BEIRUT: March 14 figures must stop being stubborn over the Syrian crisis and acknowledge the threat posed to Lebanon by armed rebels, the Deputy Head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council said Sunday.
“Enough of the stubbornness and obstinacy from March 14,” sheikh Nabil Qaouk said during a ceremony in the southern village of Doueir. “We advise them to quit this stubbornness and join the honor of participating in the battle against takfiri aggression targeting the Army and Lebanon.”
Qaouk also slammed his political rivals as irresponsible for making speeches he said incited sectarian tension and violence against the Army. The bloc acts as if the Arsal and Brital raids by jihadists do not represent real threats to the country, he added.
The Hezbollah figure said the attacks on the Lebanese Army were not isolated or individual attacks, but rather the outcome of a foreign decision to exhaust the military.
“Those supporting and protecting takfiri gangs have been unmasked,” Qaouk added. “The same sides that cover and back the takfiri emirate in Roumieh [Prison] are the ones covering and backing takfiri gangs in the north.”
In his verbal attack on March 14 one day after a controversial statement by Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk that blamed Hezbollah for the failure of Lebanon’s security plan, Qaouk said that Hezbollah never needed its rivals’ permission to engage in battles.
“We have never waited for March 14’s permission to do our national, human, sacred duty of defending our people against any takfiri aggression by ISIS or Nusra, or the remnants of what is called the Free [Syrian] Army,” Qaouk said.
Qaouk accused March 14 of keeping ties with Syrian armed rebel groups “while they are attacking Lebanon, performing raids and firing rockets on calm villages.”
“They are all in one trench against the Army and Lebanon,” Qaouk said, in reference to the FSA and the Islamist fundamentalist groups.
Hezbollah fighters have been waging battles alongside Syrian government troops over the past year and a half. The party argues that its intervention in Syria has prevented jihadists from taking over Lebanon.
Their political opponents in the March 14 bloc say Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria has jeopardized the security of Lebanon.
Militants from Nusra earlier this month attacked Hezbollah posts in eastern Lebanon, on the outskirts of the towns of Brital and Nahleh.
It came about two months after the Lebanese Army fought a five-day battle with militants from Nusra and ISIS in the northeastern town of Arsal.
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