LEBANON: You’re a terrorist! No, you are!
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A war of accusations and name-calling has erupted between the U.S. and Hezbollah after the recent release of the State Department’s annual report on terrorism in the world.
First, the US report (summarized in the video above) claimed that the Lebanese Shiite militant group of being the ‘most technically capable terrorist group in the world.’ It accused Hezbollah of providing military and logistic support to insurgents in Iraq and militant groups in the Palestinian Territories, as well as Taliban fighters in Afghanistan:
Hizballah provides support to several Palestinian terrorist organizations that reject peace between Israel and its neighbors. This support includes the covert provision of weapons, explosives, training, funding, and guidance, as well as overt political support. Hizballah is known to have been involved in numerous anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli terrorist attacks and prior to September 11, 2001, was responsible for more American deaths than any other terrorist group… Since at least 2004, Hizballah has provided training to select Iraqi Shia militants, including the construction and use of shaped charge improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that can penetrate heavily armored vehicles, which it developed in southern Lebanon in the late 1990s.
Hezbollah was quick to fire back in the harshest terms. In a statement issued today, the group lambasted the Bush administration as posing the biggest threat to international peace and stability. Hezbollah said that the US had no right to categorize states and movements
The US administration is the major sponsor of international terrorism, the murderer of the largest number of innocent people yet and the biggest seller of military killing and torture tools; therefore, this administration has no right to give others certificates of patriotism or terrorism, while it is forcing the peoples of the world including the American people to pay the tax of its mobile wars and the price of its blood thirsty policies. Hence, when the US administration enlists certain groups on its terrorism list, it is in fact granting them a medal of honor.
Meanwhile, at Friday prayers in Tehran, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami blasted Washington for calling Iran the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism.
‘In fact, the U.S. is supporting the greatest terrorism by unleashing Israel to savagely kill the innocent people of the Gaza Strip and openly brag of assassinating Palestinians leaders,’ he told the faithful.
—Raed Rafei in Beirut and Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran
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