DUBAI: Bahrain’s foreign minister yesterday lashed out at Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, calling him a “criminal” with no right to criticise the kingdom over its treatment of its Shia opposition.
The sharp riposte to remarks made by Nasrallah the day before comes amid a ratcheting up of sectarian tensions across the region as Sunni and Shia Muslims back opposing sides in Syria’s civil war.
“The people of Bahrain are above being addressed by a criminal whose hands are stained by the blood of innocents in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq,” Foreign Minister Khalid Al Khalifa wrote on Twitter.
“Any contact with terrorist Hezbollah is a contact with the enemy,” said Khalifa, whose Sunni-ruled kingdom, along with other Gulf monarchies, views the Iran-backed Lebanese Shia movement as a terror group.
Nasrallah on Monday dismissed the government of Bahrain as “dwarves whose oppression will get them only disappointment,” warning that the Bahrain government “should not assume it can continue to oppress its people and pressure the outside world to remain silent.”
Nasrallah insisted that his party does not meddle in Bahraini affairs to back the country’s Shia majority, saying that Bahrain’s Shia opposition “does not belong to any (foreign) state or side.”
“What is happening in Bahrain is very dangerous,” said Nasrallah, pointing to the justice ministry’s decision to seek a judicial order to shut down a Shia clerics’ group, and to the latest arrest of a top figure in the main opposition association Al Wefaq.
Gulf monarchies, which are supporting the Sunni-led rebellion against the Syrian government, have been infuriated by Hezbollah’s open intervention to keep President Bashar Al Assad in power.
They have collectively agreed to impose sanctions on Hezbollah supporters.
AFP
