BEIRUT // In an extraordinary departure from its normal policy of refusing to publicly discuss its operations, the Lebanese militant Shiite group Hizbollah has admitted that one of its operatives had been arrested in Egypt.
Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah's top official, said in a televised statement on Friday that the arrest of a member of the group in Egypt had been linked to ongoing support operations for Palestinian militants in Gaza and denied early Egyptian government claims that Hizbollah had been planning operations against that state. "Our brother Sami [Chehab], is a member of Hizbollah, we don't deny this," Mr Nasrallah said. "He was providing logistic help to the Palestinian resistance at the Egyptian-Palestinian border. All other charges against him are false. If aiding the Palestinians is a crime, then I am proud of it."
Egyptian officials accused Mr Chehab, who was apparently arrested on Nov 19, of conducting intelligence operations against the Egyptian state and of attempting to convert Egypt's majority Sunni Muslims to Shiite Islam. Relations between Egypt, which signed a peace agreement with Israel in 1979, and Hizbollah are strained, due to both regional tensions between Sunni Arab states and Hizbollah's patron Iran, and over Egyptian co-operation with Israel and the United States in the nearly two-year-old trade embargo on Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas, a militant Sunni ally of Hizbollah.
Since the 2007 takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas, Hizbollah has been supporting both Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group with weaponry and training, including smuggling weapons into the area for use by militants, as well as helping fighters escape Gaza for training in Lebanon, according to members of all three groups. "Sayed Hassan was trying to explain that these operations are only designed to help our Palestinian brothers," said a member of Hizbollah's military wing in a phone interview. "We supply them with whatever aid and weapons we can get them and we bring some of their brothers to Lebanon for training to fight the Zionists. These things are true. We will not lie about helping to liberate Palestine. But we will never target any Arab state, even if we disagree with their policies."
"The Egyptians made a multi-pronged attack that Hizbollah decided it could not just ignore with a normal press release statement," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, an academic researcher on Hizbollah's political movement. "They had to address the accusations individually, particularly with Egypt's efforts to link the group to a global jihad movement like al Qa'eda," she said. "Nasrallah acted to reassure all the Arab regimes that this is only a local effort to help Palestine and that the domestic politics of Arab regimes are none of Hizbollah's business."
Mr Nasrallah directed part of his statement towards Yemen, which has been fighting an occasionally bloody insurgency against its Shiite minority. The Yemeni government has frequently implied Hizbollah and Iran support for the rebels, a charge that Mr Nasrallah specifically denied. The rare admission that Hizbollah is directly helping militants abroad also stemmed from a canny public relations move by the group, said Dr Saad-Ghorayeb.
"They wanted to embarrass Mubarak, [the Egyptian president]," she said. "It's an effort to win over Sunnis suspicious of the Shiite by showing them 'Hey, We're supporting Hamas, a Sunni militant movement that fights Israel, and here's an Arab leader trying to stop us." At least in the Hizbollah-dominated southern suburbs of Beirut, the admission seems to have been well received. "As Arabs it is our duty to help our Palestinian brothers, especially the ones in Gaza," said Khoder al Hassan, 31, from southern Beirut.
"Sayed Hassan was absolutely right in what he said last night, and I say it as well: we are proud if their accusation is helping and supporting our brothers in Palestine. It's an honour for us to do so. It was obvious during the Gaza war the Egyptian government were backing Israel not Palestine. But we saw and we know that the people of Egypt are real Arabs unlike their government or that traitor Hosni Mubarak."
mprothero@thenational.ae