Battle of Qalamoun (2013–2014)

Battle of Qalamoun
	Part of the Syrian civil war
	; Battle of Western Qalamoun (2013–2017) Syrian Government & Hezbollah control Lebanese Government & Hezbollah control Syrian Opposition control For a war map of the current situation in Rif Dimashq, see here.
Date	15 November – 15 December 2013; (1 month) (First phase) 10 February – 16 March 2014; (1 month and 6 days) (Second phase) 17 March – 26 April 2014; (1 month, 1 week and 2 days) (Third phase)
Location	Qalamoun Mountains (An-Nabek District and Yabroud District), Syria
Result	Decisive Syrian Army & Hezbollah victory Government forces take almost full control of the Qalamoun Mountains border region, including the An-Nabek District and Yabroud District;
Belligerents
Syrian Arab Republic Syrian Armed Forces; Hezbollah; Arab Nationalist Guard	Al-Nusra Front; Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant; Green Battalion Islamic Front Free Syrian Army
Commanders and leaders
Gen. Badi Ali	Abu Malek al-Tallah (WIA); (Qalamoun commander); Abu Azzam Al-Kuwaiti †; (Qalamoun deputy commander; Ahmed al-Assir ; (Lebanon commander) ; Abu Ayman al-Iraq Ahmad Nawaf Durra †; (Qalamoun commander); Bilal Kharyoush †; (Qalamoun deputy commander); Salim Barakat †; (Qara commander); Firas Qassem †; (local Yabrud commander)
Units involved
Syrian Armed Forces Syrian Army; National Defence Forces; Iraqi militias Liwa Abu al-Fadhal al-Abbas; Liwa'a Zulfiqar (Iraqi militia); Christian militias Saidnaya NDF militias; Lions of the Cherubim;	Katiba al-Bittar al-Libi
Strength
~10,000 Syrian Army troops (deployed for the assault on Yabrud); 15,000 Hezbollah fighters (opposition claim); "Several hundred" Christian militiamen	25,000–30,000 rebels
Casualties and losses
First phase:; Unknown; Second phase:; 180 killed (47 Hezbollah fighters; Army claim); 1,800 killed and injured (140 Hezbollah fighters; opposition claim)	First phase:; 100 killed and captured (An-Nabk battle; Army claim); Second phase:; 1,479 killed, including at least 13 commanders (Army claim); Low hundreds of losses (opposition claim)

The Battle of Qalamoun started on 15 November 2013, with air strikes on the town of Qara, in the strategic Qalamoun region, in an attempt by the Syrian Army to cut rebel supply lines to Damascus from Lebanon. The strategic region had been used by rebel forces as a rear base for its operations around the capital Damascus. For its part, government forces had been using the nearby highway to link Damascus with the central Homs province and had multiple weapons depots in the area. The battle was primarily led on the rebel side by the Al-Nusra Front.

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