Report: Nasrallah in Military Fatigues during Visit to Party Fighters on Border with Syria
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has reportedly visited his party's fighters on the Lebanese-Syrian border dressed in military fatigues in a strong show of support.
Al-Liwaa newspaper said Friday that Nasrallah met the fighters in their posts after he visited some families in the eastern Bekaa Valley to extend condolences to the party members who were killed in battles with extremist groups.
Hizbullah has sent fighters to Syria to back President Bashar Assad's forces against rebels trying to remove him from power. The armed intervention in Syria earned the Shiite group the enmity of Syria's predominantly Sunni rebels. Assad is a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Over the past year, Syrian troops and Hizbullah fighters have captured most of the towns and villages in Syria's mountainous Qalamun region along the Lebanon border, depriving the rebels of residential areas where they can stay during the winter.
Hizbullah fighters have also clashed with jihadists, who infiltrated Lebanese territories.
Last week, al-Qaida's Syrian affiliate, al-Nusra Front, attacked positions manned by Hizbullah on the outskirts of Brital, killing several of its fighters.
There have been reports of other skirmishes between Hizbullah and militants along the Lebanon-Syria border.
According to al-Liwaa, Nasrallah told the fighters during his visit to the Bekaa that there was “a big plot against the resistance, which will fight in any region to defend itself.”
The Hizbullah secretary-general also said that his party was “fully ready to confront the adventures of takfiris and Israelis.”
On Tuesday, several local newspapers quoted Nasrallah as telling his party's cadres in the Bekaa that “victory will be the ally of the mujahideen in their battle against takfiri and terrorist groups the same way it was their ally in the confrontation with the Israeli enemy.”
Friday's report in al-Liwaa was likely mentioning the same visit that Nasrallah did to eastern Lebanon.
Nasrallah, who lives in hiding, has made few public appearances since his group fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006 for fear of assassination by the Jewish state.
G.K.
H.K.
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