Syrian opposition condemns Hezbollah

Syria’s main opposition group has hit out at Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah after a speech on Friday in which he said he was ready to go and fight in Syria. In a statement released on Saturday, the Syrian National Coalition condemned the car bomb attack that killed at least 24 peopleon Thursday in densely-populated southern Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold. The Coalition called the attack a “terrorist explosion” and said it “objects to all acts that target civilians”. But the opposition group also condemned the “threats made by Hassan Nasrallah against the Syrian people, as well as the justifications he provided to Hezbollah’s militias in their fighting alongside Assad forces.” “The Syrian Coalition has repeatedly warned the head of Hezbollah’s militias against their involvement in the killing of Syrian people, alongside the Assad regime. However, he adamantly refused to listen to the voice of reason, leading the whole region into a state of chaos and destruction,” the opposition statement said. “The latest explosion could plunge Lebanon into a vortex of violence that could only serve the interests of Israel,” it warned. The Coalition said it held the Lebanese government responsible for “Syrian blood shed at the hands of Hezbollah’s militias”, who is accused of using rockets, ballistic missiles and cluster bombs and committing massacres against the Syrian people. In his speech on Friday, Nasrallah accused radical Sunni Islamists of responsibility for Thursday’s after a previously unknown group, apparently a Syrian rebel cell, said it carried out the attack. Hezbollah is a key supporter of President Bashar al-Assad and has sent fighters across the border to Syria this year to bolster government forces, which have been battling a deadly anti-regime revolt since March 2011. Additional source: AFP