Hezbollah's Nasrallah: The US can't protect anyone from ISIS
Leader of Lebanese Shi'ite organization calls for countrymen to "end their silence and confront the [infidel] threat" posed by Islamic State, Syrian rebel groups.
By JPOST.COM STAFFHassan Nasrallah(photo credit: HO / AL-MANAR TV / AFP)
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Sunday that the United States can not protect anyone in Syria, Iraq or Lebanon from the radical Islamic State group.Last fall, the US formed the Combined Joint Task Force to battle Islamic State fighters in a vast air campaign across Syria and Iraq. The coalition regularly carries out dozens of strikes a week. Beirut-based newspaper The Daily Star cited the leader of the Shi'ite Lebanese organization as calling on his country's population and that of the region to confront the threat posed by group formerly know as ISIS that seeks to reestablish a medieval caliphate in the Middle East.Nasrallah - a staunch opponent of Islamic State - expressed his strident warning against the group that has taken control of swaths of land in Lebanon's neighboring Syria and Iraq, saying silence over the threat would not ensure safety.Speaking in a video address to commemorate the anniversary of the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, the Hezbollah leader called on everyone in Lebanon to "end their silence and confront the [infidel] threat," according to The Daily Star.Nasrallah warned that groups like Islamic State and the al-Qaida-linked Nursa Front in Syria did not distinguish between groups they consider inferior.The Hezbollah leader said the Islamic State threat does not simply represent a sectarian conflict. "We are in front of a threat that does not tolerate the existence of others. It is wrong to say this is a Sunni-Shiite conflict," The Daily Star quoted him as saying. "Some people in region still putting heads in the sand and denying these groups exists, or are considering them friends."