Posted on 09/09/2002 5:02:12 PM PDT by stilts
Hizbullah refuses to bow to American ‘threats’
US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage’s description of Hizbullah as the “A-Team” of terrorism and the US administration’s vow to “take them down one at a time” drew criticism from former Premier Salim Hoss and several political parties over the weekend. In answer to Armitage’s statements, Former Prime Minister Salim Hoss expressed regret in a Saturday statement toward what he said was US “confusion” between the struggle for liberation and terrorism. He added that Washington “champions” human rights across the globe “but overlooks” the same rights when it comes to the Palestinians. “As for threatening Hizbullah, it is a direct threat to Lebanon,” Hoss added.
The Popular Nasserite Organization said Sunday that the official’s remarks proved “Washington’s bias for the Zionist state in its struggle against the Arab world, and its goal of freedom, liberation and sovereignty.” The organization’s president, Sidon MP Osama Saad, said the American bias was aimed at “hindering the resistance from becoming the only global Arab answer to the American-Zionist plan, which aims to dismantle the nation and control its present and future.”
Saad denounced the US statement, reiterating that Hizbullah would not stand alone in facing the “US-Zionist fierce attack targeting Lebanese ambition to achieve full liberation and sovereignty.”
For his part, Hizbullah official Hashem Safieddine, called Armitage’s threats “nothing new.”
He issued a statement Saturday saying, “we (Hizbullah) know what our mission is and we will continue to defend our nation. The terrorist is he who occupies the land of others the terrorist is the United States itself.” Safieddine was speaking during a ceremony held in Tamnin al-Fawqa in Baalbek, where he also said that the resistance will not be intimidated by such “threats” by the United States.
“If these threats are aimed at forbidding the resistance from carrying out its operations in the Shebaa Farms … Hizbullah will always be ready to execute its heroic operations, if the farms remain under the Zionist occupation, whether the United States likes it or not,” he added.
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