Hizbullah Urges 'Solidarity among Regional Countries' after Istanbul Attack

Hizbullah on Wednesday condemned as a “terrorist crime” the deadly suicide blasts that rocked the Ataturk International Airport in Turkey's Istanbul, urging “real and serious solidarity among the regional countries.”

“This new crime proves that terrorism does not differentiate between one region and another or one religion and another, and that it is rather targeted against everyone, everywhere,” the party said in a statement.

“This terrorism is based on hatred and on deforming all the humanitarian values that must govern our world,” it added.

“These condemned terrorist acts must be a reason for real and serious solidarity among the regional countries in order to confront terrorism and eradicate it from its roots,” Hizbullah urged, calling for “eliminating this danger instead of using it to achieve narrow and partisan political gains.”

Suicide bombers armed with automatic rifles attacked Istanbul's main international airport on Tuesday evening, killing 41 people and wounding 239 others, including foreigners.

Witnesses described scenes of terror and panic as the attackers began shooting indiscriminately and then blew themselves up at the entrance to Ataturk airport, one of Europe's busiest hubs.

The assault, at the start of Turkey's crucial summer tourist season, was the latest in a wave of attacks in Istanbul and the capital Ankara over the past year, putting the country on high alert.

It came a day after eight suicide bombers attacked the Lebanese border town of al-Qaa where they killed five people and wounded 28 others in an unprecedented attack.

Al-Qaa and the nearby Ras Baalbek are the only two towns with a Christian majority in the predominantly Shiite Hermel region, where Hizbullah holds sway.

The group has sent thousands of its fighters to Syria to bolster President Bashar Assad's forces against rebels and jihadist extremists trying to topple him.

Several deadly bombings have targeted Hizbullah's strongholds in the eastern Bekaa region and Beirut's southern suburbs since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011. Most of the attacks were claimed by extremist groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State.

The attacks killed scores of civilians and wounded hundreds.