack on Syria is all part of an Israeli, foreign-led attack on Syria,” said Amin Hateit, a Lebanese commentator close to Hezbollah. “This is a party of ideology, not nationalities. So wherever there are enemies to those beliefs, its fighters will go. They go voluntarily.”

It is unclear, however, quite how willingly Lebanese Shi’ites will go on fighting and dying in Syria like Radwan and Ali Qassem al-Attar, brothers who fell at Qusair a few days ago and in whose memory yellow Hezbollah banners now fly at a spot near their home, off a dusty side road in the Bekaa Valley.

Syria’s war is intruding on pastoral tranquility. Men in camouflage secure checkpoints; the peace of cows grazing nearby is shattered by occasional rocket fire. Locals point to a white-tented Hezbollah position just over the border, on Syrian land.

But a security source close to Hezbollah believes it cannot count on unlimited backing from its local supporters. Leaders had calculated, he said, that the movement could afford to lose several dozen men at Qusair, due to its strategic importance.

But if the battle drags on, recruitment might suffer. Party media were playing down the losses, he said. But he added: “The party can’t help that, whatever they do, if a man in one of these villages dies, every villager will go to that funeral.

“Soon they could start asking ‘Why should we fight and die for Syrians?’”

(Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

Opposition fighters said air strikes and shelling rocked the small town on the Syrian-Lebanese border that has seen some of the fiercest fighting in months in the two-year-old war that has so far cost at least 80,000 lives.

The fighting has drawn in fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, the latest sign of outside involvement in the war and evidence, according to Britain, that Iran and its allies in the militant group are lending increasing support to Assad.

After months of warnings from regional and international experts, violence is now spilling over Syria’s borders, with clashes between pro- and anti-Assad factions in the Lebanese city of Tripoli and exchanges of fire between Syrian and Israeli forces in the Golan Heights.

Alarmed by the prospect of a wider conflict, the United States and Russia have agreed to back international peace talks intended to bring the rebels and Syrian government back to the table, although expectations of a breakthrough are low.

Security fears following bombings that killed 51 people in the Turkish town of Reyhanli earlier this month prompted Turkey on Wednesday to close a nearby border crossing with Syria. Turkey has accused Syria of involvement in the attacks. Damascus has denied any role.

While rebels are reinforced by foreign Islamists loyal to al Qaeda, the high-profile involvement of Iranian-backed Hezbollah on the government side has been accompanied by a report from a senior U.S. official of the presence of Iranians in Qusair.

SENATE BOOST

In a boost to the rebels, a U.S. Senate panel voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to send them weapons, but it was not clear who would get the arms even if the bill succeeds.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 15-3 for legislation that would send arms to “vetted” moderate members of the Syrian opposition, the first time U.S. lawmakers have approved such military action in Syria.

The measure will now be considered by the full Senate, where a vocal group of legislators has been pushing for President Barack Obama to do more to help the rebels.

There is less enthusiasm for arming the rebels in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, so it is not clear whether a Senate bill would ever get through Congress and reach Obama and be signed into law.

The outcome in Qusair will determine the status of important rebel supply routes into Syria and whether Assad can ensure access to important northern areas. It could also mean devastation for areas of nearby Lebanon.

Sunni rebel leaders have warned of sectarian revenge attacks against Shi’ites and Alawites on either side of the Syrian-Lebanese border if rebels lose Qusair. Fighters speak of a tacit agreement among their units to launch village by village attacks should they lose the town of 30,000.

George Sabra, acting head of the opposition National Coalition, called on fighters to send arms and men to the Qusair area, citing concern over sectarian violence and “foreign invaders” from Hezbollah and Iran.

WEAPONS APPEAL

“Everyone who has weapons or ammunition should send them to Qusair and Homs to strengthen its resistance. Every bullet sent to Qusair and Homs will block the invasion that is trying to drag Syria back to the era of fear,” Sabra said in a statement.

Assad’s forces are intent on seizing Qusair in order to cement their hold on a belt of territory that connects the capital Damascus to Assad’s stronghold on the Mediterranean coast, home to his minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam that has largely supported him.

Seizing Qusair would also allow Assad to sever links between rebel-held areas in the north and south of Syria.

With Shi’ite Hezbollah prominent in the fight in Qusair, its involvement could drag Syria’s civil war – which already pits mainly Sunni Muslim rebels, including radical Islamists and foreign fighters, against an Alawite-led army – into a more regional sectarian conflict.

Sabra warned that Hezbollah forces in Qusair could enflame Sunni-Shi’ite tensions across the Middle East.

“The invasion will light a sectarian fire that will destroy relationships between countries in the region and their people. No one will benefit other than Israel.”

Pro-Assad media have reported major advances for Hezbollah and state forces. Rebels deny they have lost ground.

