 Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah warned the Lebanese government Monday not to use military force against the Shiite Muslim militant group.
| "Don't even mess with us!" |
His warning, a day after a new Lebanese president was elected, appeared to draw the line for the new government.
| "Ain't nobuddy tells us what to do!" |
President Michel Suleiman said Sunday in his inauguration speech there needs to be a dialogue over the future of Hezbollah's arsenal but praised the guerrillas' fight against Israel.
Nasrallah spoke to supporters Monday for the first time since Hezbollah fighters seized several areas of Beirut earlier in the month, forcing the government to agree to a political deal that strengthened the group's role in the government. He pledged to comply with an article in the Arab-brokered agreement that forbids the use of arms to achieve political gains. But he said in the speech by videolink to tens of thousands of people in south Beirut that the state's weapons should not be used against Hezbollah or its opposition allies. "The resistance weapons should not be used to achieve political gains," he said.
| Even though they obviously were in the very recent past. |
But at the same time, he added, "the state's weapons should not be used to settle accounts with an opposition political party, or in favour of outside parties that weaken Lebanon's strength and immunity in confronting Israel." Celebratory gunfire erupted across south Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, as he spoke.
Nasrallah said his group was not interested in seizing power in this multi-sectarian nation of four million. "We don't want power. We don't want to govern Lebanon or impose anything on the Lebanese people because we believe that Lebanon is an exceptional, diverse nation," he said. |