Lebanese Sunni leader: Hezbollah dragging Lebanon into war

BEIRUT (AP) — One of Lebanon's most powerful Sunni politicians accused the leader of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah on Saturday of dragging the country further into neighboring Syria's civil war.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri's comments come two days after a deadly car bombing struck a Hezbollah neighborhood south of Beirut. Many people in Lebanon viewed the blast as retaliation for Hezbollah's armed support for Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

In a speech on Thursday, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah blamed Sunni extremists for the bombing and defiantly said he was prepared to double the number of his fighters in Syria if the bombing turns out to be linked to his group's intervention there.

Hariri responded Saturday, saying Nasrallah's address "did not break the cycle of tension" in the country but rather "drags Lebanon further into the Syrian fire, and it is a pity to squander the blood of Lebanese in such a way."

In comments posted on his Twitter account and confirmed by his office, Hariri also said that Thursday's bombing, which killed nearly two dozen people in the Hezbollah stronghold of Rweiss, was "surely an ugly crime, but Hezbollah's war in Syria is a crime as well."

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