BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday predicted a UN court on the murder of Rafiq Hariri would “disappear with the wind” as vast crowds gathered to mark the Shiite holy day of Ashura in Lebanon. “This new conspiracy against the resistance and Lebanon, dubbed the international tribunal, will disappear with the wind,” Nasrallah said in his latest attack on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), a UN-backed investigation into the 2005 assassination of Sunni ex-premier Hariri. “We will defend the resistance, our dignity, our country against unrest and against aggressors and conspirators no matter what their guise,” the Shiite leader said in a televised address to a procession of tens of thousands in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburb of Beirut. His comments came as tensions rise over the STL, which is reportedly ready to indict high-ranking Hezbollah operatives in the 2005 Beirut bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others. Lebanon's Hezbollah called on Arab states on Thursday to abandon peace talks and join the militant group in its fight against Israel, after negotiations foundered over Israeli settlement building. “Come to the path of resistance and the choice of resistance,” the leader of the powerful Shiite movement, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a televised address to mark the climax of 10 days of rituals for Ashura, one of the high points of the faith's religious calendar. “Be honest with your people and confess to them the truth -- the possibility of a settlement is over,” said Nasrallah, whose movement fought a devastating 2006 war with Israel. “We have no choice to restore our land and dignity... but through resistance,” he added, drawing chants of “death to Israel” from the tens of thousands of faithful who had gathered in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of the capital Beirut. Meanwhile, The Lebanese army said on Wednesday it had discovered two sophisticated Israeli surveillance devices in mountains above Beirut which could have helped Israel to monitor and target sites for attack. The equipment was discovered using information passed to Lebanese intelligence by “resistance sources”, it said in a statement, referring to the militant Shi'ite group Hezbollah. The army said Israel had planted the devices in Sanin and Barouk, mountain districts respectively to the north and south of the capital.
