Concerned over its terror labeling Hezbollah urges Saudis to review decision

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group urged Saudi Arabia to reevaluate its blacklisting  of  the group as a terrorist organizations in the wake of the multiple suicide bombings that rocked the kingdom last week.

“The Saudi regime committed a strategic mistake when it sought to mislead the nation and present Hezbollah as a terrorist danger that is threatening Arabs and Muslims,” Sheikh Nabil Qaouq, the deputy head ofHezbollah’s Executive Council, said on Saturday.

“The suicide attacks in Jeddah, Qatif and Medina prove the incorrectness of the Saudi regime’s terror classifications,” Qaouq added.

“Was Hezbollah the threat to Saudi national security or the takfiri terrorism?” he asked.

Riyadh blacklisted Hezbollah as a terrorist group and pressed the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League to follow suit after accusing the party of forming militant cells in some Gulf countries and interfering in the Yemeni conflict. The moves also came amid unprecedented regional tensions between Hezbollah’s backer Iran and the Gulf states.

The Syria-based jihadist groups Islamic State and al-Nusra Front in addition to Al Qaeda are also on Saudi Arabia’s terror blacklist.

“The Saudi regime is required, after the bombings that targeted it, to review its anti-resistance policies, classifications and alignments so that the confrontation remains focused on the terrorist, takfiri threat that is offering a strategic favor to Israel,” Qaouq added.

But Qaouq insisted on accusing Saudi Arabia of arming the Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front.

“The takfiris who staged bombings in Beirut, Hermel and the Bekaa, and who abducted and slaughtered the (Lebanese) servicemen are al-Qaida’s branch in Lebanon and Syria (Abdullah Azzam Brigades) and al-Nusra Front, and al-Nusra Front is today fighting with Saudi weapons,” Qaouq charged.

“Until when will the Saudi regime support and arm al-Nusra Front in Syria, although it has murdered us, executed our servicemen and continued to occupy our land in the Bekaa?” the Hezbollah official added.

He also warned that “the Saudi regime’s continued support for al-Nusra Front poses a real threat to Lebanese national security.”