Some opposition sources privately said they believed that the army, lead by Hezbollah ground units, has seized about 60 percent of the town. But they say rebels are fighting back hard, as they consider it a battle that could determine the fate of the uprising.

EXPLOSIONS

“If we lose Qusair, we lose Homs, and if we lose Homs, we lose the heart of the country,” said Ahmed, a rebel speaking by Skype from the nearby town of Homs as explosions and gunfire crackled in the background.

One rebel source, who asked not to be named, said Assad and Hezbollah forces had cut most of the opposition’s overland supply lines into Qusair. But he said the rebels were still able to bring some supplies and fighters in through secret tunnels.

An analyst close to Qatari officials said the Sunni Gulf state, which has funneled money and weapons to the opposition, was looking for new routes to send in supplies to Qusair.

Rebel forces from other parts of Syria appear to have taken the call for support seriously.

The large Islamist Tawheed Brigade in the northern province of Aleppo published a video of a 30-car convoy it said was heading to Qusair.

Sedans and pickup trucks loaded with artillery and fighters sped down the highway, with rebels waving black Islamist banners shouting “God is Great.”

As countries in the anti-Assad “Friends of Syria” alliance gathered for talks in Jordan, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Iran and Hezbollah were “propping up” Assad.

“It is very clear that the Syrian regime is receiving a great deal of support, increasing support in recent months from outside Syria from Hezbollah and Iran. This is a regime that is increasingly dependent on external support,” Hague said at a news conference in Amman.

Hague said Britain would urge international powers to set a date in the next few days for an international conference to try to end the Syrian conflict.

The talks are expected to be held in Geneva next month.

(Writing by Giles Elgood; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Sectarian bloodshed in neighboring Iraq during Friday prayers, a hacking attack on a Western newspaper by sympathizers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and defiant comments by a rebel commander filmed eating a slain soldier’s flesh were all reminders of how the two-year-old civil war is metastising.

But the divisions among world powers that have prevented a coordinated resolution were also again on display, just 10 days after Russia and the United States agreed to bury differences and push for an urgent international conference to end the war.

The most senior U.S. military officer, General Martin Dempsey, described Russia’s recent delivery of anti-ship missiles to Assad as “ill-timed and very unfortunate” and risked prolonging a war which has already killed more than 80,000 Syrians and which the U.N. said had driven 1.5 million abroad.

While not responding directly to U.S. assertions that it had sent Yakhont missiles, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said Russia would honor contracts to supply Syria, which has been a customer for Moscow’s weaponry since the Cold War.

“It’s at the very least an unfortunate decision that will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering,” Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

With a range of 300 km (200 miles), the Yakhont could prove a threat to warships in the Mediterranean, should, for example, Western powers abandon their deep reserve and intervene to offer air support to the rebels, as they did in Libya two years ago.

No date has yet been agreed for the international meeting, which appears to face growing obstacles. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met Putin in Russia on Friday and said the conference should take place as soon as possible.

But highlighting the diplomatic conundrum it poses, France spelled out explicitly on Friday that it would oppose any meeting if Assad’s regional ally Iran were invited – contrary to the Russian position that Tehran should be part of a solution.

ESCALATION

The rebels and key Arab and Western backers will meet in Amman on Wednesday to discuss how to approach a conference. But it is also far from clear that Assad’s opponents can forge a united front or agree to meet the president’s representatives.

After months of diplomatic stalemate, Washington and Moscow have been pushed to convene the conference by the rising death toll and atrocities, signs of escalation across Syria’s frontiers and suspicions that chemical arms may have been used.

Three weeks ago, Israeli air strikes near Damascus that were said to target Iranian weapons heading for Lebanon drove home the risk of the Syrian conflict spreading further afield. As much was true of bombings last week across the border in Turkey.

On Friday, dozens of Iraqis were killed in bombings which fuelled fears that the increasingly sectarian war in Syria, where Sunni Islamists are a part of the rebellion and Assad’s Alawite minority is backed by Shi’ite Iran, could plunge Iraq back into its own bloody civil conflict between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims.

Two bombs exploded outside a Sunni mosque in the city of Baquba as worshippers left Friday prayers, killing at least 43 people in one of the deadliest attacks of recent months.

Several other bombings claimed lives around the country – with 19 killed near a commercial complex in the west of Baghdad. Attacks on Sunni and Shi’ite mosques, security forces and tribal leaders have mounted since troops from the Shi’ite-led Iraqi government raided a Sunni protest camp near Kirkuk a month ago.

London’s Financial Times became the latest Western media outlet to be targeted by online activists who support Assad.

Stories on the FT’s website had their headlines replaced by “Hacked By Syrian Electronic Army” and messages on its Twitter feed read: “Do you want to know the reality of the Syrian ‘Rebels?’” followed by a link to a video that purports to show members of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front rebel group executing blindfolded and kneeling Syrian soldiers.

The video could not be independently verified.

