BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday predicted a UN court on the murder of Rafiq Hariri would "disappear with the wind" as vast crowds gathered to mark the Shia holy day of Ashura.
"This new conspiracy against the resistance and Lebanon, dubbed the international tribunal, will disappear with the wind," Nasrallah said in his latest attack on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), a UN-backed investigation into the 2005 assassination of Sunni ex-premier Hariri.
"We will defend the resistance, our dignity, our country against unrest and against aggressors and conspirators no matter what their guise," the Shia leader said in a televised address to a procession of tens of thousands in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburb of Beirut.
His comments came as tensions rise over the STL, which is reportedly ready to indict high-ranking Hezbollah operatives in the 2005 Beirut bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others.
Nasrallah, who commands the most powerful military force in the country, has urged Lebanon’s deeply divided unity government to stay out of his rising offensive against the STL, which he claims is a US-Israeli plot.
He has also warned any accusation in the Hariri murder would have grave repercussions in Lebanon.
But Saudi-backed Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of the slain ex-premier, has vowed to see the investigation through.
In a speech marked by a more pacific tone than that adopted in recent months, Nasrallah on Thursday emphasized that his Iranian-backed militant group was keen to preserve peace among Lebanon’s feuding communities, particularly Sunni and Shia Muslims.
"We announce our commitment to Lebanon, to unity within our country, and to peaceful relations among the many confessions and communities of our country," he said.
Thursday’s procession marked the end of 10 days of rituals to mourn the death of Imam Hussein, the faith’s third imam.
Responding in force to a call by Nasrallah the previous night, Shias flooded the streets of the southern suburb, uniformly clad in black and chanting support for the imam and Nasrallah.
The gender-segregated processions marked by strict organization and security measures by Hezbollah.
Crowds also gathered in mainly Shia Muslim areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, raising pictures of Nasrallah and Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Lebanon’s Shia clerics forbid traditional chest- and head-beating with chains or razors on Ashura.
