BEIRUT (AP)
-- The leader of Hezbollah rallied hundreds of cheering supporters
Friday with sectarian pledges of support for Palestinians, a sign of the
unease the group feels as turmoil grows within its home of Lebanon.
Sheik
Hassan Nasrallah's first public appearance in almost a year came as
Lebanon's president vowed not to be intimidated after two rockets struck
near the presidential palace. The rocket volley followed President
Michel Suleiman criticizing Hezbollah's involvement in the civil war
ravaging neighboring Syria, violence that has spread into Lebanon.
In
his speech Friday, Nasrallah did not directly mention the rockets.
Instead, he vowed to remain loyal to the Palestinian cause and appeared
to be speaking mostly to his Shiite base in Lebanon and across the
Muslim world.
"We say to America, Israel,
Great Britain and their regional tools, we say to every enemy and friend
... we in Hezbollah will not abandon Palestine and the people of
Palestine," he said.
"Call us terrorists, criminals, try to kill us, we Shiites will never abandon Palestine," he added, firing up the crowd.
Nasrallah's
rare use of sectarian language, highlighting the Shiite character of
his group, is a departure from previous speeches during which he
portrayed Hezbollah as a Muslim anti-Israel resistance group. It
appeared aimed at whipping up support among Shiites across the Arab
world, and reflects the extent which the group feels on the defensive.
Nasrallah
has been living underground since the 2006 month long war between his
group and Israel, fearing Israeli assassination. He has since made very
few and only brief public appearances.
His
extended appearance Friday - he spoke for more than half an hour among
crowds- is an attempt to show confidence at a time when his group is
under growing pressure at home because of its involvement in Syria's
civil war. On Thursday, Suleiman gave a speech criticizing the
involvement of Hezbollah in Syria's conflict in supporting forces loyal
to Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad.
Suleiman
suggested Hezbollah's weapons be folded into that of the national
Lebanese army. The president said that "resistance weapons have
trespassed the Lebanese border," in a reference to Hezbollah. The
Iranian-backed group has a formidable weapons arsenal that rivals that
of the army.
That night, two rockets struck
near the presidential compound in Baabda, southeast of the Lebanese
capital, Beirut. It was the second time in two months that rockets have
been fired in the area amid tensions related to the civil war in
neighboring Syria.
Suleiman said Friday that the attack will not intimidate or make him change his convictions regardless of the party behind it.
"Repeated
rocket messages, regardless of the sender or the target ... cannot
alter national principles or convictions that are expressed freely and
sincerely," the president said in the statement issued by his office.
The statement did not say whom officials believed were behind Thursday
night's attack.
The rare criticism by
Suleiman, a Maronite Catholic, angered Hezbollah and its allies. A
pro-Hezbollah newspaper put a picture of Suleiman on its front page
Friday with a bold-headlined single word: "Irhal," Arabic for leave.
Who
fired the rockets remained unknown Friday, as scores of troops and
police officers scoured the perimeter around the presidential palace in
search of evidence. Anti-Hezbollah politicians immediately blamed the
group and lauded Suleiman. Hezbollah condemned the "terrorist" attack
and the "lowly and blatant" attempts to link between the rockets and the
speech by Suleiman in which he criticized the group.
Hezbollah's
open participation in the war is highly divisive in Lebanon, and has
enraged Sunni Muslims there who sympathize with the overwhelmingly Sunni
rebels fighting to topple Assad. Hezbollah fighters were instrumental
in helping Assad's forces achieve victory over the reb
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