Following another of many Internet videos that have caused concern over deepening communal hatreds, a rebel commander who was filmed apparently cutting out and biting into the heart or other organ of a dead solder made a statement on Friday.

“I am ready to be held accountable for my actions, on condition that Bashar and his shabbiha (militias) are tried for crimes they committed against our women and children,” the man known as Abu Sakkar said in a new video posting.

“I send this message to the world: if the bloodshed in Syria does not stop, every Syrian will become Abu Sakkar.”

Asked by the unseen interviewer why he mutilated the body, he said the soldier’s phone contained video clips of him raping women, burning bodies and cutting off the limbs of captives.

JUNE MEETING?

A Western diplomat at the United Nations in New York said the target date for the peace conference was June 10-15, but it depended on the readiness of the Syrian parties. An alternative plan would be to hold an international conference and then have the Syrians meet at a later date when they are prepared.

The Russian arms transfer could intensify a push by some U.S. lawmakers for the United States to deepen its role in Syria, particularly after President Barack Obama’s government acknowledged preliminary intelligence that Assad’s forces likely used chemical weapons – something Obama has called a “red line”.

“We can watch from the sidelines as the scales are tipped in Assad’s favor, or protect U.S. national interests by supporting the armed opposition striving to build a new Syrian future,” said Senate foreign relations committee chairman Robert Menendez.

But many U.S. officials fear Western weapons could fall into the wrong hands. Obama said Thursday he would consider both diplomatic and military options to pressure Assad, but insisted U.S. action alone would not be enough to resolve the conflict.

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Sectarian bloodshed in neighbouring Iraq during Friday prayers, a hacking attack on a Western newspaper by sympathisers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and defiant comments by a rebel commander filmed eating a slain soldier’s flesh were all reminders of how the two-year-old civil war is metastising.

But the divisions among world powers that have prevented a coordinated resolution were also again on display, just 10 days after Russia and the United States agreed to bury differences and push for an urgent international conference to end the war.

The most senior U.S. military officer, General Martin Dempsey, described Russia’s recent delivery of anti-ship missiles to Assad as “ill-timed and very unfortunate” and risked prolonging a war which has already killed more than 80,000 Syrians and which the U.N. said had driven 1.5 million abroad.

While not responding directly to U.S. assertions that it had sent Yakhont missiles, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said Russia would honour contracts to supply Syria, which has been a customer for Moscow’s weaponry since the Cold War.

“It’s at the very least an unfortunate decision that will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering,” Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

With a range of 300 km (200 miles), the Yakhont could prove a threat to warships in the Mediterranean, should, for example, Western powers abandon their deep reserve and intervene to offer air support to the rebels, as they did in Libya two years ago.

No date has yet been agreed for the international meeting, which appears to face growing obstacles. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met Putin in Russia on Friday and said the conference should take place as soon as possible.

But highlighting the diplomatic conundrum it poses, France spelled out explicitly on Friday that it would oppose any meeting if Assad’s regional ally Iran were invited – contrary to the Russian position that Tehran should be part of a solution.

ESCALATION

The rebels and key Arab and Western backers will meet in Amman on Wednesday to discuss how to approach a conference. But it is also far from clear that Assad’s opponents can forge a united front or agree to meet the president’s representatives.

After months of diplomatic stalemate, Washington and Moscow have been pushed to convene the conference by the rising death toll and atrocities, signs of escalation across Syria’s frontiers and suspicions that chemical arms may have been used.

Three weeks ago, Israeli air strikes near Damascus that were said to target Iranian weapons heading for Lebanon drove home the risk of the Syrian conflict spreading further afield. As much was true of bombings last week across the border in Turkey.

On Friday, dozens of Iraqis were killed in bombings which fuelled fears that the increasingly sectarian war in Syria, where Sunni Islamists are a part of the rebellion and Assad’s Alawite minority is backed by Shi’ite Iran, could plunge Iraq back into its own bloody civil conflict between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims.

Two bombs exploded outside a Sunni mosque in the city of Baquba as worshippers left Friday prayers, killing at least 43 people in one of the deadliest attacks of recent months.

Several other bombings claimed lives around the country – with 19 killed near a commercial complex in the west of Baghdad. Attacks on Sunni and Shi’ite mosques, security forces and tribal leaders have mounted since troops from the Shi’ite-led Iraqi government raided a Sunni protest camp near Kirkuk a month ago.

London’s Financial Times became the latest Western media outlet to be targeted by online activists who support Assad.

Stories on the FT’s website had their headlines replaced by “Hacked By Syrian Electronic Army” and messages on its Twitter feed read: “Do you want to know the reality of the Syrian ‘Rebels?’” followed by a link to a video that purports to show members of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front rebel group executing blindfolded and kneeling Syrian soldiers.

The video could not be independently verified.

