With the increasing and more public participation of Hezbollah in the Syrian conflict on the side of pro-Assad forces, and increased backing from Iran, the risk of a holy war taking place in that country is growing daily.

After the announcement of Hezbollah that they were going to stand and fight with the Syrian government, last week, muslim clerics from 70 different Sunni organizations called for a Holy War against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his Shiite allies.

The Gulf Cooperation Council that includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman have announced that they will begion imposing sanctions against the Hezbollah and their associates.

This is quite a turn, as in the past Hezbollah has been condoned as a buffer and bulwark against Israel, but since its stepping into the Syrian conflict all of that has changed.

It was also announced by Iran, prior to the election that took place there, that Iran was sending at least 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards, its elite fighting unit, to Syria to bolster and fight alongside government forces.

A Holy War drew even closer to the conclusion on Saturday as Egypt’s president, while attending a hard-line cleric rally in Egypt spoke before a cheering crowd as he announced that his country is cutting ties with Damascus and condemned Hezbollah for fighting alongside that country’s military.

Since the election of Mohammed Morsi, thousands of Egyptian fighters have gone to fight with the Syrian opposition forces and increasingly, that country has become a source of fighters in Syria.

Although Morsi did not back the calls for Jihad in Syria as the clerics had wanted, a senior presidential aide last week did announce that if Egypt’s citizens wanted to travel to Syria to fight alongside their Sunni brothers, they were free to do so and need not fear reprisals upon their return.

This is quite a turn-about from the years of Hosni Mubarak’s leadership. Under Mubarak, fighters that went abroad to fight in Jihads would find themselves imprisoned and tortured upon their coming back to Egypt. That announcement is sure to increase the number of fighters traveling to Syria to fight with the opposition.