Source: International Business Times
Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah supporters listen to a televised speech by the movemen't leader Naim Qassem during a ceremony during the peak of Ashura AFP Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said Sunday his group would not surrender or lay down its weapons in response to Israeli threats, despite pressure on the Lebanese militants to disarm. His speech came ahead of a visit expected Monday by US envoy Thomas Barrack during which Lebanese authorities are due to respond to a request to disarm Hezbollah by year's end, according to a Lebanese official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "This (Israeli) threat will not make us accept surrender," Qassem said in a televised speech to thousands of his supporters in Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, during the Shiite Muslim religious commemoration of Ashura.