Following another of many Internet videos that have caused concern over deepening communal hatreds, a rebel commander who was filmed apparently cutting out and biting into the heart or other organ of a dead solder made a statement on Friday.

“I am ready to be held accountable for my actions, on condition that Bashar and his shabbiha (militias) are tried for crimes they committed against our women and children,” the man known as Abu Sakkar said in a new video posting.

“I send this message to the world: if the bloodshed in Syria does not stop, every Syrian will become Abu Sakkar.”

Asked by the unseen interviewer why he mutilated the body, he said the soldier’s phone contained video clips of him raping women, burning bodies and cutting off the limbs of captives.

JUNE MEETING?

A Western diplomat at the United Nations in New York said the target date for the peace conference was June 10-15, but it depended on the readiness of the Syrian parties. An alternative plan would be to hold an international conference and then have the Syrians meet at a later date when they are prepared.

The Russian arms transfer could intensify a push by some U.S. lawmakers for the United States to deepen its role in Syria, particularly after President Barack Obama’s government acknowledged preliminary intelligence that Assad’s forces likely used chemical weapons – something Obama has called a “red line”.

“We can watch from the sidelines as the scales are tipped in Assad’s favour, or protect U.S. national interests by supporting the armed opposition striving to build a new Syrian future,” said Senate foreign relations committee chairman Robert Menendez.

But many U.S. officials fear Western weapons could fall into the wrong hands. Obama said Thursday he would consider both diplomatic and military options to pressure Assad, but insisted U.S. action alone would not be enough to resolve the conflict.

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Jon Hemming)

A video released on Friday showed the commander in Syria’s central Homs province, known as Abu Sakkar, praying in a field and taking questions from a cameraman.

“I am ready to be held accountable for my actions, on condition that Bashar and his shabbiha (militias) are tried for crimes they committed against our women and children,” he said.

“I send this message to the world: if the bloodshed in Syria does not stop, every Syrian will become Abu Sakkar.”

A video of Abu Sakkar, a founder of the well known Farouq Battalion in Homs, went viral earlier this week. It showed him cutting into the torso of a dead soldier and taking a bite out of one of his organs.

The video caused outrage among both supporters of Assad and opposition figures. But many in the opposition have since expressed anger that the video has sparked a greater outcry than similarly horrific videos of rebels and activists being tortured to death.

Asked by the unseen interviewer why he mutilated the soldier’s body, Abu Sakkar said the man’s phone contained video clips of him raping women, burning bodies and cutting off the limbs of captives.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition group which has documented and published dozens of execution and torture tapes from both sides, said it was frustrated by what it said was a disproportionate response.

“The Observatory condemns such acts no matter the perpetrator and has regularly released videos like Abu Sakkar’s or executions by the (al Qaeda linked) Nusra Front,” Rami Abdelrahman, the group’s head, said by telephone.

“But we have also sent dozens of videos of summary killings, of men being tortured to death, of children’s bodies burned or shot in the head. The international community seems to ignore the inhumane treatment of Syrian opposition (activists) and children but cries injustice over the abuse of the corpse of an Assad soldier.”

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

The uprising against four decades of Assad family rule began as peaceful protests but turned into a bloody insurgency after a fierce crackdown by state forces and pro-Assad militias.

Videos of torture and execution have become increasingly common tools of psychological warfare and intimidation on both sides of a conflict that has killed more than 94,000 people, according to the Observatory.

The United Nations says at least 80,000 have died.

The violence has become increasingly sectarian. Majority Sunni Muslims have led the revolt while minorities, particularly Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, have largely backed the president.

Human Rights Watch monitors said that in the unedited version of Abu Sakkar’s mutilation film, the commander tells his men to “slaughter the Alawites and take their hearts out to eat them”, before biting into the soldier’s heart.

Abu Sakkar has been seen in previous videos firing rockets at Lebanese Shi’ite villages on the border and posing with the body of a soldier purportedly from the Lebanese Shi’ite militant Hezbollah group, which is helping Assad’s forces.

Reuters could not independently verify the videos or rebel reports, as access to the country for independent media is restricted by the government and security constraints.

(Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

The dispute bodes ill for a civil war in which more than 70,000 people, mostly civilians, have died, and that has left foreign powers looking increasingly helpless.

A senior Kremlin official who attended talks on Friday between President Vladimir Putin and British Prime Minister David Cameron said it would be impossible to meet a target of holding the conference by the end of May.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tried to free a two-year diplomatic logjam on Tuesday by saying they would seek to organize a conference, ideally this month.

The Russian official said there was broad agreement that the situation in Syria was dire. “Beyond that there are very many differences: who can take part in this format, who is legitimate and who is not legitimate,” the state-run Itar-Tass agency quoted him as saying, on condition of anonymity.

Russia has been President Bashar al-Assad’s main protector and weapons supplier and says that, although it is not wedded to him, it will not allow his departure, demanded by Western and many Gulf powers, to be a precondition of talks.

