Hezbollah to prevent ISIL from achieving goals: Deputy chief

Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naeem Qassem says the Lebanese resistance movement will not allow the ISIL Takfiri militants to achieve their goals.

Sheikh Naeem Qassem said on Tuesday that fighters belonging to the Lebanese resistance movement are preparing for a battle to purge the strategic region of Qalamoun of ISIL militants.

“In any case, the Qalamoun battle is coming, and it has already stuck its neck out, proving once again that the Takfiris are unable to expand as they wish,” the Beirut-based English-language newspaper Daily Star quoted Qassem as saying.

According to security sources, Syrian army forces along with Hezbollah fighters are preparing for a battle to gain full control of the eastern Lebanon mountain range. Reports also say that the military arrangements for the battle for the eastern mountain range near the border with Syria have almost finished.

The sources said that the Syrian army has brought a number of rocket launchers, artillery batteries and cannons and has deployed them in strategic areas and hills in the Syrian town of Zabadani, close to the border with Lebanon.

“This battle is the battle of protecting Lebanese villages and prevents Takfiris from expanding and achieving their goals,” the senior Hezbollah official said.

He further held certain countries, particularly the US, responsible for the ongoing crisis in Syria, saying, “[They are] busy with other things, and want to postpone the political solution in Syria for a year or two if not more.”

Syria has been grappling with a deadly crisis since March 2011. The violence fueled by Takfiri groups has so far claimed the lives of over 222,000 people, according to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says over 7.2 million people have been internally displaced, and more than 3 million fled the country.

Over the past months, Lebanon has witnessed an increase of militant activity on the border with Syria, suffering from attacks by al-Qaeda-affiliated militants as well as Takfiri ISIL terrorists.