Hizbullah condemned on Friday the incident at a Telecommunications Ministry building at Adlieh on Thursday, saying that it raises questions over whether Lebanon has official security forces or statelets independent of the state.
It said in a statement: “Yesterday’s development is an indication that Lebanon’s institutions are at risk of being emptied of their constitutional and legal elements in favor of personal interests of sides claiming to respect the state while they are actually seeking to destroy it.”
Full StoryFormer Israeli Army Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi has said that Hizbullah poses the greatest challenge to the Jewish state’s military.
"Despite the criticism against the Second Lebanon War, deterrence has increased in its wake…. Still, if Hizbullah wanted to, it could fire a massive amount of rockets at nearly any point on Israel's map,” Ashkenazi said during a conference at Bar Ilan University on Wednesday.
Full StoryU.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that Hizbullah has a sizable arsenal of missiles and rockets which could be tipped with warheads carrying biological or chemical warfare agents.
The Shiite group possesses a stockpile that outstrips the number of missiles and rockets held by most nations, Gates said Tuesday after a speech on Pentagon budget issues at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.
Full StorySpeaker Nabih Berri is reportedly planning to launch a new initiative to bring the viewpoints of Premier-designate Najib Miqati and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun closer.
An Nahar daily said Wednesday that Berri is working away from the media spotlight to solve the dispute between the two officials.
Full StoryIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed the "courageous Arab protestors" battling tyranny which has inflicted “the medieval rule of Hizbullah” on Lebanon.
"The brief democratic spring in Iran was cut short by a ferocious and unforgiving tyranny. This same tyranny smothered Lebanon's democratic Cedar Revolution,” Netanyahu said in an address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday.
Full StoryPremier-designate Najib Miqati has stressed that he would not form a government of “cantons” or grant portfolios to political parties in order to turn them into “feudal” entities.
“I told everyone without exception and not only the general (Michel Aoun) as is being rumored, to give me lists of portfolios that they are seeking and lists of names that they suggest so that I would distribute the portfolios on the names in accordance with my authorities and the authorities of the president,” Miqati was quoted as saying by al-Akhbar daily on Tuesday.
Full StoryA married couple pleaded guilty Monday to charges that they planned to ship money to Hizbullah, which the United States lists as a terrorist organization.
The plea deal will spare Hor and Amera Akl from potential life sentences.
Full StoryPremier-designate Najib Miqati has continued to hold onto his constitutional mission of forming the new cabinet as the March 14 forces began hinting that his “nomination’s status should change.”
Miqati’s visitors quoted him as saying that he would not make concessions on the authorities of the prime minister set in the constitution. “Mistaken are those who think that he would tolerate such a thing.”
Full StoryPremier-designate Najib Miqati is expected to launch in the next few days a new round of consultations aimed at forming the new government in coordination with Speaker Nabih Berri, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat and Hizbullah.
March 8 sources told An Nahar newspaper on Monday that Miqati would play an essential role in reviving the consultations that reached a standstill last week over allegedly growing demands by Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun.
Full StoryHizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is expected for the first time to address the situation in Syria during a speech on the occasion of Liberation Day on Wednesday.
Syrian President Bashar Assad, who along with Iran is Hizbullah’s main backer, is facing a nine-week uprising against his regime.
Full Story