Lebanon’s Hezbollah acknowledges battling the Islamic State in Iraq
BEIRUT — The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement acknowledged for the first time Monday that the Shiite militia has sent fighters to Iraq, and he urged Arab states throughout the region to set aside sectarian rivalries to confront the threat posed by the Islamic State.
In a videotaped speech delivered to followers in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Hasan Nasrallah called on the region’s traditional American allies to abandon their reliance on the United States and instead align with Hezbollah — and by implication with its sponsor Iran — to defeat the Sunni extremists.
“He who relies on the Americans relies on an illusion. You rely on someone who is stealing from you and conniving against you,” he said.
The speech was unusual in its scope, even for Nasrallah, who regularly delivers addresses in which he articulates his thoughts, typically with a focus on Lebanon and Hezbollah’s arch-enemy, Israel. In this instance, he portrayed the Islamic State as the most serious immediate threat to the region’s stability, although he also repeated the common charge that the Islamic State is working on Israel’s behalf.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/lebanons-hezbollah-acknowledges-battling-the-islamic-state-in-iraq/2015/02/16/4448b21a-b619-11e4-bc30-a4e75503948a_story.html
