Dahieh residents celebrate the Syrian army's control of Qusayr

Following the Syrian army's announcement of the complete control of al-Qusayr, gunshots were fired and sweets were distributed on passersby in Beirut's Southern Suburbs to celebrate the Army's control over this "strategic" town.        

Images broadcast Wednesday in Syria by media embedded with the Syrian army in al-Qusayr showed a deserted town, with heavily damaged buildings.        

Military bulldozers were removing rubble and clearing roads as armored vehicles whizzed by.        

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said al-Qusayr came under intense overnight shelling, forcing the rebel fighters, short of ammunition, to withdraw.       

Both the Syrian army and the rebels value al-Qusayr, which lies along a land corridor linking two Assad strongholds, the capital of Damascus and an area along the Mediterranean coast that is the heartland of his minority Alawite sect.         

For the rebels, who had been in control of the town shortly after the uprising against the Assad regime began in March 2011, holding al-Qusayr meant protecting their arm supply line to Lebanon, just 10 kilometers away.