Hariri: Nasrallah Replaced Entire Lebanese State with Hizbullah Shura Council

Former prime minister Saad Hariri snapped back on Friday at Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, accusing him of replacing the entire Lebanese state with “Hizbullah's Shura Council.”

Nasrallah “showed skill in exploiting the pains of those who were wounded in the confrontations with the Israeli enemy to cover up for the involvement in fighting against large segments of the Syrian people,” Hariri said in a statement issued by his press office only hours after a speech by Nasrallah marking the Wounded Resistance Fighter Day.

"But Sayyed Hassan was not successful or eloquent in attributing the crimes his party is taking part in in Syria to the al-Mustaqbal Movement and in his claims that the movement is sending fighters and burying the dead in Syrian territory," Hariri added.

He described the remarks as "fabricated by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's imagination and totally false," strongly denying "organizing or sending a single individual to fight in Syria."

Hariri asked: "Who is the side that tasked Sayyed Hassan with following up (on the Syrian conflict), and did he request a cabinet session to ask whether Lebanon needs to fight a self-defense battle in Syrian territory?"

He also wondered whether Nasrallah had asked President Michel Suleiman about his opinion on "the participation of the Lebanese army in the battle of defending Lebanon."

"Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah sought to replace the entire Lebanese state with Hizbullah's Shura Council and to prove once again that he does not acknowledge the state and its institutions, presidencies and armed forces, because he only acknowledges one authority: the authority of the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sayyed Ali Khamenei,” Hariri went on to say.

Citing Nasrallah's fatwa forbidding celebratory gunfire, Hariri urged him to issue a fatwa forbidding the continued use of weapons.

“Is shooting dead the southern young man Hashem al-Salman permissible? Is firing on the children, women and elderly of Syria permissible? Is fighting in Qusayr's streets considered a contribution to the building of Syria?” Hariri added.

“It is haram (impermissible in Islam) to implicate Lebanon and expose the interests of its people to danger and it is haram to insist on an unknown path that will lead to destruction … and yet you are demanding a cabinet in which you have the one-third veto power and you want the Lebanese to approve of your decision of continuing to defend Bashar Assad's regime,” Hariri said.

Earlier on Friday, Nasrallah said Hizbullah will stay involved in the Syrian conflict, after having helped regime forces recapture the key town of Qusayr from rebels.

He noted that “thousands of (anti-regime) fighters have come from all around the world and the entire world is fighting in Syria through money, weapons and media.”

“After two years we realized that they are insisting on continuing the battle, even if Syria was destroyed and the regime fell ... and the alternative is the groups that are killing and slaughtering people,” Nasrallah added.

He noted that Hizbullah was “the last party to intervene in Syria while al-Mustaqbal Movement and other Lebanese parties were the first to intervene, not to mention the other nations, groups and organizations.”

Defending the intervention, he said: “There is a front that was targeted by the Americans, the Israelis and the Takfiris, and we were attacked when we intervened on the side of this front.”