Kerry appears to have shifted the U.S. position by saying Assad’s exit should be the outcome of negotiations on a transitional government, rather than the starting point.

REBELS DIVIDED

But the opposition remains divided, not least between those who will and will not consider talking to Assad.

Samir Nashar, a representative of the umbrella Syrian National Coalition, which says Assad’s departure must be guaranteed in any talks, said Russia wanted “groups other than the National Coalition to be present, such as the National Coordinating Body”.

Most leaders of the rebellion dismiss the NCB because it opposes the armed uprising and also talks to the government.

Nashar said the National Coalition, whose leaders operate outside Syria, had decided it could not accept an invitation to the conference unless Assad’s removal was guaranteed.

“We feel that we cannot discuss a political solution with a man who is responsible for killing thousands of people and destroying thousands of homes,” he said. “The United States is trying to convince us that the result of these talks would be Assad’s removal, but we remain unconvinced.”

Russia has long argued that rebel intransigence – encouraged by Western and Gulf Arab insistence that Assad must go – is the main obstacle to a peace process.

“It is impossible to do this without the opposition,” the Russian official said. “But what opposition? That’s the question. We believe there is no clear center with which it is possible to conduct negotiations so that the commitments would then be fulfilled.”

Nashar said the United States was considering trying to circumvent the official leadership of the National Coalition by enlisting figures such as Moaz Alkhatib for the conference.

RESPECTED LEADER

The Sunni Muslim cleric resigned as head of the Coalition after other leaders, particularly those linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, opposed his proposal of talks with Damascus in exchange for the release of political prisoners.

But his resignation has not yet been accepted, and he remains one of the few leaders of the uprising to enjoys real popularity on the ground and, perhaps more importantly, the respect of pro-Assad Syrians, who regard him as a potential negotiating partner.

Separately, the state-run Russian news agency RIA cited a diplomatic source as saying that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, already invited to Russia by President Vladimir Putin, wanted to visit him in Sochi next week.

RIA also cited a source in Jerusalem as saying the possible delivery of Russian S-300 air defense systems to Syria would be the main topic on the agenda. An Israeli official said only that Netanyahu and Putin were likely to meet sometime soon.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing U.S. officials, that Israel had told Washington that Syria had begun payments for a $900 million upgrade of its Russian-made air defenses to the S-300 system, and an initial delivery was due within three months.

The system is designed to shoot down planes and missiles at up to 125 miles, and its use would complicate any outside military intervention in Syria’s civil war.

Russia has expressed concern about Israeli air strikes in Syria this year, which Israeli sources say were aimed solely at preventing advanced weaponry getting to the Shi’ite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, a major Assad ally, in Lebanon.

The Kremlin official declined to specify to reporters whether Russia would be supplying the more advanced system.

“We are fulfilling contracts signed earlier,” he said. “All weapons delivered under old contracts are purely defensive.”

(Additional reporting by Denis Dyomkin in Sochi; Writing by Kevin Liffey; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

“If the aim of your attack was to prevent the strengthening of the resistance’s capabilities, then Syria will give the resistance sophisticated weapons the like of which it hasn’t seen before,” he said in a televised speech on Thursday.

“The resistance is prepared to accept any sophisticated weaponry even if it was to break the equilibrium (in the region),” Nasrallah said.

“We are worthy of having such weapons and we would use them to defend our people and our country and our holy sites.”

Israel launched a series of raids near the Syrian capital last Friday and followed up with air strikes early on Sunday morning that shook the city and lit up the horizon.

Western and Israeli sources said its aim was to take out “game-changing” Iranian missiles destined for Lebanon’s Shi’ite group Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006 and is a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his struggle against a two-year revolt.

Syria is a pivotal ally of the regional Shi’ite power Iran and believed to serve as its conduit to Hezbollah. Israel fears the group could act as a proxy for Iran along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel.

Concerns are growing that the war in Syria is seeping across borders that mark faultlines of Middle Eastern conflicts.

Lebanon and Syria have technically been in a state of war with Israel since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948, though Syria has kept its frontier with Israel quiet for decades.

“We announce that we stand with the Syrian popular resistance and offer material and spiritual support as well as coordination in order to liberate the Syrian Golan,” Nasrallah said.

In the days following Israeli strikes last Friday and Sunday, Syrian state media quoted unnamed sources saying that Damascus had given the green light for operations against Israel from the Golan, although so far there have been no clear signs of increased militarization.

The Golan in recent months has become a battleground between Assad’s forces and the rebels fighting to topple him.

The Syrian civil war has killed more than 70,000 people and become increasingly sectarian.

Majority Sunni Muslims lead the revolt, while Assad has received the bulk of his support from minorities, particularly his own Alawite sect, a Shi’ite offshoot.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Evans; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Visiting Moscow after Israel bombed targets near Damascus and as President Barack Obama faces renewed calls to arm the rebels, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russia had agreed to try to arrange a conference as early as this month.

