Hezbollah secretly sent fighters to Iraq; leader
Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Sunday that members of his Shiite militia were secretly sent to Iraq in order to participate in efforts to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) group there.
He stressed that they had operated in Iraq under local command and were not interfering in Iraq's internal affairs.
Nasrallah, according to Daily Star Lebanon, made these remarks while on a visit to Ansar, a town in south Lebanon where there is a commemoration for a Hezbollah field commander named Ali Ahmad Fayyad who was killed in northern Syria last month.
Hezbollah interested in Syria in mid-2013 to bolster its ally in Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad and has been fighting there ever since.
The Hezbollah leader also criticized the Saudis who, along with its other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) allies, declared Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization last Wednesday and begun taken measures to pressure Lebanon, including cutting $3 billion in military aid Riyadh was giving in assistance to the Lebanese government.
This, Nasrallah insists, is an attempt at blackmail by them since many Lebanese work in the Gulf. He said this would not deter Hezbollah from continuing its operations in Syria and Iraq.
He stressed that they had operated in Iraq under local command and were not interfering in Iraq's internal affairs.
Nasrallah, according to Daily Star Lebanon, made these remarks while on a visit to Ansar, a town in south Lebanon where there is a commemoration for a Hezbollah field commander named Ali Ahmad Fayyad who was killed in northern Syria last month.
Hezbollah interested in Syria in mid-2013 to bolster its ally in Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad and has been fighting there ever since.
The Hezbollah leader also criticized the Saudis who, along with its other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) allies, declared Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization last Wednesday and begun taken measures to pressure Lebanon, including cutting $3 billion in military aid Riyadh was giving in assistance to the Lebanese government.
This, Nasrallah insists, is an attempt at blackmail by them since many Lebanese work in the Gulf. He said this would not deter Hezbollah from continuing its operations in Syria and Iraq.