Hizbollah says will fight to keep its arms


Reuters
 Date: 05-25-05

By Lin Noueihed

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Under mounting international pressure to disarm, Lebanon's Hizbollah said on Wednesday it had more than 12,000 rockets that could strike anywhere in northern Israel and would fight anyone who tried to take them away.

"Any hand that reaches out to our weapons is an Israeli hand that will be cut off," Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told supporters on the fifth anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon. "We do not want to attack anyone and will not allow anyone to attack Lebanon, but if anyone, anyone, thinks of disarming the resistance we will fight them like the martyrs of Kerbala," he said, referring to a battle in Islamic history pivotal to Shi'ites. "Any thought of disarming the resistance is madness."

In his toughest stand yet on the question of Hizbollah's arms, Nasrallah told tens of thousands of supporters in the town of Bint Jbeil, part of a southern strip Israel occupied for 22 years, that the guerrilla group's hidden arsenal had created a "balance of terror" with regional superpower Israel.

But he added Shi'ite Muslim Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, would use its weapons only in defense of Lebanon.

The largely Shi'ite Muslim residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hizbollah stronghold, celebrated the black-turbaned cleric's words with fireworks and cheering.

"At the minimum the whole of occupied northern Palestine, its settlements, airports, factories and fields are under the hands of your sons in the Islamic resistance. They want to take this strength from Lebanon," Nasrallah told supporters who waved the party's yellow flags.

"We do not want to drag the region into a war ... We want to protect our country not destroy it and that is why we will keep our arms."

FOREIGN PRESSURE

Hizbollah was the only Lebanese militia to keep its arms after the end of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war and its guerrilla attacks were instrumental in prompting its arch-enemy Israel to pull its troops out of the south in May 2000.

But a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in September that demanded that Syrian forces pull out also called on all militias in Lebanon to disarm.

Damascus withdrew its forces in April and the question of Hizbollah's arms is expected to loom large on the international agenda after Lebanese general elections taking place from May 29 to June 19.

The charismatic cleric accused the United States and other countries of interfering in Lebanese polls to force Lebanon to serve its interests and those of its Israeli allies.

"The resistance, a core source of strength for Lebanon will be targeted after elections," he said. "In the next stage, the resistance will be the number one target for Israelis, Americans and the West and we must prepare to confront this."

Nasrallah asked why the world was piling pressure on Hizbollah and Syria to implement resolution 1559, when Israeli troops had been allowed to stay on Lebanese soil for more than two decades despite a U.N. resolution demanding they leave.

Lebanon's interim government says Hizbollah's arms are an internal matter. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who also spoke at the rally, defended its right to keep its arms.

Source

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