BEIRUT, 26 May 2003 — Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters said yesterday they would not lay down their arms, despite growing US pressure on Damascus to clamp down on the group.
At a rally marking three years since Israel withdrew from south Lebanon, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah urged fellow Arabs in Iraq and the Palestinian territories to take up arms and drive “occupation” forces off their land.
“They want to disarm us, but we refuse to do so. Today we need to keep betting on the resistance,” he told thousands of Lebanese gathered in the eastern city of Baalbek, the group’s stronghold.
Hezbollah waged a war of attrition that played a crucial role in ending Israel’s 22-year occupation of south Lebanon on May 25, 2000. The group has since clashed with Israeli troops in the disputed Shebaa Farms border area.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell used his visits to Damascus and Beirut this month to demand steps to rein in the group, which Washington believes was behind the bombing of its marine barracks and kidnapping of Westerners during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.
Syrian President Bashar Assad said in remarks published yesterday, that his country would continue to support Hezbollah for as long as the group limits its operations to defending Lebanon from potential Israeli threats.
Nasrallah said armed resistance was the only viable weapon against occupation, and the Lebanese experience in the south could be repeated elsewhere in the region.
“What we want to confirm is that what happened on May 25 is not an exception.. but can happen in any country whose land is occupied and whose people have chosen to resist,” Nasrallah said.
Hezbollah, a fixture on Washington’s list of “terrorist” groups, denies it was behind the US marine barracks attack and accusations that it is a “terrorist” group active abroad.
