Hizbollah chief says terrorists are hurting Islam

Hassan Nasrallah blames western countries for exporting extremist militants to the Middle East.

An image grab from Hizbollah's Al Manar TV shows Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Lebanese Shiite militant movement, giving a televised address on January 9, 2015, from an undisclosed location in Lebanon. Al Manar / AFPShow less

Beirut // The chief of the powerful Lebanese Shiite group Hizbollah said on Friday that extremist militants had caused more offence to Muslims than any book, cartoon or film.

In a televised speech, Hassan Nasrallah also said western countries were aiding religious militancy by exporting terrorists to Muslim countries.

“Now, more than ever, we need to talk about the Prophet because of the behaviour of certain terrorist ... groups that claim to be Islamic,” Mr Nasrallah said.

“They offended the Prophet of God more than anyone else in history,” he added.

“Through their shameful, heinous, inhumane and cruel words and acts, [these groups] have offended the Prophet, religion ... the holy book and the Muslim people more than any other enemy,” he said.

Mr Nasrallah said that offence was “greater than the books, the films and the cartoons that have insulted the Prophet”.

He did not mention cartoons published by French magazine Charlie Hebdo that led two gunmen to slaughter 12 people at its offices this week, but said the “authors of offensive books and cartoons that were insulting to the Prophet” are among Islam’s enemies.

He was indirectly referring to The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, against whom Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa, or religious order, to have him killed.

Mr Nasrallah also alluded to a video entitled The Innocence of Muslims, which was distributed online in 2012 and caused an uproar among Muslim communities all over the world.

A series of cartoons showing the Prophet Mohammed were published in a Danish newspaper in 2005 and Charlie Hebdo was among the media that reprinted them.

Hizbollah joined a string of other Muslim parties and movements and called for demonstrations against those cartoons.

Meanwhile, Mr Nasrallah also said France “exported” jihadists to the region.

Hizbollah has sent thousands of fighters into neighbouring Syria to aid President Bashar Al Assad in a civil war in which he claims that all his opponents are foreign-backed extremist militants.

The regime has frequently singled out France for backing the opposition.

Many members of extremist groups in Syria are westerners, from countries including France, the United States and Britain.

Cherif Kouachi, one of the brothers suspected of carrying out the Charlie Hebdo massacre, was involved in a Paris network that helped transport radical Muslims to Iraq to join Al Qaeda’s fight against US forces at the height of their intervention.

* Agence France-Presse