Date and Time:24 June 2014
The head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc says the Lebanese resistance movement will confront the sponsors of the al-Qaeda offshoot group, the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) at home, after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had warned Persian Gulf Arab states that funding terrorism will cause a backlash.
“We know how to confront your plan in its own home, and how to topple all your delusions,” said MP Mohammad Raad at Hezbollah’s Monday ceremony in Deir al-Zahrani, according to the National News Agency.
Raad did not clarify who would carry out the pledged “confrontation.”
He accused the funders of ISIL of using the terrorist group after their plans had failed in Syria and Iraq.
“It will come back to you when our people in Iraq overthrow it,” said Raad, warning parties who are investing in ISIL.
Rouhani had made a similar warning Sunday, calling on the “petrodollar states” to stop funding terrorism, specifically ISIL, or else they should expect to become its next target.
“I advise Muslim countries that support the terrorists with their petrodollars to stop,” he told an Iranian news agency Sunday.
Rouhani didn’t specify the Gulf countries he was addressing, but Iranian media had widely accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of funding Sunni jihadist groups.
“Tomorrow you will be targeted … by these savage terrorists. Wash your hands of killing and the killing of Muslims,” said Rouhani.
The United States, a long-time ally of Saudi Arabia, also condemned any funding that might reach the terrorist organization’s hands.
ISIL is “a threat not only to Iraq, but to the entire region,” said US Secretary of State John Kerry in Cairo Sunday, warning against the funding of activities that could end up bolstering the group.
“There is no safety margin whatsoever in funding a group like ISIL,” Kerry said, “and we particularly discourage individuals in the region who may have been sending money through some illicit charity or through various back-channel initiatives under the guise this is for the general welfare and benefit for people who have been displaced, but then that money finds its way into the hands of terrorists.”