Hezbollah chief Nasrallah–Islamic State poses ‘existential threat’ akin to Israel, says Jewish state supporting jihadist group

Times of Israel

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday called the Islamic State an “existential threat” to the Shiite group and touted what he called his Lebanese militia’s victory over Israel on the 15th anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

Speaking to the Lebanese Shiite group’s supporters from the southern town of Nabatiyeh, Nasrallah said Israel would have conquered all of Lebanon hadn’t his militia fought against it. He called Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 “a clear, strong and pure victory for the resistance.”

Monday marks the 15th anniversary of the IDF’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon. After years of guerrilla warfare waged by Hezbollah, which fired Katyusha rockets at Israeli towns in the Galilee and launched raids on Israeli troops, the IDF in 2000 retreated to the Blue Line 18 years after invading Lebanon in 1982.

Nasrallah said that Hezbollah would remain in southern Lebanon despite waging a war against Syrian rebel groups, including the Islamic State, along Lebanon’s eastern border.

“Our eyes are turned toward the main enemy in the main campaign,” he said, referring to Israel. “We have not abandoned this front and will not abandon it. We must be present today on two fronts. We continue to be active on the front with Israel and other issues are not distracting us.”

“You should know the resistance is at the height of its readiness and the enemy knows it even more than the people of Lebanon. This is why they fear the resistance and continue their psychological warfare,” he said.

He also acknowledged for the first time that Hezbollah was fighting throughout all of Syria, and not just in areas near the border with Lebanon.

“We are fighting alongside our Syrian brothers, alongside the army and the people and the popular resistance in Damascus and Aleppo and Deir Ezzor and Qusayr and Hasakeh and Idlib,” he said.

“We are present today in many places and we will be present in all the places in Syria that this battle requires.”

The Lebanese Shiite leader said US efforts to halt the Sunni terrorist group’s advances had failed. The number of sorties conducted by forces of the US-led coalition’s air war against Islamic State in several months was far lower than those Israel carried out against Hezbollah in Lebanon and against Hamas in Gaza in a much shorter time period.

On Saturday Nasrallah said all of the Shiite group’s forces may soon need to mobilize to defend the country against the Sunni extremists.

The Islamic State “is not stronger than Israel and the US, and the region’s peoples already defeated Israel and the US,” he said.

Nasrallah said one of the reasons Israel has remained in a powerful positions over the years is the “policy of partition the region has adopted.” He called on the Arab world to unite, warning that the threat posed by the Islamic State “is not less than the Israeli danger.”

He warned domestic opponents against remaining silent in the face of Islamic State brutality. “The first victims of [IS] in Lebanon will be al Mustakbal,” naming a Sunni Lebanese group which opposes Shiite Hezbollah. “We must take initiative and look for options to fight these armed groups. We face a danger today unlike any other in history, the threat is against all human entities,” he said.

“The victory of the resistance against Israel is a blessing from Allah. [Hezbollah] stood its ground for 18 years until the Zionist entity was humiliated and escaped Lebanon in disgrace,” Nasrallah said.

A sign in Nabatiyeh, where Hezbollah supporters were watching the speech projected on a massive screen, read in Hebrew and Arabic: “Invasion of the Galilee – the promise will not be broken.”

Hezbollah has in the past threatened to invade Israel’s northern region and Military Intelligence officials assess the group may attempt to take control of a northern community during a future war.

Israeli defense officials warned Hezbollah indirectly last week, when a report in the New York Times based on aerial photos given the paper by the IDF showed the extent to which terror infrastructure was embedded in communities in southern Lebanon. The paper quoted senior officials as saying that the close proximity of terror bases to civilian homes will not deter the IDF from attacking Hezbollah in case of conflict.