In a stunning admission, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, publicly acknowledged for the first time that the Lebanese Shiite terror group has been fighting ISIS in Iraq, AFP reported.
In a videotaped speech broadcast on Monday, Nasrallah called ISIS the most immediate threat to regional stability and called on all Arab nations to unite to fight the jihadist group.
“We may not have spoken about Iraq before, but we have a limited presence because of the sensitive phase that Iraq is going through,” he said. “I say, come with us to Iraq, and to any place where we can fight this threat that is threatening our (Muslim) nation and our region.”
Nasrallah slammed several Arab states for relying on the US to fight ISIS in Iraq. “He who relies on the Americans relies on an illusion,” he stated. “You rely on someone who is stealing from you and conniving against you.”
The Hezbollah leader urged Arab nations to cut off their support to the US-led coalition in combating ISIS and give their support instead to Hezbollah, who are backed by Syria and Iran.
“We won’t wait for the Americans, nor will we wait for NATO,” he said.
Nasrallah told Arab nations to take a cue from local tribes in Iraq who had already mobilized against ISIS outside of any help from the US. “In Iraq, they didn’t wait. Until now, the Americans aren’t giving them arms. All of the arms are coming from Iran,” he said.
Making sure not to leave Israel out, Nasrallah claimed in his address that ISIS was secretly working on behalf of Israel.
Hezbollah militants are already fighting ISIS alongside Syrian troops loyal to President Bashar Assad in Syria. Nasrallah’s speech comes a little over a week after Hezbollah and the Syrian army launched a major offensive against jihadists groups in southern Syria.
While Nasrallah claims that ISIS currently poses the biggest threat to the Middle East, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman stated on Tuesday that the Lebanese terror group was stronger than any other terror organization in the region.
Speaking at a security conference in Tel Aviv, Liberman said that Hezbollah is stronger than ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other Palestinian Islamist terror groups.
The foreign minister added that the greatest challenge to the 21st century is terrorism. “We have to fight this thing like the Nazi regime,” he said.
