Nasrallah Warns Turkey, Gulf on Syria

Lebanon, Syria, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, were all in one man’s speech, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. The main reason behind Nasrallah’s televised appearance on Monday was the deployment of Lebanese security forces in large numbers inside Beirut’s southern suburb, famous as Hezbollah’s stronghold. The forces, composed of army, police and general security personnel, will take responsibility of the checkpoints on the entrances and inside “Dahiyeh.”

“Hezbollah greatly welcomes this move,” said Nasrallah, “We hope the state can always fulfill its legal and national duties in all cities, towns and governorates in Lebanon.” 

But the speech wasn’t all about security forces’ deployment, though he used it as a launchpad to address other subjects that were linked together in one way or another. The deployment in Dahiyeh was linked to the Aug. 19 bombings that Nasrallah accused in his speech a group affiliated with the rebels in Syria of perpetuating it, so Syria was also there. Nasrallah also attacked Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries for their role in Syria, and since Saudi Arabia is also present in the Bahraini conflict, he took the chance to send some firm messages to the government of Manama.

“Nasrallah wanted to send some messages together, he was very relaxed and that was reflected in the low tone he used,” a source in Beirut told me by phone. According to the source, Hezbollah's secretary-general has kept away from media appearances for almost a month: “During the standoff on Syria the group decided there should be no word on the possible response, it was part of the psychological warfare. Ambiguity made the Americans think of hundreds of probabilities.”