Nasrallah: war now ‘outside battlefield

By · February 15, 2008

Hezbollah’s leader said the killing of a top operative opened the door to war with Israel “outside the natural battlefield.”

Multiple analysts said Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah’s reference at the funeral Thursday for Imad Mughniya, a terrorist believed responsible for hundreds of Jewish, Israeli and American murders, was to areas outside of Lebanon.

Mughniya died in a car bomb blast in Syria, outside the Lebanon-northern Israeli border where Israel and Hezbollah usually clash. Israel has denied responsibility for the killing.

Nasrallah’s threat implied the resumption of the terrorist attacks of the early 1990s against Israeli and Jewish targets abroad.

“You have crossed the borders,” Nasrallah said. “With this murder, its timing, location and method - Zionists, if you want this kind of open war, let the whole world listen: Let this war be open.”