Hizbullah's
leader said Thursday that the Lebanese government declared war by deeming the Shiite militant group's private telecommunications network illegal and a threat to state security.
Hizbullah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah vowed to fight any attempts to disarm Hizbullah militants saying: "Those who try to arrest us, we will arrest them. Those who shoot at us, we will shoot at them. The hand raised against us, we will cut it off.”
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Lebanese Communications Minister Marwan Hamada accuses Iran of building communications network for Hizbullah with separate landlines across Lebanon; to allow tapping, protect Hizbullah from being tapped |
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Celebratory gunfire rang out in Beirut as Nasrallah spoke by videolink from a hiding place in remarks broadcast live on television. The Hizbullah leader rarely appears in public for fear of assassination by Israel.
Lebanon's
US-backed government on Tuesday declared Hizbullah's military telecommunications network illegal and said it was a threat to state security.
The government also said it would dismiss the security chief of the country's only international airport because he was suspected of ties to Iranian and Syrian-backed
Hizbullah.
Those decisions sparked sectarian clashes between supporters of Hizbullah and the government over the past two days. The violence emerged out of a long-simmering power struggle between the Hizbullah-led opposition and the western-backed government for control of the country.
"The decision is tantamount to a declaration of war ... On the resistance and its weapons in the interest of America and Israel,"
Nasrallah said.
He offered a way out of latest crisis, saying the “Illegitimate” government must revoke its decisions
against Hizbullah; and adding the telecommunications network was "the most important part of the weapons of the resistance" and added Hizbullah had a duty to defend those weapons.
Hizbullah runs its own secure network of primitive private land lines. Nasrallah claimed the network helped the guerrillas fight Israel's hi-tech army in the 2006 summer war.
He and other Hizbullah leaders have suggested they are regularly targeted by Israel and they need secure communications.
"I am not declaring war. I am declaring a decision of self-defense," He said. The government has "Crossed all the red lines. We will not be lenient with anyone."
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