There is growing talk within the Shiite community in Lebanon about Hezbollah's new front aimed at defending the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Villages in the Bekaa valley and the south, the strongholds of the party's social base, are beginning to bear the brunt of the war, as they receive the bodies of their sons who died on distant fronts in Syria.
A few days ago, the village of Mays al-Jabal, in the far south near the border with Israel, buried a young Hezbollah member who had gone to Syria just days before and returned wrapped in a party flag. Upon the arrival of his body in the village, a group of Hezbollah members wearing black uniforms received him and accompanied his coffin in a military procession to his parents' home. Among the masses of women dressed in black stood a large woman who broke into loud chants, a tradition of the region's inhabitants when they received the remains of martyrs who had fallen in the face of the Israeli army during its occupation of southern Lebanon. The relatives of Fayez, the fighter who had died in Syria, gave the chant a lukewarm response. His mother stepped aside, her forehead covered in dust, and lost consciousness for a moment as her husband glanced at her with sadness.