BEIRUT, DAMASCUS — Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad reclaimed control of the central village of Dabaa on Thursday, Syrian state television said, a day after the army and Lebanon’s Hizbullah captured a rebel bastion.

On Wednesday June 5, The Syrian army and Hizbullah forces seized control of the strategic border town of Qusair, in a major advance for President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in the country’s two-year civil war.

Rebels said they had pulled out of Qusair, which lies on a cross-border supply route with neighboring Lebanon and where they had fought fierce battles with government forces and Hizbullah guerrillas for more than two weeks.

One Hezbollah fighter told Reuters that they took the town in a rapid overnight offensive, allowing some of the fighters to flee. “We did a sudden surprise attack in the early hours and entered the town. They escaped,” he said.

Assad’s forces fought hard to seize Qusair, which had been in rebel hands for over a year, to reassert control of a corridor through the central province of Homs, which links Damascus to the coastal heartland of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.

“Whoever controls Qusair controls the center of the country, and whoever controls the center of the country controls all of Syria,” said Brigadier General Yahya Suleiman, speaking to Beirut-based Mayadeen television.

Mayadeen showed soldiers sticking Syrian flags with photographs of Assad on piles of rubble spilling from shelled buildings across the torn up streets.

“Our heroic armed forces have returned security and stability to all of the town of Qusair,” a statement carried by Syrian state television said.

It marked the latest military gain for Assad, who has launched a series of counter-offensives against the rebels, who battling to overthrow him and end his regime’s four decade grip on power.

More than 80,000 people have been killed in the fighting and another 1.6 million Syrians refugees have fled a conflict, which has fueled sectarian tensions across the Middle East, spilled over into neighboring Lebanon and divided world powers.

Civilians hold up pictures of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and of his father, Syria’s late president Hafez al-Assad (R), as they celebrate in Qusair June 6, 2013, a day after the Syrian army took control of the town from rebel fighters. Syrian troops and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters pushed toward villages near Qusair on Thursday, a day after driving rebels from the border town shattered in weeks of combat. Insurgents seeking to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were putting up a fierce fight around the villages of Debaa and Buwayda as their opponents attacked rebel-held territory, activists and a photographer in the area said. REUTERS/Rami Bleibel

The outgunned rebels said they had pulled out of Qusair “in face of this huge arsenal and lack supplies and the blatant intervention of Hizbullah”.

The statement added: “Dozens of fighters stayed behind and ensured the withdrawal of their comrades along with the civilians.”

A security source with ties to Syrian forces said the army had control of most of the city but was still sweeping the northern quarter where rebels had dug in in recent days.

The Hizbullah fighter said the rebels had taken their weapons with them, and fled to the nearby village of Debaa where rebels still have some control.

The security source said Assad’s forces had opened an escape route into Debaa and the Lebanese border town of Arsal to encourage fighters to leave Qusair, once home to some 30,000 people.

Shortly after the Syrian Army announced controlling Qusair, on June 5, The Arab League condemned the Hizbullah military intervention in Syria.

A resolution issued after a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo expressed “strong condemnation” of all forms of foreign intervention, especially that by Hizbullah, said Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby.

Lebanon is the only country in the Arab League that rejected the resolution. The Lebanese minister of Foreign Affairs Adnan Mansour defended Hizbullah’s interference in Syria in a speech during the meeting in Cairo. 

He said Hizbullah interfered in Qusair to protect Lebanese citizens, who live in villages located within Syria, from the rebels.

“These extremist groups in Syria have sought to hit the nerve of the historical heritage between Syrian citizens and Lebanese people in mixed areas in the city of Qusair and countryside villages adjacent to Lebanon,” he added.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah’s secretary general, has said his forces will stay in the Syrian war and bring victory to Assad, a staunch ally of Iran.

The Arab League includes the influential Gulf states Saudi Arabia and Qatar, major supporters of the rebellion against Assad. The Syrian government was suspended from the 22-member body in 2011.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi’s national security adviser, Essam El-Haddad, described Hizbullah’s role in Syria as a crime and a mistake in comments published on Tuesday, June 4.

The Arab meeting aimed to forge a common position for a peace conference, which the international envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said on June 5 could take place in July.

The Arab League resolution said Syria would need a U.N. peacekeeping force during a period of interim government envisaged by an international peace plan.

It also reiterated support for the idea of a transitional government formed by mutual consent between the parties to the civil war, and including members of the Damascus government.

But Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said Assad would have no role in that government.

“The transitional council will have full powers. This means Assad has no role all his authorities will be transferred to the transitional authority, including defense and security,” he told the news conference.

The Arab League’s condemnation of Hizbullah did not go as far as the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which blacklisted Hizbullah as a terrorist organization on June 2.

The GCC has warned Arab Gulf citizens from travelling to Lebanon this summer, on June 6.

After the fall of Qusair, on June 6, Syrian rebels fired  about a dozen rockets on the Lebanese Shi’a city of Baalbek

Agence-France Presse, citing a security source, said two rockets landed near the city’s famous Roman ruins. Another three rockets hit the center of city, while others landed in areas surrounding Baalbek. 

Lebanese daily As-Safir reported that three people were injured in the attack.