Hezbollah had just started celebrating its victory in the strategic town of Yabrud when a bombing targeted the village of al-Nabi Othman in the Bekaa Valley on the night of March 16. Not only did this bombing steal the joy of victory and mask the resistance members’ important achievement, but it has also raised several questions about the recently spread theory to justify Hezbollah’s military involvement in Syria. The theory states that most explosives-laden cars that targeted the Lebanese residential areas with Shiite-majority — which provide a welcoming environment for Hezbollah — came from Yabrud specifically. As soon as the grip was tightened on Yabrud, which is the so-called “pathway” for explosives-laden cars, the al-Nabi Othman operation was carried out.

It seemed as if this was a message indicating that the terrorist attacks will persist in Lebanon. Even if the military battle on the ground has been resolved, its goals have not been achieved. It is too soon to assess the results of the fall of Yabrud into the hands of the regime and its allies and to evaluate whether it has achieved its declared goals, as only time can show the real results of the Yabrud battle. However, it is also true that employing this victory in any project to unite the Lebanese will be a hard task. On the contrary, this victory has widened the rift among the Lebanese and embittered them, especially at the sectarian level.

The Yabrud victory uncovered yet another discrepancy in the thinking of people who defend the choice of military involvement in the Syrian war. As soon as the media announced the victory, the Syrian regime’s air force raided Arsal and the Labweh mountains, which are Lebanese regions, under the pretext of pursuing members of terrorist and extremist organizations who escaped from Yabrud. One cannot but wonder: Were all these efforts and sacrifices made in order to move the terrorists from the Syrian city of Yabrud to the Lebanese town of Arsal? What are the repercussions of the flow of refugees and militants on the stability of this small country and on its economy, demography and entity?

It is obvious to everybody that Hezbollah has been fighting its Syrian war under the banner of confronting terrorism and annihilating extremists. The party has used this pretext to justify its actions before Lebanese public opinion, including its popular base. The Shiites are afraid this conflict between brothers might persist, and they are worried about the subsequent bloodshed that will only deepen the rift among the country’s citizens. The strategy of annihilating terrorism pre-emptively in Syria has pushed those extremists to Lebanon and has produced negative results, presuming that all entities fighting the regime are terrorists and extremists.