An East-West disagreement that has seen some of the frostiest exchanges between Washington and Moscow since the Cold War has deadlocked U.N. efforts to settle the Syrian conflict for two years, so any rapprochement could bring an international common front closer than it has been for many months.

Israeli air strikes, reports of the use of chemical weapons and the increasing prominence of al Qaeda-linked militants among the rebels have all added to international urgency for an end to a war that has killed more than 70,000 people.

But with Syria’s factional and sectarian hatreds more entrenched than ever, it is far from clear the warring parties are ready to negotiate with each other. Most opposition figures have ruled out talks unless Assad and his inner circle are excluded from any future transitional government.

“No official position has been decided but I believe the opposition would find it impossible to hold talks over a government that still had Assad at its head,” said Samir Nashar, a member of the opposition’s umbrella National Coalition body.

“Before making any decisions we need to know what Assad’s role would be. That point has been left vague, we believe intentionally so, in order to try to drag the opposition into talks before a decision on that is made.”

In the past, the United States has backed opposition demands that Assad be excluded from any future government, while Russia has said that must be for Syrians to decide, a formula the opposition believes could be used to keep Assad in power.

Opposition members said they were concerned by comments from Kerry in Moscow, echoing Russia, that the decision on who takes part in a transitional government should be left to Syrians.

“Syrians are worried that the United States is advancing its own interests with Russia using the blood and suffering of the Syrian people,” said National Coalition member Ahmed Ramadan.

“We are in touch with the U.S. side and need to be assured that there is no change in its position on Assad.”

Inside the country, where rebel groups are numerous and have disparate views, a military commander in the north, Abdeljabbar al-Oqaidi, told Reuters he would want to know details of the U.S.-Russian plan before taking a view. “But,” he added, “if the regime were present, I do not believe we would want to attend.”

There was no immediate response from the Syrian government, which has offered reforms but dismisses those fighting it as terrorists and puppets of outside powers – the West, Turkey and Arab states opposed to Assad’s ally Iran. Speaking before the announcement in Moscow, Assad sounded his usual defiant tone.

“The recent Israeli aggressions expose the extent of the complicity between the Israeli occupier, regional countries and the West in promoting the current events in Syria,” he was quoted as saying by a Lebanese televisions station.

“The Syrian people and their heroic army … are capable of confronting this Israeli adventure, which represents one of the faces of terrorism that is targeting Syria every day.”

COMMON INTERESTS

Alarmed at the prospect of the conflict spilling across a volatile region central to global energy supplies and transit routes, the major powers have, as Kerry told Putin on Tuesday, “very significant common interests” in pushing for a settlement.

“The alternative,” Kerry later told a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “is that Syria heads closer to an abyss, if not over the abyss and into chaos.”

Both sides fear a failed state in Syria could provide a base for hostile militants willing to strike around the world.

Last June, at a conference in Geneva, Washington and Moscow agreed on the need for a transitional government in Syria but left open the question of whether Assad would be excluded. Diplomacy has foundered since then, and the mediator of the Geneva conference, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, quit in despair, saying differences among powers were too wide.

Rejecting a characterization of Moscow as the protector of Assad, to whom it still provides arms, Lavrov said Russia was not concerned by the fate of “certain” individuals.

“The task now is to convince the government and all the opposition groups … to sit at the negotiating table,” he said.

Kerry said the conference should be held “as soon as is practical – possibly and hopefully by the end of the month”. Neither he nor Lavrov said where it might take place.

Russia, backed by China, has vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions hostile to Assad. Alarmed at Western powers’ use of a U.N. mandate to oust Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Moscow and Beijing are wary of such interference in their own affairs.

ASSAD DEFIANT

Recent developments have focused minds on the risks of wider war in the Middle East.

The White House said last month that Assad’s troops had probably used chemical weapons – which Obama has called a “red line” that would mandate a strong, if unspecified, response. The Syrian government and the rebels have each accused the other of using poison gas, a charge both sides deny.

Islamist fighters have pledged allegiance to al Qaeda, highlighting the risk to the West that a poorly managed change of leadership in Syria could bring hostile militants to power.

And Israeli air strikes in recent days – which Israeli officials said hit Iranian arms headed for Assad and Tehran’s Lebanese allies Hezbollah – underlined the risk of escalation and cross-border conflict in the heart of the Middle East.

The violence has inflamed a confrontation between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims in the Middle East, with Shi’ite Iran supporting Assad and Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia backing the rebels.

Tehran warned of unforeseeable consequences if Assad were toppled and said only a political settlement would avert a regional conflagration.

“God forbid, if there is any vacuum in Syria, these negative consequences will affect all countries,” Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in Jordan. “No one knows what will happen.”

