BEIRUT: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Syria would respond to Israeli raids around Damascus by giving his group sophisticated new weapons, the outcome Israel said its attack was launched to avert.
“If the aim of your attack was to prevent the strengthening of the resistance’s capabilities, then Syria will give the resistance sophisticated weapons the like of which it hasn’t seen before,” he said in a televised speech yesterday.
“The resistance is prepared to accept any sophisticated weaponry even if it was to break the equilibrium (in the region),” Nasrallah said. “We are worthy of having such weapons and we would use them to defend our people and our country and our holy sites.”
Concerns are growing that the war in Syria is seeping across borders that mark faultlines of Middle Eastern conflicts.
“We announce that we stand with the Syrian popular resistance and offer material and spiritual support as well as coordination in order to liberate the Syrian Golan,” Nasrallah said.
Meanwhile, Israel has asked Russia not to sell Syria an advanced air defence system which would help Assad fend off foreign military intervention as he battles a more than two-year-old rebellion.
The S-300 missile is designed to shoot down planes and missiles at 200km ranges. It would enhance Syria’s current Russian-supplied defences, which failed to deter Israel from launching air strikes around Damascus last weekend.
“We have raised objections to this (sale) with the Russians, and the Americans have too,” an Israeli official said. Kerry said in Rome that Washington would prefer Russia not to sell weapons to Syria. Israel said its air raids on Syria were intended to stop Damascus sending powerful Iranian missiles to Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.
Kerry expressed gratitude to Russia for its willingness to try to arrange a “Geneva two” conference to negotiate an end to the conflict. Kerry said however a transition government would have to have the “mutual consent of both sides, which clearly means that in our judgement President Assad will not be a component of that transitional government”.
Reuters
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