Thousands of Iraqi Shiites had flocked to Syria to fight alongside
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
The Scourge of Hama...
's forces against mainly Sunni rebels.
Many volunteered to defend the Sayyida Zeinab mosque, a revered Shiite shrine in southeast Damascus, from rebels based in the outskirts of the Syrian capital.
But as Sunni Arab Death Eaters swept up a large chunk of northern and north-central Iraq in a lightning offensive over the past week, the volunteers have begun heading home in response to a rallying cry by top Shiite holy man Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Iraqi volunteers headed home from the Mleiha area, southeast of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Their positions were taken over by fighters of Hizbullah
...
Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as
The Resistanceand purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory...
, which has also intervened heavily alongside Assad's forces in Syria's civil war, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
"The Iraqi pro-Assad fighters' pullout from the Mleiha area was accompanied by a relative lull in the fighting around there," he said.
"But that does not mean the regime has been left defenseless, as Hezbollah has deployed new troops to fill the gap."