Hezbollah says presence in Syria greater than ever

The head of Lebanon’s Hezbollah says his terror group is fighting a “critical and definitive battle” in Syria with a greater presence than ever before.

Hassan Nasrallah spoke during an event commemorating the death of leading Hezbollah figure Hassan Hussein al-Hajj, known as Abu Muhammad.

According to Al-Manar television, which aired the speech, al-Hajj died on October 10 fighting in Sahl al-Ghab, a strategic plain in northwest Syria where Hezbollah has dispatched fighters in support of the embattled regime of Bashar Assad.

Nasrallah says Hezbollah members fought “for 30 years on the border with Palestine and have now gone to Sahl al-Ghab, where Abu Mohammad died, to the borders with (Syrian provinces) Hama, Idlib, Latakia, and Aleppo.”

His group’s presence in Syria “is larger than ever before — qualitatively, quantitatively, and in equipment, because we are in a critical and definitive battle,” Nasrallah says.

— AFP