BEIRUT: Hezbollah Chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has accused Lebanese parties of continuing to support Syrian militants, highlighting Qatari and Turkish support for the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria while insisting Saudi Arabia fears ISIS.
“Lebanese parties are still sponsoring armed Syrian militants militarily and financially, [providing] guidance and [encouraging] intervention” Nasrallah said in the second installment of an interview set to be published Friday by local daily Al-Akhbar.
“Turkey and Qatar are supporting ISIS, and I am convinced that Saudi Arabia fears it,” he said.
“There is a support for ISIS wherever there is a following of Takfiri thinking, and this applies to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states,” he continued.
With regards to Hezbollah’s battles in Syria, Nasrallah said that “the sense of danger is growing, and the popular sentiment is more accepting of our fight against Takfiri [militants].”
“Had we not fought in the regions of Qalamoun and Qusair, ISIS would have reached Beirut and the coast,” the Hezbollah chief insisted. “The Lebanese resistance is present wherever there is a [need to] defend the axis of resistance.”
Nasrallah concluded by saying that “everyone should be part of the battle to defend Muslims, Christians and religious minorities.”
In the first segment of the interview, Nasrallah said his party’s involvement in Syria would not affect their preparedness to confront Israel in any new conflict.
“We will defend our country and borders with Syria just like we defended our southern border [with Israel],”
Nasrallah explained that there were “no red lines” in his party’s “security war” with Israel, adding that the Jewish State knew who took over the tasks of slain military commander Imad Mughniyeh within Hezbollah.
Mughniyeh, the mastermind of Hezbollah’s military operations, was assassinated in Damascus in February 2008.
The Hezbollah leader said there were attempts to confine Hezbollah to the role of "a Shiite Arab party merely, while we are a resistance group."
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