Demonstrators Protest Hizbullah's Involvement in Syria in Martyrs Square
The Lebanese for the Freedom and Dignity of the Syrian People gathering on Sunday held a sit-in in Martyrs Square in Beirut to protest Hizbullah's activities in the Syrian war amid tight security measures.
Al-Mustaqbal bloc MP Khaled Zahraman, March 14 general-secretariat member Charles Jabbour and activist Saleh al-Mashnouq participated in the sit-in.
"Hizbullah's fighting in Syria fuels sectarian tension in the region,” warned Jabbour in a speech he gave during the protest, calling on the army to control the border with the neighboring country.
Referring to Hizbullah, al-Mashnouq firmly rejected the “representative of Iran's” involvement in the Syrian war.
He noted: “The Sunnis of Lebanon are those who support the Lebanon First slogan, and those who agree with Sayed Ali al-Amin and late Shiite Authority Ayatollah Mohammed Mahdi Shamseddine's statements.”
“The revolutionaries will emerge victorious from the war.”
Meanwhile, LBCI television reported that another demonstration supporting Hizbullah's involvement in the Syrian war was supposed to take place in Downtown Beirut as well, but noted that “no one showed up” to the event.
Syrian regime forces backed by elite Hizbullah fighters on Wednesday managed to recapture the strategic town of Qusayr near Lebanon's border from rebel hands following a fierce assault.
And on Saturday the Eastern Bweida village, the last rebel bastion in the area, was seized by Syrian forces, bringing the entire Qusayr region near the border with Lebanon back under regime control.
Only 10 kilometers from Lebanon, Qusayr is strategic for the regime and Hizbullah because of its proximity to the border and because it lies on a route linking Damascus to the the regime's bastion on the Syrian coast.
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah had previously justified the group's involvement in Syria by saying they were defending Lebanese-inhabited border villages inside Syria and Shiite holy sites in the Damascus province.
But during a May 25 speech marking the 13th anniversary of Israel's military withdrawal from Lebanon, Nasrallah said the hardline Takfiris are the “most prevailing group in the Syrian opposition,” warning against a defeat against them in the ongoing war in Syria.
He said: “If Syria falls in the hands of the Takfiris and the United States, the resistance will become under a siege and Israel will enter Lebanon. If Syria falls, the Palestinian cause will be lost.”
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