Hezbollah Lebanese resistance movement’s secretary general slammed the recent killing of Shia Muslims in Nigeria by the African country’s army.
Speaking during a televised broadcast on Monday, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah also denounced international bodies’ silence and inaction over the tragic event.
On December 12, hundreds of people were killed after the Nigerian army launched a brutal attack on Shia Muslims in Zaria, Kaduna State.
The military accused the Shias of attempting to assassinate the chief of the Nigerian army staff, an allegation Shias vehemently deny.
Nigerian soldiers opened fire on the people attending a religious ceremony at Hussainiyyah Baqeeyatullah, a religious center belonging to the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), killing hundreds and injuring and arresting a number of others, including senior Shia cleric Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky.
Nasrallah called on Nigeria’s president and religious and political leaders to take action to bring the perpetrators of the crime to justice and release Sheikh Zakzaky.
He also warned that the massacre of Shias may have been an America-Israeli or Takfiri plot to plunge Nigeria into a dangerous situation.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Nasrallah referred to the Zionist regime’s assassination of high-ranking Hezbollah member Samir Qantar and stressed that the resistance movement will not leave the crime unanswered.
Earlier on Monday, thousands of people attended Qantar’s funeral procession in the capital Beirut, during which senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine also said that Tel Aviv will be held accountable for Qantar’s death.
“We reserve the right to respond to this assassination at the time and place of our choosing. Those of us in Hezbollah will exercise that right,” the Hezbollah leader said in his speech.
“We have no doubt or question that Israel is the one which assassinated Samir Qantar, its planes fired precise missiles on an apartment (he was in)," Nasrallah said.
“If the Israelis think by killing Samir Qantar they have closed an account then they are very mistaken because they know and will come to know that they have instead opened several more,” Safieddine added.
Qantar was killed during the Israeli raid that targeted his home in the Syrian city of Jaramana near the capital Damascus early on Sunday.
