Hezbollah says it is fighting IS in Iraq

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Shiite movement Hezbollah is fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq, its chief Hassan Nasrallah revealed for the first time Monday in a speech beamed to supporters.

“We may not have spoken about Iraq before, but we have a limited presence because of the sensitive phase that Iraq is going through,” Nasrallah said, referring to ongoing clashes between Iraq’s army, militias and Kurdish forces against the IS jihadists.

Hezbollah is already fighting in Syria, alongside President Bashar alAssad’s forces.

Nasrallah’s speech comes two days after his leading Lebanese opponent, former prime minister Saad Hariri, called on Hezbollah to withdraw from Syria.\

‘Let’s go together to Syria’

“I say to those who call on us to withdraw from Syria, let’s go together to Syria,” said Nasrallah.

“I say, come with us to Iraq, and to any place where we can fight this threat that is threatening our (Muslim) nation and our region,” he added, referring to IS and the al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Nusra Front.

Both Sunni jihadist movements control large swathes of Syria, while IS is also present in Libya, where on Monday it claimed the beheading of 21 Coptic Christian Egyptian hostages.

Nasrallah condemned the brutal killings as “an awful, heinous crime,” while branding the Al-Nusra Front and IS as having “the same essence, ideology, culture and methodology.”

“The only difference between them was over leadership, but they are essentially one and the same,” said Nasrallah.

“All the takfiri (extremist Sunni) currents must be fought, without distinction.”

(AFP)