BEIRUT: Hezbollah was drawn deeper into Syria’s civil war as 28 fighters from the group were killed and dozens more wounded while fighting rebels, opposition activists said Monday.

 

The intense battle in Qusair, part of a government offensive aimed at securing a strategic corridor from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast, drove rebels from large parts of the town.

 

Hezbollah-affiliated hospitals in Lebanon urged blood donations through mosque loudspeakers and ambulances raced along the Damascus road in a stark indication of the group’s increasingly prominent role in Syria.

 

The Hezbollah involvement – several funerals for group members were held Monday in Lebanon – edges the war further toward a regional sectarian conflict pitting the Middle East’s Iranian-backed Shiite axis against Sunnis.

 

A staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hezbollah is heavily invested in the regime’s survival. The group’s rising role in the war also points to the increasing sectarian nature of the Syria conflict, in which rebels from the Sunni majority seek to overthrow a regime dominated by Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

 

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 70 Hezbollah fighters had also been wounded in the fighting around Qusair.

 

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, cited unidentified “sources close to the militant group” for its Hezbollah death toll Monday. It said at least 50 Syrian rebels were also killed Sunday in the battle for Qusair.

 

A Lebanese official close to Hezbollah told AP the death toll figures were “exaggerated.” He added, however, that 14 Hezbollah members from southern Lebanon had been killed in the fighting Sunday, adding that the bodies of some of the fighters were still in Syria.

 

Regime troops and Hezbollah fighters, who laid siege to Qusair weeks ago, launched an offensive Sunday to regain control of the city, with fighters advancing from the east and south, a Syrian opposition figure said.

 

He added that it took Hezbollah troops a few hours to take control of the city’s main square and municipal building. By the end of the day, they had pushed out rebel units, including the AlQaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, from most of Qusair, he said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by both sides.

 

He said fighting was focused in the northern part of the city Monday.

 

The account matched that of Syria’s state news media, which reported that Assad’s troops took control of most of Qusair Monday.

 

An official in the Homs governor’s office told AP that more than 60 percent of the city was in government hands after scores of gunmen were killed or surrendered Sunday.

 

But Qusair-based opposition activist Hadi Abdullah denied reports that the army was advancing in the city, saying they were still trying to storm it.

 

“They go in and out. Until now I can say with confidence that they have not been able to enter the town and stay there,” Abdullah said.

 

Evidence of the Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria was on full display in Lebanon’s border villages Monday.

 

In the town of Nabi Sheet in the Bekaa Valley, about 2,000 people attended the funeral of Hasan Shukur, an 18-year-old Hezbollah fighter.

 

Hezbollah comrades fired in the air in mourning and played the group’s funeral march as they carried Shukur’s coffin draped in a yellow Hezbollah flag through the streets at his funeral attended by senior members of the group.

 

“We will fight in all of Syria because we are fighting the Israeli enemy,” said Sheikh Mohammad Yazbeck, a member of Hezbollah’s highest decision-making body, the Shura Council. Shukur is the son of a Hezbollah official and a nephew of the head of the Lebanese branch of Syria’s ruling Baath Party. He was among several group members who were buried Monday.

 

In a sign of solidarity, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, Syria’s top state-appointed Sunni religious leader and an Assad loyalist, toured the families of slain Hezbollah members in south Lebanon Monday.