Sunni sect.

Tufaili at a news conference said Shiites are "small minorities scattered in the vast sea of the Islamic world. It is in their interest to be allies of the majority and to mend fences with Sunnis."

"Otherwise, we will destroy even our future… this is crazy…we'll be slaughtered like sheep even in Lebanon. This is a reality."

He said Iran's spiritual leader Ali Khamenei has a dual policy. "In Iraq, he destroys Iraq under the slogan of alliance with America and in Lebanon he destroys Lebanon under the slogan that says the Sunnis are the allies of America."

He disclosed that Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is the person who carries out Khamenei's policy.

I am an ex-secretary general for Hezbollah and I know that Sayyed Hassan is in charge of carrying Sayyed Khamenei's policy in Lebanon. Sayyed Abdul Aziz al Hakim is the person who executes Khamenei's policy in Iraq."

He accused Hezbollah, of which he was fired more than eight years ago after disagreeing with the Iranian leadership, of forming its own state within the state of Lebanon and "the resistance is its weapon."

"There cannot be two states and two weapons, that of Hezbollah and that of the government. We need to unify the weapons under one command. Two states would lead to war," he said.

In an interview earlier this year with Kuwait Newspaper Al-Siyassa Sheikh Subhi Al-Tufeili said that Hezbollah is a tool and part of the Iranian intelligence. He added "It wasn't like this in the beginning. Hezbollah's activity was limited to resistance [operations]... But, unfortunately, the problem has developed today to the point where they ( Iranians) have succeeded in changing Hezbollah from a resistance force into a tool to be used in [whatever] direction they want."

About Sheikh Al-Tufeili

Al-Tufeili was a central figure in the founding of Hezbollah, along with Sheikh Fadlallah and Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi. Al-Tufeili was close to Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, Iran’s Ambassador to Syria in the early 1980s, who is known as the “Father of Hezbollah.” Al-Tufeili was Hezbollah’s first Secretary-General, serving from 1987-91.

When Khomeini died in 1989, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi lost influence, and the Iranian leadership under Khameini and Rafsanjani decided to rein in Hezbollah. In 1991 Abbas al-Musawi was elected Secretary-General. He was killed in an Israeli missile strike on February 17, 1992 (one month later, in revenge, Hezbollah bombed Israel’s Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 and injuring 252,) Al-Musawi was replaced by Hassan Nasrallah. By the mid-1990s al-Tufeili was not part of Hezbollah’s leadership and in 1998 he was expelled from Hezbollah. At the time he was sponsoring a “hunger revolt” protesting government policies towards the impoverished Beqaa Valley, one of Hezbollah’s strongholds.

Sources: Naharnet, Ya Libnan