Hezbollah behind March bombing of Israeli patrol

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah says his group is still capable of fighting Israel, even as its fighters aid Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime • Nasrallah: Assad is no longer in danger of falling.

The Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah | Photo credit: Reuters

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Hezbollah was behind the roadside bombing that targeted an Israeli patrol in March along the Israel-Lebanon border.

In an interview published Monday in the Lebanese daily As-Safir, Nasrallah said the bomb was placed in response to a February airstrike on a Hezbollah base that the group accused Israel of undertaking.

Nasrallah said the March bombing sent a message that Hezbollah was still capable of fighting Israel, even as its fighters are battling alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces to quell the three-year uprising in Syria.

No Israeli soldiers were wounded in the March 14 roadside bombing. Such attacks have been rare since the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

In the interview, Nasrallah also said that Assad is no longer in danger of falling.

Nasrallah said the threat of bombings in Lebanon "has dropped considerably" because of "measures adopted along the Lebanese-Syrian border."

Hezbollah operatives have been fighting alongside Syrian government troops against the rebels trying to oust Assad from power. Hezbollah fighters were instrumental in helping Assad's forces dislodge opposition fighters from their strongholds along the Syria-Lebanon border.

However, Hezbollah's public role in the Syrian conflict has inflamed sectarian tensions in Lebanon. The country's Sunni Muslims support the Syrian rebels. In recent weeks, Sunni militants have carried out several deadly attacks on Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon, claiming they were in revenge for Hezbollah's help to the Syrian government.

As for Assad's government in Damascus, Nasrallah said: "The danger of the Syrian regime's fall has ended."

Syria's conflict began with largely peaceful protests in March 2011. It has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones, and Islamic extremists, including foreign fighters and Syrian rebels who have taken up hard-line al-Qaida-style ideologies, have played an increasingly prominent role among fighters, dampening the West's support.

More than 150,000 people have been killed in the past three years, activists say.