BEIRUT — Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday, Dec. 3, blamed Saudi Arabia for a twin suicide attack on the Iranian embassy in Beirut that killed 25 people last month.

The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an Al-Qaeda affiliate that claimed responsibility for the attacks, “has an emir and he is Saudi, and I am convinced that it is linked to the Saudi intelligence services, which direct groups like this one in several parts of the world,” Nasrallah told Lebanese TV channel OTV.

Lebanon’s Hizbullah boy scouts carry a picture of Hizbullah commander Hassan al-Laqqis during his funeral in Baalbeck, in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley December 4, 2013. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Nasrallah said the Nov. 19 blasts that hit the embassy, which is located in south Beirut, were “linked to Saudi Arabia’s rage against Iran over its failure” in Syria.

Saudi Arabia is “making Iran pay the price for the consequences of the failure of its plans in the region,” he added.

The gulf kingdom had condemned the bombings and described them as “cowardly and terrorist.”

Nasrallah said the problem with Saudi Arabia as of a political nature rather than sectarian, stressing the importance of seeking a political solution to the current Syrian crisis, as the sole option to resolving it. 

Nasrallah said that the Iranian-western nuclear deal has significant implications, adding that the biggest winners from such a deal are all the region’s peoples. 

The Hizbullah chief saw that Iran’s nuclear deal has pushed off the option of war against it, expressing belief that Israel cannot possibly bomb the Iranian facilities without a U.S. green light. 

“I don’t say that such a deal has forever annulled the option of war but has shoved it far,” he added.

However, he also downplayed talks about the normalization of the relationship between Iran and the U.S. in the foreseeable future.

Nasrallah revealed that a Qatari envoy visited him two days ago. He said despite differences on Syria, Hizbullah has been in contact with Qatar and Turkey. 

A host of 14 March politicians, who oppose Hizbullah, condemned his accusations to Saudi Arabia and labeled them as unfounded.

“Nasrallah forgot that Saudi Arabia’s history with Lebanon is based on construction, goodwill and peace,” said the leader of the Future Movement Bloc Saad Hariri.

Hizbullah accused Israel of assassinating one of its top leaders near Beirut Wednesday, Dec. 4.

The slain leader, Hassan Hawlo al-Lakiss, was the most senior Hizbullah figure to be assassinated since its top military leader Imad Mughniyeh was killed in a Damascus bombing in 2008, which the group also blamed on Israel. 

“The Islamic resistance announces the death of one of its leaders, the martyr Hassan Hawlo al-Lakiss, who was assassinated near his house in the Hadath region” east of Beirut, Hizbullah said.

“Direct accusation is aimed of course against the Israeli enemy which had tried to eliminate our martyred brother again and again and in several places but had failed, until yesterday evening,” said the statement broadcast by Hizbullah’s Al-Manar television channel.

“This enemy must bear full responsibility for and all the consequences of this heinous crime.”

Israel’s foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor dismissed the allegations as “yet another Pavlovian response from Hizbullah, which makes automatic accusations (against Israel) before even thinking about what’s actually happened.”

“Israel has nothing to do with this,” he said.

Al-Manar said Lakiss had been repeatedly shot with a silenced handgun after parking his car in the building where he lived, adding that more than one assailant took part in the attack.

Hizbullah said Lakiss’s son was killed in the war, which claimed the lives of some 1,200 Lebanese, mainly civilians, and more than 150 Israelis, mainly soldiers.  

— MEA, NNA, TAAN