A Hezbollah Fighter: Nasrollah is Deputy of Leader of Iran

Shervin Sharei, Rooz Online:

“The morning of victory.”

This is the title of a meeting organized by the Bureau of Culture and Islamic Guidance of Gilan province that was held in Rasht, Iran. One of the speakers was Mohammad Mohsen, a fighetr from Lebanese Hezbollah.

At the beginning of the gathering, the will of seyyed Hadi, the son of Seyyed Hassan Nasrollah, the leader of Lebanese Hezbollah was read out. In it, Hadi expresses his appreciation for all the mujaheddin and prays for the continuation of the spiritual and physical and support of ayatollah Khamenei, whom it calls the leader of all Muslims.

Mohsen then took the podium and delivered his talk. “The history of Lebanon, or for that matter the whole world, could be divided into two phases: The period before ayatollah Khomeini and the one after it. Before Imam Khomeini the issue of Palestine, Lebanon and Israel were complex and perplexing issues. Everything we have is from Imam Hussain’s martyrdom at Kerbala and the mornings over that event. Similarly in Lebanon we say that everything that we have is from Imam Khomeini,” Mohsen announced.

“Prior to the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Lebanese Shii were very weak. We were in absolute deprivation and in a stage of sleep until the light of Khomeini hit us from the East and his angels, seyyed Mousa Sadr and Dr Chamran came to South Lebanon and changed the conditions there. After that, our main goal was to fight Israel, maintain the unity among our groups and the Islamic umma, which is what the Imam had called form. Chamran, who was killed in the Iran-Iraq war, embarked on some basic changes in Lebanon one of which was the creation of resistance groups, training in partisan and non-classic warfare against Israel. We realized then that we could not win a classic war with Israel,” Mohsen said.

In his talk he said that despite being armed with heavy weapons, the many armed groups that existed in Lebanon, ranging from Marxists to Palestinians, were all defeated by Israel. Israel destroyed them all and arrived in Beirut in 1982. It also forced these forces to flee to Syria and to Jordon. “It was then that we then realized that we have to equip ourselves with faith,” he said.

Mohsen continued, “With the deaths of Mousa Sadr and Chamran, some of our forces went to Khomeini to get guidance on how to proceed. He told them to go and fight Israel. It is OK if you die. Following this, resistance groups were formed and other groups retreated.”

Speaking in fluent Persian, Mohsen further said, “After the death of Imam Khomeini, we benefited from the counsel of Imam Khamenei. He identified two missions for us: Fight with Israel, and maintain internal unity. The people of Lebanon too realized that we had brought in a new culture, which was that of Kerbala and the victory of blood over swords, and Islamic awakening. This is what we have learned from you. From your Imam and your war, from the Passdaran Revolutionary Guards and from the Basij militia.”

Stressing that Hezbollah had no specific military territory, Mohsen said that theirs was an irregular resistance group which after witnessing the bombardment of non-military targets, decided to target Israeli cities and disrupt the economic, social and routine life of their residents. “We did it because that land is not theirs and so we will deny that security to them,” he said.

His solution to the problem was Israel’s withdrawal from Palestine and said, “They must return to the cities and countries from which they came. They are confronting a non-regular enemy, a huge and gigantic force known as Hezbollah which has no means but is ready to die, and due to its stupidity, the whole world has become revolutionary and Hezbollahi.”

Mohsen finished his talk by saying, “Our war with Israel is an eternal one. It is a war between the poor and the rich and we take pride in that the leader (i.e. Mr. Khamenei) is happy with us.” READ MORE

In his talk, Mohsen recalled a story from Nasrollah. “After the victory of 2000 and Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon, the leadership of Hezbollah came to Iran to meet the leadership and receive approval from it. When we arrived at Mr. Khamenei’s resident, he was happy and had a smile on his face. All our sufferings and martyrs equaled this smile because this is the smile of the Imam of our time,” Mohsen said.

In the question and answer session, Mohsen said that Hezbollah enjoyed excellent spiritual and physical condition in Lebanon, while the deputy of ayatollah Khamenei in Lebanon (seyyed Hassan Nasrollah) was managing the war in absolute calmness. He also said that they were already the winners of the war because they had achieved their goals. “We had said that we would take the Israeli forces as prisoners, and this is what we have accomplished,” he said. He repeated the call made by others that if Israel attacked Beirut, Hezbollah would attack Tel Aviv. He refrained from responding to questions regarding the financial resources of Hezbollah, where the 150 or so missiles that were fired at Israel everyday came from and said it obtained its weapons from the international intermediaries. He also said that Hezbollah specialized forces had been trained by the Passdaran Revolutionary Guards of Iran, while there were currently no forces other than Hezbollah in the war zones in Lebanon.

An interesting aspect of this meeting was the presence of the director general of Iran’s ministry of Islamic guidance who censored the questions that were asked. Cleric Pour Issa who is the director and at the same time the representative of Khamenei at Azad University in Rasht initially screened all the questions that came to him in the form of note and passed selected ones to a designated person who read them out, all of which was protested by a number of participants.