Hezbollah denies armed groups detained its fighters in Syria

      
The media relations office of Hezbollah issued a statement on Saturday whereby it rejected reports claiming that armed groups had captured a number of the party's members in Syria,  calling on media outlets to “seek accuracy and verify their reports before publishing them".         

On Friday, Syrian activists said that the Free Syrian Army captured a number of Hezbollah members in the Damascus province.
          
Rebel forces have captured "members belonging to the (Abu al-Fadl) al-Abbas Brigade and Hezbollah," the opposition Local Coordination Committees, a network of peaceful Syrian activists on the ground, announced.                   

The said Brigade says that it aims at defending Shiite holy shrines, mainly the Sayyeda Zainab shrine in Damascus, from any kinds of attacks launched by hardline Sunni insurgents.      

On the 5th of June, Syrian President Bashar Assad's troops, backed by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, regained control of the embattled strategic town of al-Qusayr where fighting has raged with rebels for over three weeks.             

The capture of the al-Qusayr, which is close to the Lebanese border, strengthens some of the Syrian regime's recent gains on the ground that have shifted the balance of power in Assad's favor in the long simmering Syrian conflict.