ON 3 November Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah spoke in Beirut’s Southern Suburb to mark the occasion of Ashura – a major Shi’i festival to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Al-Husayn Bin-Ali, grandson of Prophet Muhammad.
Nasrallah said: ‘The region is witnessing major and serious conflicts on the military, security and political levels.
‘There are challenges and dangers. Some countries are being destroyed.’
He then criticises those who portray these conflicts as being Sunni-Shi’i in nature, and describes this characterisation as ‘a grave error that is being committed against the region and its peoples and that goes against what is really going on.’
He warns that failure to diagnose the conflict in the region will prolong it and obstruct the efforts seeking to settle it, and adds: ‘What is happening in the region will shape the future and fate of its peoples – including our children, grandchildren, and future generations.’
Giving examples to refute the argument that there is a Sunni-Shi’i conflict, he says: ‘Is the dominant conflict in the region really Sunni-Shi’i in nature? Let us take quick examples. In Libya, for instance, there are two warring domestic fronts. One of them uses aircraft to target the other one, and they are targeting each other with rockets and suicide operations.
‘Hundreds of people have been either killed or wounded, and residences have been destroyed in this war, which has swept across a number of Libyan cities. Each of the two Libyan parties receives support from a regional axis. What do the Shi’is have to do with this? Where is the Sunni-Shi’i conflict here?’
He then cites other examples of non-sectarian conflicts in the region, including the political and security developments in Egypt and the threat which the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) – a Sunni entity – poses against Sunni states such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.
Nasrallah then adds: ‘What is happening in the region is political par excellence. There are certain countries and political and public forces that have visions which are related to the future of their own entities and which they are fighting and struggling to accomplish.’
He stresses: ‘No matter what happens, we, the Shi’is, should not agree to handle the current conflicts in the region as being sectarian. Our battle in the region is not against the Sunnis. It is against US dominance and against the Israeli project, as well as against the takfiris (those who hold other Muslims to be infidels).’
Nasrallah adds: ‘I call on our Sunni people to exercise caution and to be more aware. Some countries present the conflict as Sunni-Shi’i to achieve their objectives and to attract all the Sunnis to their project and battle.’
Addressing a crowd of tens of thousands, Nasrallah once again defended Hezbollah’s intervention in the Syrian civil war.
‘The goal of the takfiris was to control Syria and eliminate all communities of other religions and Muslim sects and even those in the Sunni community who do not agree with their viewpoint,’ the secretary-general said.
‘Syria was waiting to face what is happening from massacres in Mosul and Anbar … As we enter the fourth year of the Syrian conflict, the takfiris have not yet been able to control Syria.
‘Many Syrians remain safe in their villages. Isn’t that a great victory, a great achievement?’
Nasrallah said his party was proud to fight alongside the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, saying the Syrians ‘are the original fighters, we are an addition.’
The Hezbollah leader denied what he said were rumours circulated by local media outlets that the party was suffering heavy blows in Syria battles, particularly in Qalamoun, a mountainous region bordering Lebanon.
He described talks about Hezbollah’s withdrawal from Syria as dreams.
‘The whole world had agreed to topple the Syrian government within months, however nearly four years have passed and Damascus is still firm.
‘Takfiris wanted to control all the Syrian territories but they couldn’t … This is a great victory and we have to reach the final victory.
‘Takfiris have no future, they will be defeated and we will have the honour of defeating them.’
Hezbollah’s withdrawal from Syria was ‘dreams’ and part of a ‘psychological war’.
Nasrallah also noted that the situation in Al-Qalamun is ‘excellent,’ and added that Hezbollah’s participation is ‘humble’ compared to that of the Syrian Army, the National Defence Forces (NDF), and the Syrian tribes.
‘Every single day, we are hearing that Hezbollah will retreat,’ he said. But ‘the situation is excellent in the Qalamoun. For months, the militants are fighting to regain control over a single village from the Syrian army and its allies, but they’re failing.’
Nasrallah reiterated that what is happening in Syria was a ‘great victory so that the region would not fall in the hands of the takfiris.
‘We are part of this battle waged to confront the biggest danger facing the region today,’ he said.
Nasrallah, who addressed the crowd by video after making a rare in-person appearance in the capital’s suburbs the previous evening, said Israel should fear Hezbollah in a future conflict.
‘Israelis are saying in the media that they would have to close down Ben Gurion Airport and the Haifa port and yes, that’s true,’ Nasrallah, standing behind a white podium dressed in black, said.
‘You should close all of your airports and your ports because there is no place extending on the land of occupied Palestine that the resistance’s rockets cannot reach.’
He said Israel knew very well that Hezbollah was never distracted from watching Lebanon’s southern border contrary to what he said were Lebanese and Arab media reports that the Syrian conflict had exhausted the party’s capabilities.
‘They know that going to war with the resistance will be very costly because we are more determined, stronger, more experienced … and we are capable of achieving such accomplishments.’
Nasrallah also touched on the recent clashes in occupied Jerusalem and subsequent incidents preventing Muslims from entering Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites, calling on Arabs to take a ‘historic, serious stance’.
‘There is a real, new danger against the mosque and it is the responsibility of Muslims worldwide to prevent such a catastrophe because it is a shame for Muslims to accept such disgrace to take place at the mosque,’ he said.
‘Conflicts in the region should not preoccupy the Muslim community from what is threatening Al-Aqsa Mosque.’
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah continued to say that the coward takfiris have no future in the region, stressing that the resistance party will have the honour to defeat them.
He said that the Israeli leaders are worried about the abilities of the resistance, assuring that the Zionist enemy can’t launch a war against Lebanon because of its full readiness.
He warned that Al-Quds (Jerusalem) is in real danger, saying: ‘Al-Aqsa Mosque is in real danger as the Zionist entity is going on with Judaisation, settlements building and expelling the Palestinians from their land.’
He urged the nation to save the holy site, saying that ‘everybody has responsibility towards Al-Quds.
‘Despite our disputes, the entire nation is responsible to save Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa.
‘It is shameful for this nation that its first Kibla (holy site) is being desecrated,’ Sayyid Nasrallah said.
He continued that ‘The Israelis imagine that the latest events are weakening and diverting the resistance from being ready to fight the enemy.
‘Every place in the occupied territories can be reached by the resistance rockets,’ warning the Israelis: ‘close your airports, your ports.
‘Israelis can’t launch war against Lebanon because they know that the resistance is always on alert and fully ready to fight.’
Meanwhile, he stressed that the resistance today is more powerful and determined to fight the enemy.