AMERICAN LEBANESE COORDINATION COUNCIL

Nasrallah’s call was the first ever acknowledgement by Hizbullah that it had prevented factions comprising the leftist National Resistance Movement from carrying out attacks against the Israeli-occupation forces in south Lebanon.

Nasrallah stressed that there should be a “sole national resistance (movement) to liberate our national land … the state is responsible for protecting the borders.”

He admitted that Hizbullah fighters are not along the southern confrontation line with Israel, saying “this is not a secret.”

Nasrallah was referring to the deployment south of the Litani river of U.N. peacekeepers and regular troops of the Lebanese army since U.N. Security Council resolution 1701 ended a 34-day war between Israel and Hizbullah on Aug. 14.

The Hizbullah leader said U.S. President George Bush “should be punished.”

He said the U.S. President and his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had “ordered the Zionists to launch war against Lebanon.”

He accused Washington of devising a “conspiracy to retaliate against resistance movements by instigating civil wars in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq.”

The alleged plot, according to Nasrallah, was to start “civil wars and inter-communal fighting” in states hosting resistance movements.

Syria was not mentioned by Nasrallah as a target of the alleged plot, presumably because President Bashar Assad’s regime does not permit resistance attacks against Israeli troops occupying the Golan Heights since 1967.

Nasrallah stressed that Hizbullah’s Islamic Resistance was “ready” to confront any Israeli aggression, stressing that whoever believes that it has weakened is “deluded.”

He pledged that Hizbullah would make Lebanon a “graveyard for invaders.” The crowd in Beirut’s southern suburb responded by repeated chants of “death to America, death to Israel and death to the great Satan.”

The outspoken Hizbullah leader stressed that his party will “not be lured into using its weapons” against other Lebanese factions, and called for an independent judicial investigation to bring to justice culprits in the violence that swept Beirut last week.

“We underline our determination to avoid any collision” with other Lebanese factions, Nasrallah said declaring that “I adhere to the just demands of the opposition” which has been trying since Dec. 1 to topple Premier Fouad Saniora’s Majority government.

He called for the formation of “a state (government) based on cooperation … to steer Lebanon out of its crises.”

The opposition demands, according to Nasrallah, are of a “political nature and the solution can only be a political one.”