How one of Syria's best-known resorts became the latest victim of Assad's endless war

Syrian people search for bodies of wounded and death Syrians after a bomb attack of Syrian regime forces on Syria's Zabadani region, close to the border with Lebanon. Photo / Getty Images

Zabadani, once a former retreat for wealthy Damascenes, is now a ghost town after years after being besieged and turned into a defensive nest by Islamist rebels

Nestling in the hills between Damascus and the Lebanese border, the cool summer air and stone houses of Zabadani once made it one of Syria's best-known resorts, particularly popular with Gulf holiday-makers.

Nearby, the Christian village of Bloudan became Syria's best-known skiing centre, an easy ride from the capital 30 miles away.

It is likely to be a long time before the tourists are back. Besieged, bombarded by regime jets and turned into a defensive nest by Islamist rebels, Zabadani has become the latest victim of Syria's endless war.

"The other day I was watching TV, and I thought I saw a familiar area, and it was my house," said one resident, a 64-year-old housewife who has now escaped to the firmly pro-regime town of Tartous to the north. She asked for her name to be withheld.

"I turned to my family and told them, and we all watched. It's a battleground area now."

Zabadani was one of the first towns to be "liberated" from the regime, in early 2012, its largely Sunni residents maintaining for a while a rather relaxed stand-off with the army. It then changed hands a couple of times, before the fighting in the area between the capital and the Lebanese border became increasingly bitter last year.

In pre-war years, it was a key supply point for Syria's Iranian allies to supply their proxy Shia militia in Lebanon, Hizbollah, and it is Hizbollah that is now leading the fight to return it to regime hands. As the government retrenches in its core areas, having lost so much of the north and east to rebels and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Iranian support is contingent on its basic demands being met.

That includes ensuring Hizbollah supply routes.

It is a bloody affair. The rebels have come to be dominated by two Islamist militias, the Qatar-backed Ahrar al-Sham and the Saudi-backed Jaish al-Islam, now working together.

They dug tunnels under the main, government-held roads, to bring in supplies, and fortified the old town as, in recent weeks, Hizbollah and troops began to surround them.

Then the air force moved in, pummeling them with a series of strikes. The monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 600 barrel bombs had landed on the town since the start of the army's operation at the beginning of the month, while particularly dramatic footage apparently filmed from the sky earlier this month showed a string of explosions from missiles in a line of smoke across the town.

The barrel bombs were confirmed by Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy to Syria, who visited Damascus last week and said they had caused "unprecedented levels of destruction and many deaths among the civilian population". It is estimated that more than 1,000 civilians remain there, with upwards of 1,200 rebel fighters.

As the army and Hizbollah move in, they are now trapped in a space about three kilometres by three kilometres, one highly placed rebel said.

The regime is boasting that it is on the verge of taking the town, and is sending messages to the rebels holed up inside demanding they surrender.

"O armed gunman ... the army is coming ... the curse of the people of Zabadani is pursuing you ... save yourself," says one typical text message.

However, the army has also admitted that it is facing sterner resistance than it expected, partly due to the rebels' local knowledge and ability to forge resupply lines through the mountains.

"On Wednesday there were attempts by the regime and Hizbollah to advance from the Zabadani plain, and despite intense fire they managed to make some progress," said Ali Diab, an opposition activist with sources inside the town, which is virtually cut off from outside communication.

"But then on Thursday night to Friday, the revolutionaries launched a sudden attack and seized some regime checkpoints."

On Saturday, there were reports that Hizbollah was offering a ceasefire and a peaceful withdrawal of the defenders, perhaps propelled by the difficulty of the attack and a new tactic by the rebels - specifically linking their defence to assaults on regime outposts elsewhere in Syria.

Ahrar al-Sham said it was attacking Fuaa and Kefraya, two Shia enclaves in the north of Syria, in retaliation for the siege of Zabadani.

Meanwhile, the Ahrar al-Sham spokesman, Ahmed Kara Ali, confirmed it had been ask to negotiate a deal, though he refused to say what it might be.

Even if the battle ends now, it is hard to see how Zabadani, like much of the rest of Syria, will be anything other than a ghost town for years to come.

Satellite footage shows its centre reduced virtually to rubble.

The irony of Gulf-backed fighters now fighting amid the ruins of what was once a playground for Gulf holiday-makers is lost on few. "Zabadani was the number one place in Syria for Gulf tourists," the former resident said.

"In summer, they would all come and start renting everywhere. You couldn't find a place to rest your head. We also had restaurants, cafés, everything ... It was beautiful."