BEIRUT/TEHRAN (dpa-AFX) – The Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah has reaffirmed its willingness to fight. In front of hundreds of supporters, the organization’s deputy secretary general, Naim Ghassem, expressed his support for the Islamist Hamas on Friday. “When the time to act comes, we will take it,” Ghassem said. “We are in a time of victories, not a time of defeats.”
The Shiite organization Hezbollah (Party of God) was founded in 1982 with Iranian support in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Since then she has been fighting politically, but also violently, against Israel. The group is also represented in parliament in the multi-confessional Mediterranean country. It is financed primarily by Iran.
Hezbollah is considered far more powerful than Hamas. Their influence extends deep into the crisis-paralyzed Lebanese state. The organization primarily controls the south on the border with Israel, Shiite-inhabited districts of the capital Beirut and the Bekaa Valley in the north of the country. Under Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, it has steadily expanded its influence in the past with support from Tehran./arb/arj/wh/DP/ngu