BEIRUT: Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met late Thursday with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah who offered him a weapon that had been seized from an Israeli soldier, the Shiite militant group said.
The two men met at the Iranian embassy in Beirut at the end of Ahmadinejad’s controversial two-day visit to Lebanon during which he toured the country’s southern border with Israel in a show of defiance against the Jewish state.
Hezbollah said in a statement that Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah had discussed the Iranian leader’s "historic" visit.
It added that in a gesture of gratitude and loyalty Nasrallah offered Ahmadinejad the personal weapon of an Israeli soldier which had been seized during Hezbollah’s devastating 2006 war with the Jewish state.
Ahmadinejad’s visit underscored Iran’s reach in Lebanon through its proxy Hezbollah, the most powerful military and political force in the country.
But the visit was denounced by the United States and Israel as well as members of Lebanon’s pro-Western parliamentary majority who described it as a provocation and a bid to portray Lebanon as an "Iranian base on the Mediterranean."
