{{The leader of Lebanon\u2019s militant Hezbollah on Friday blamed Sunni extremists for a string of attacks targeting the group\u2019s strongholds over the past few months, including a car bombing that killed 22 people and wounded more than 300 a day earlier.}}<\/p>\n
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said all preliminary investigations showed Takfiri groups – a term for Sunni radicals – were likely behind the bombing in a predominantly Shiite southern suburb of Beirut, as well as other recent attacks.<\/p>\n
He also pledged to double the number of Hezbollah fighters in neighboring Syria, who have travelled there to support the regime of President Bashar Assad.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think that by killing our women and children … and destroying our neighborhoods, villages and cities we will retreat or back away from our position, you are wrong,\u201d he said in a speech to supporters marking the end of the 2006 monthlong war with Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the battle with these terrorist Takfiris requires for me personally and all of Hezbollah to go to Syria, we will go to Syria,\u201d he said, drawing thunderous applause from thousands of supporters gathered in a village in south Lebanon bordering Israel. The crowd watched him speak on a large screen via satellite link.<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s car bomb struck a crowded street in the Rweiss district in Beirut\u2019s southern suburbs, an overwhelmingly Shiite area and stronghold of Hezbollah. The explosion sent a massive plume of black smoke billowing into the sky, set several cars and buildings ablaze and trapped dozens of residents in their homes for hours.<\/p>\n
The bombing was the second in just more than a month to hit one of the Shiite group\u2019s bastions of support, and the deadliest since 1985 when a blast in the area killed 80 people. Many in Lebanon see the attacks as retaliation for Hezbollah\u2019s armed support for Assad in Syria\u2019s civil war.<\/p>\n
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{{The leader of Lebanon\u2019s militant Hezbollah on Friday blamed Sunni extremists for a string of attacks targeting the group\u2019s strongholds over the past few months, including a car bombing that killed 22 people and wounded more than 300 a day earlier.}} Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said all preliminary investigations showed Takfiri groups – a term for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-9781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9781"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=9781"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=9781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}