04:04Lebanon: Hezbollah's Nasrallah says group wasn't connected to Beirut blasts
Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah denied Hezbollah’s connection to the Beirut port blasts, after some media outlets claimed it was the group’s weapons that caused the explosions that rocked the Lebanese capital last Tuesday.
"We do not manage the port, we do not control it, we do not control it, we do not interfere with it, we do not know what was going on inside it or what is there,” said Nasrallah in his televised address on Friday.
“I would like to emphasise today, and announce and deny categorically, absolutely decisively and firmly, that there is nothing for us in the port: no weapons or missile depots, no rifle, bomb, bullet, or nitrate, nothing like this at all, not in the past, not in the present,” he added.
The blasts, which took the lives of at least 157 people and injured more than 5,000, according to officials, are thought to have been caused by the still unexplained ignition of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive chemical material which was reportedly stored without precautionary measures at the port, according to Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab.
The Lebanese government has declared a two-week state of emergency.
04:04Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah denied Hezbollah’s connection to the Beirut port blasts, after some media outlets claimed it was the group’s weapons that caused the explosions that rocked the Lebanese capital last Tuesday.
"We do not manage the port, we do not control it, we do not control it, we do not interfere with it, we do not know what was going on inside it or what is there,” said Nasrallah in his televised address on Friday.
“I would like to emphasise today, and announce and deny categorically, absolutely decisively and firmly, that there is nothing for us in the port: no weapons or missile depots, no rifle, bomb, bullet, or nitrate, nothing like this at all, not in the past, not in the present,” he added.
The blasts, which took the lives of at least 157 people and injured more than 5,000, according to officials, are thought to have been caused by the still unexplained ignition of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive chemical material which was reportedly stored without precautionary measures at the port, according to Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab.
The Lebanese government has declared a two-week state of emergency.