Naharnet

Nasrallah Says to Avenge Badreddine by 'Dealing Final Blow to Takfiri Groups' in Syria

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah stressed Friday that the killing of the group's top military commander, Mustafa Badreddine, will not push Hizbullah to withdraw its fighters from war-torn Syria.

“Until today, the martyrdom of any of our leaders has not pushed us to leave any battlefield and Badreddine's blood will push us to a bigger presence in Syria... We will remain in Syria and more leaders will go into Syria,” said Nasrallah in a televised speech marking one week since Badreddine's death in a blast near Damascus airport.

Hizbullah had said Saturday that Badreddine was killed by “artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri groups.”

“We will continue the battle and we are confident that our efforts, blood and modest contributions, alongside all the other efforts, will lead to defeating the U.S.-Israeli-takfiri-Saudi scheme,” Nasrallah said in his speech.

“They won't be able to control Syria, its leadership or its people and the entire project will fall in Syria and consequently in the entire region,” he added.

“Our big vengeance will be achieved through maintaining and boosting our presence in Syria in order to deal the final blow to the takfiri groups and through preserving and improving the Islamic Resistance... This is our loyalty and this is our responsibility,” Nasrallah vowed.

Commenting on media reports that questioned Hizbullah's statement about Badreddine's death or suggested that he was killed by other parties, Nasrallah added: “Unfortunately, our malicious Israeli enemy was fair towards us but some Arabs were the ones who circulated rumors when they said that Hizbullah did not accuse Israel of killing Mustafa out of cowardice because that would have obliged it to retaliate.”

“Throughout 34 years of conflict with Israel, the enemy admitted that we have never lied about our achievements or retaliation pledges,” he noted.

“The Israelis acknowledged our honesty while some Arabs, who are the biggest liars and hypocrites, did not believe anything we said,” Nasrallah went on to say.

“We did not find any indications that lead to Israel in the probe into our commander's assassination, and although we don't acquit Israel we are also not accusing it,” he added.

He also stressed that Hizbullah “does not launch political accusations,” even against Israel.

“Our history is a proof that when we vow to retaliate we honor our pledges, like we did after the Quneitra attack, and when the evidence points to Israel, we would openly say that Israel is the perpetrator,” Nasrallah underlined.

“We reiterate our warning to Israel that we will retaliate if it targets any of our jihadi fighters, and our response will go beyond the Shebaa Farms,” he warned.

Separately, Nasrallah dismissed media reports suggesting that the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon might ask for DNA samples to confirm Badreddine's death.

“To us, the file of the STL does not exist and we're not concerned with anything it may request,” he said.

The STL had indicted Badreddine with being the head of the alleged Hizbullah squad that perpetrated the 2005 assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri. Badreddine and four other Hizbullah operatives are being tried in absentia over the murder.

Badreddine was the highest-ranking Hizbullah militant to be killed since the group joined Syria's conflict four years ago.

The area on the southern edge of the Syrian capital is known to host positions of several militant groups, including al-Qaida's branch in Syria, known as the al-Nusra Front.

Hizbullah and the Syrian army have a heavy presence around the Damascus airport, which includes a military base, and the area comes under regular shelling.

But Rami Abdul Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that according to his network of activists in the area, there had been no shelling in the airport area on the day that Badreddine was reportedly killed.

Hizbullah has sent thousands of fighters to Syria to back President Bashar Assad's regime against rebels and jihadists trying to remove him from power.

The 55-year-old Badreddine had directed Hizbullah's operations in Syria since its fighters joined Assad's forces in 2012, the group's biggest-ever military intervention outside of Lebanon. Thousands of guerrillas fighting alongside Syria's military were crucial to tipping battles in the government's favor on multiple fronts, from the suburbs of Damascus to the northern province of Aleppo.

Y.R.

Source: Agence France Presse, Naharnet


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