COOPERATION

Diplomatic sources in Moscow made clear the latest push for peace was being driven by growing alarm following the Israeli air raids, the possibility of foreign arms pouring into Syria and the possible use of chemical weapons.

Moscow and Washington have also signaled they want to improve cooperation on security matters since the Boston Marathon bombings, which U.S. officials suspect was carried out by ethnic Chechens who had lived in Russia. U.S. officials said FBI chief Robert Mueller had been in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss the bombings, but gave no details.

In a further sign of Washington’s efforts to improve ties with Russia, Kerry avoided any sharp public criticism of Moscow’s human rights record when he met civil rights activists in the Russian capital on Wednesday before his departure.

In Syria itself, Internet connections with the outside world were cut off on Tuesday, according to data from Google Inc and other global Internet companies.

Google’s Transparency Report pages showed traffic to Google services pages from Syria suddenly stopping shortly before 10 p.m. Damascus time (1900 GMT).

Obama has shown little desire to embroil U.S. forces in Syria after winding down engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has rejected criticism he might back out of a commitment to act if Assad crossed the “red line” of using chemical weapons.

On Tuesday, he pointed to the deaths of Osama bin Laden and Gaddafi to say “we typically follow through on our commitments”.

Obama has said U.S. intelligence agencies believe Assad’s forces probably used chemical arms but that the evidence is not entirely conclusive. Syria is not part of an international treaty that bans poison gas but has said it would never use chemical weapons in an internal conflict.

The chaos in Syria, where a fifth of the 25 million population has been driven from their homes, was underlined by the latest incident of rebels taking U.N. peacekeepers hostage on the ceasefire line with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the incident and called for the four Filipinos’ immediate release. They were detained as they patrolled close to an area where 21 Filipino observers were held for three days in March.

The Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade said the peacekeepers were seized for their own safety during clashes in the area.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Arshad Mohammed, Timothy Heritage, Alexei Anishchuk and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Alastair Macdonald, Timothy Heritage and Peter Graff; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

A day after the announcement by Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow of plans for a peace conference, opposition figures said they were still reluctant to talk with President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

They worry that a peace conference would be cover for a diplomatic initiative to press them to accept Assad or his inner circle as leaders in a future transitional government.

“Before making any decisions we need to know what Assad’s role would be. That point has been left vague, we believe intentionally so, in order to try to drag the opposition into talks before a decision on that is made,” said Samir Nashar, a member of the opposition’s umbrella National Coalition body.

“No official position has been decided but I believe the opposition would find it impossible to hold talks over a government that still had Assad at its head,” he told Reuters by telephone from Istanbul.

Syria’s conflict is now in its third year and has killed more than 70,000 people. The rebellion that began as a protest movement against four decades of Assad family rule descended into civil war after a security force crackdown.

In the past, the United States has backed opposition demands that Assad be excluded from any future government, while Russia has said this must be for Syrians to decide in talks, a formula the opposition believes could be used to keep Assad in power.

Opposition members said they were concerned by comments from Kerry in Moscow that the decision on who takes part in a transitional government should be left to Syrians, fearing Washington will drop its insistence that Assad be removed.

“Syrians are worried that the United States is advancing its own interests with Russia using the blood and suffering of the Syrian people,” said National Coalition member Ahmed Ramadan, speaking by telephone.

“We are in touch with the U.S. side and need to be assured that there is no change in its position on Assad.”

Russia supplies Assad’s government with arms and has used its veto, along with China, to prevent U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for Assad to be removed.

Lavrov hinted on Tuesday that Moscow was not committed to Assad, saying Russia was not concerned with the fate of particular individuals, although Russia has made such comments in the past without changing its position.

Many rebels have firmly stated they are unwilling to negotiate with anyone from the Syrian regime.

“Unfortunately I don’t think there is a political solution left for Syria. I think that is clear by now,” said Colonel Qassim Saadedine, a spokesman for the rebel Supreme Military Council.

“We will not sit with the regime for dialogue. And frankly, I don’t think Assad’s decisions are really in Russia’s hands. Right now he is only looking toward Iran,” referring to Assad’s main backer within the region.

Lavrov said the U.S. and Russia aimed to hold talks along the lines of a Geneva agreement negotiated by then U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan in June 2012 that called for an end to violence and the establishment of a transitional government.

Since then, diplomacy has foundered over the question of whether Assad must be excluded from the transition, and Annan quit months later, saying the lack of agreement among U.N. powers made his job impossible.

(Reporting by Erika Solomon)

Visiting Moscow after Israel bombed targets near Damascus and as President Barack Obama faces new calls to arm the rebels, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Russia had agreed to try to arrange a conference as early as this month involving both President Bashar al-Assad’s government and his opponents.

East-West disagreement that has seen some of the frostiest exchanges between Washington and Moscow since the Cold War has deadlocked U.N. efforts to settle the Syrian conflict for two years, so any rapprochement could bring an international common front closer than it has been for many months.

