Lebanon's Shiite Muslim guerrilla movement Hezbollah, in a first reaction to the terror attacks on the United States, on Sunday opposed giving Washington a free hand for its planned retaliation.
"We regret the deaths of innocent people in any part of the world," the Iranian- and Syrian-backed group said in a statement, without explicitly condemning the September 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington.
But it also cautioned against "giving in to the panic which the United States wants to spread in the world so as to have their hands free to retaliate by any means under the banner of the fight against terrorism."
"The issue is to determine if America's real aim is to punish those responsible for the attacks or to take advantage of the situation to increase its [Washington's] hold on the world," Hezbollah said.
The group voiced fears that the world's focus on the assault against the United States could cover up for "Israeli aggressions against the Palestinian people who are already paying a high price".
The Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation "risks being weakened in the shadow of the new world alliances and the new war" which Washington plans to wage on terrorism, said the Muslim fundamentalist movement.
Hezbollah, which spearheaded armed resistance to Israel's occupation of south Lebanon that ended in May 2000, urged the Muslim world to mobilise "political and media efforts to face up to the dangers to come” -- BEIRUT (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
