Beirut- Just days after former prime minister Sa’ad Hariri reemphasised Lebanon’s “Arab identity”, the Future Party leader slammed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah after he admitted in a recent speech that Hezbollah is funded by Iran.
“This admission shows Hezbollah follows Iran par excellence,” Hariri said on Saturday night, citing Nasrallah’s admission as proof that Hezbollah puts the interests of other countries before those of Lebanon.
“As long as Iran has money, Hezbollah has money… Can we be any more frank than that?” Hassan Nasrallah said in his speech on Thursday marking the arba‘een [passing of 40 days] of Hezbollah leader Mustafa Badr Al Deen, who was killed in Damascus.
Badr Al Deen, a cousin and brother-in-law of Emad Mughniyeh, was accused of assassinating Rafik Hariri in 2005 and his trial in absentia is still under way at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon at The Hague.
Badr Al Deen was killed in a mysterious bombing at Damascus airport while Mughniyeh was killed on February 12, 2008 in a car bomb blast, also in Damascus.
He argued that the focus should be on those who “insist to put Iran, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Bahrain first and Lebanon at the end”.
Iranian meddling, he said, will only escalate existing tensions between Arabs and Iran.
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s ministers of interior and tourism, Nouhad Mashnouq and Michel Pharoan, held a joint press conference calling for tourists, especially those from the GCC, to return to the country.
It may be recalled that GCC states had banned their nationals from travelling to Lebanon and took specific measures against some Lebanese citizens working in their countries after they designated Hezbollah a terrorist organisation.
Mashnouq sought to assure that the security situation was well under control and that the police presence in tourist areas has been boosted. He added that untoward incidents in Lebanon were far less threatening to similar events in European capitals.

Source: Gulf News, 26 June 2016

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Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah admits to be a hireling of Iran’s regime

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah admitted on Friday that his group is “frank about the fact that Hezbollah’s budget, its income, its expenses, everything it eats and drinks, its arms and rockets, come from the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
In a speech marking 40 days after the death of senior Hezbollah commander Mustafah Bedreddine in Damascus, Nasrallah derided the new US sanctions against his party, claiming that Hezbollah “will not be affected ” because it does not use any banks.
“We totally reject this [U.S.] law until the Day of Judgment. … Even if the law is applied, we as a party and an organizational and jihadi movement, will not be hurt or affected,” Nasrallah said
“As long as Iran has money, we have money… Just as we receive the rockets that we use to threatenIsrael, we are receiving our money. No law will prevent us from receiving it…”
“The law will not have any financial impact on Hezbollah. I have said before that we do not have commercial or investment projects and commercial institutions that operate through banks,” he said,
Nasrallah’s remarks come around two weeks after a bomb blast targeted the Beirut headquarters of BLOM Bank, the second largest bank in the country.
Several parties were quick to point the finger at Hezbollah over the bombing due to the fact that the attack coincided with the row with the banking sector.
Nasrallah did not mention in his speech the June 12 bombing of BLOM Bank, which was among the financial institutions in the country that froze Hezbollah-linked accounts.
 
Nasrallah’s speech, according to analysts is a major embarrassment to the Obama Administration, since it appears that by ending the sanctions against Iran in return for the nuclear agreement the US is now “playing a critical role in assisting and facilitating the ways through which Hezbollah receives this significant aid from the Iranian government.”

Source :  Ya libnan, 26 June 2016