But with Syria’s factional and sectarian hatreds more entrenched than ever after 70,000 deaths, it is far from clear the warring parties are ready to negotiate. There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government, which has offered reforms but dismisses those fighting it as “terrorists”.

The late hour of the announcement in Moscow – Kerry was kept waiting for three hours by President Vladimir Putin – also meant leaders of the Western-backed opposition umbrella group the Syrian National Coalition were not available for comment. Many on the body have insisted Assad’s exit is a condition for talks.

Inside the country, where rebel groups are numerous and have disparate views, a military commander in the north, Abdeljabbar al-Oqaidi, told Reuters he would want to know details of the U.S.-Russian plan before taking a view: “But,” he added, “if the regime were present, I do not believe we would want to attend.”

Alarmed at the prospect of the conflict spilling across an already volatile and economically important region, however, the major powers have, as Kerry told Putin late on Tuesday, “very significant common interests” in pushing for a settlement.

“The alternative,” Kerry later told a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “is that Syria heads closer to an abyss, if not over the abyss and into chaos.

“The alternative is that the humanitarian crisis will grow. The alternative is that there may be even a break-up of Syria.”

GENEVA AGREEMENT

A year ago, at a conference in Geneva in June, Washington and Moscow agreed on the need for a transitional government in Syria but left open the question of what would happen to Assad, whose departure Obama has called for but which Russia, accusing the West of meddling, says should be a matter for Syrians only.

Rejecting a characterization of Moscow as the protector of Assad, to whose army it has been a major arms suppliers since the days of his father’s rule, Lavrov insisted Russia was not concerned by the fate “certain” individuals.

“The task now is to convince the government and all the opposition groups … to sit at the negotiating table,” he said.

Kerry said the conference should be held “as soon as is practical – possibly and hopefully by the end of the month”. Neither he nor Lavrov said where it might take place.

Kerry said there would be “a growing crescendo of nations who will want to push for a peaceful resolution, rather than the chaos that comes with the break up of a country”.

Although the United States has said Assad should not be part of a transitional government in Syria, Kerry said the decision on who takes part in it should be left to the Syrians.

Lavrov said the aim would be “to persuade the government and the opposition together … to fully implement the Geneva communiqué” on creating a transitional government.

Russia, backed by China which shares its mistrust of Western enthusiasm for toppling autocrats, has refused appeals to consider sanctions on Assad, vetoing three U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning his crackdown on opposition groups.

ASSAD DEFIANT

Recent developments have helped focus minds on the risks of wider war in the Middle East: intelligence reports that Assad’s troops may have used chemical weapons had renewed calls for Obama to arm the rebels or even offer U.S. forces; Islamist fighters pledging allegiance to al Qaeda has highlighted how some of the rebels are also hostile to the West; and Israeli air strikes in the past few days, said to target Iranian arms headed for Lebanon’s Hezbollah, have underlined the risk of escalation.

Speaking before the announcement in Moscow, Assad was quoted by a sympathetic Lebanese television channel as saying he would defy Israel, the United States and Arab powers who oppose him: “The recent Israeli aggressions expose the extent of the complicity between the Israeli occupier, regional countries and the West in promoting the current events in Syria,” he said.

“The Syrian people and their heroic army … are capable of confronting this Israeli adventure, which represents one of the faces of terrorism that is targeting Syria every day.”

While showing little desire to embroil U.S. forces in Syria after winding down engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama has rejected criticism that he might back out of a commitment to act if Assad crossed a “red line” of using chemical weapons.

On Tuesday, he pointed to the killing of Osama bin Laden and of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, brought down by U.S.-backed rebels, as evidence that “we typically follow through on our commitments”. It is still unclear if chemical weapons were used.

The chaos in Syria, where a fifth of the 25 million population has been driven from homes, was underlined by the latest incident of rebels taking U.N. peacekeepers hostage on the ceasefire line with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the incident and called for the four Filipinos’ immediate release. They were detained as they patrolled close to an area where 21 Filipino observers were held for three days in March.

The Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade said they were taken in for their own safety during clashes in the area.

More widely, the violence in a religiously and ethnically diverse country at the heart of the Arab and Muslim world has inflamed a confrontation between Iran and its fellow Shi’ite allies like Hezbollah on the one hand and the Sunni Arab powers, including U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, who back the Sunni rebels against Assad’s Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.

Iran, at daggers drawn with Israel and the West over its nuclear program, warned of unforeseeable consequences if Assad were toppled and said only a political settlement to Syria’s civil war would avoid a regional conflagration.

“God forbid, if there is any vacuum in Syria, these negative consequences will affect all countries,” Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in Jordan. “No one knows what will happen.”

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Washington, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Arshad Mohammed, Timothy Heritage, Alexei Anishchuk and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Alison Williams)