Hezbollah’s leader vowed that the terrorist group will keep its weapons until a strong Lebanese army capable of defending the country against Israeli attacks is established. On Sunday, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah apparently was responding to repeated calls by the country’s anti-Syrian parliamentary majority for his group to disarm in line with a United Nations resolution that ended last summer’s Israel-Hezbollah war. Speaking at a ceremony in south Beirut marking the graduation of more than 1,700 Hezbollah supporters from Lebanese universities, Nasrallah rejected claims that Hezbollah was acting like “a state within a state.” “The only solution is that there must be a strong state and a strong army capable of confronting any Israeli aggression on Lebanon,” he said. Nasrallah also said a dialogue among feuding Lebanese leaders has failed to resolve the country’s political crisis. He proposed a public referendum or early parliamentary elections as a way out of the four-month stalemate.
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