Nasrallah Launches Blistering Attack on Saudi over Nimr Execution, Cautions against Sectarian Strife
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday launched one of his fiercest verbal attacks to date against Saudi Arabia over its execution of top Shiite dissident Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, as he warned against turning the issue into a Sunni-Shiite conflict.
“The land of the two holy mosques and the Prophet and his family has been wrongfully called the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech commemorating both al-Nimr and late Hizbullah official Sheikh Mohammed Khatoun.
“The House of Saud imposed itself on the Arabian Peninsula's people through massacres, murder and intimidation and the kingdom was created with British support and funding as part of a colonial scheme,” Nasrallah charged.
He lamented that “in that land and that kingdom, criticism, objection and debate are prohibited.”
“We are before an alarming event and the House of Saud might have taken what it did lightly but it is not an incident that can go unnoticed,” Nasrallah warned.
Nimr, 56, was a force behind anti-government protests in Saudi Arabia in 2011 in the east of the country.
He was executed along with 46 other men -- Shiite activists and Sunnis who the Saudi interior ministry said were involved in al-Qaida killings. Some were beheaded and others were shot by firing squad.
"The execution (Saturday) of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr reveals to the world the real criminal, takfiri and terrorist face of Saudi Arabia," Nasrallah said.
“Was the Saudi judiciary able to prove that Sheikh al-Nimr had taken up arms to fight? Did he form an armed group? Did he call for violence and arms?” Nasrallah wondered.
He stressed that al-Nimr's approach was “peaceful throughout his life, in the vein of all the scholars in the Eastern Province and in the Kingdom of Bahrain.”
“Sheikh al-Nimr was very brave in what he says and he was a reformist man who demanded the rights of the people of the Arabian Peninsula which was illegitimately called Saudi Arabia,” Nasrallah added.
He decried that “whoever speaks and objects” in Saudi Arabia would be “executed.”
“This is Saudi Arabia that wants democracy in the region and for the peoples of the region,” Nasrallah mocked.
He noted that the execution carries a “message” that Riyadh is “not concerned with the Islamic world, the other Muslim sects, or the Muslim and international public opinion.”
“What is behind the timing of the execution amid these circumstances? Some were hoping that the Saudi regime would open the doors for overcoming the region's crises through dialogue,” Nasrallah asked.
He warned that the House of Saud – the kingdom's ruling family -- wants to “stir Sunni-Shiite sectarian strife everywhere.”
“Our people must be aware of this and must not turn the issue into a Sunni-Shiite conflict. Turning it into a sectarian issue is an act of betrayal towards the blood of Sheikh al-Nimr and it serves the purposes of his killers,” Nasrallah said.
Comparing the kingdom's rulers to the extremist Islamic State group, Nasrallah said “Daesh (IS) and the House of Saud are advocates of the same school of thought, the same books and the same practices.”
Hizbullah's chief also added that “the signs of the end of this tyrannical, oppressive, criminal and takfiri regime have started to loom in the horizon.”
Y.R.
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