Hezbollah leader vows to fight Islamic State group ‘everywhere’

The head of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement on Sunday defended his group's military engagement in Syria, saying the Islamic State group and other Sunni jihadist groups posed an existential danger in the region and beyond.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah claimed that Hezbollah was fighting across all of Syria alongside the army of President Bashar al-Assad and was willing to increase its presence there when needed.

He told supporters via video link that the campaign was part of a wider strategy to prevent groups like al Qaeda’s wing in Syria, the al-Nusra Front, and the ultra-hardline Islamic State from taking over the region.

“Our presence will increase whenever it should... We will be everywhere in Syria,” he said during a celebration to mark the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from south Lebanon in 2000.

Hezbollah, backed by leaders in Tehran, is a staunch ally of Assad. The conflict has become a focal point in the regional rivalry between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, which has backed the insurgency.

Assad's forces have suffered several defeats over the past two months, mostly in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib and the southern region of Daraa. The western city of Palmyra, home to a set of historic Roman-era ruins, was captured by the Islamic State group last week.

“Today we are facing a kind of danger that is unprecedented in history, which targets humanity itself," Nasrallah said, speaking from a secret location on a giant video screen.

“This is not a threat to the resistance in Lebanon on to one sect, or to the regime in Syria, or the government in Iraq, or a group in Yemen,” he added. “This is a danger to everyone. No one should bury their heads in the sand.”

Nasrallah also said that his group’s military offensive in the mountainous region of Qalamoun, along the border between Syria and Lebanon, will last “until the borders are secured.”

The outspoken Hezbollah leader said the residents of the area “will not accept the presence of terrorists and takfiris in any of the Bekaa or Arsal outskirts.” Takfiri is a term for a hardline Sunni Muslim who sees other Muslims as infidels, often as a justification for fighting them.

Lebanon suffered its own civil war from 1975 to 1990, and officials there have warned Hezbollah against launching a cross-border attack which they say would drag the country further into the Syrian conflict.

Some also fear stronger Hezbollah involvement could provoke the Sunni community in Arsal, a Lebanese town whose people have sympathised with the Syrian revolt and who have welcomed thousands of Syrian refugees during the four-year civil war.