U.S. President Donald Trump compared Hizbullah in a landmark speech on Sunday to extremist organizations such as Islamic State and al-Qaida, as he lauded the Lebanese army for fighting IS and Lebanon for hosting a huge number of Syrian refugees. “We now face a humanitarian and security disaster in this region that is spreading across the planet. It is a tragedy of epic proportions. No description of the suffering and depravity can begin to capture its full measure,” said Trump in a speech focused on terrorism during the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh.
“The true toll of ISIS, al-Qaida, Hizbullah, Hamas, and so many others, must be counted not only in the number of dead. It must also be counted in generations of vanished dreams,” Trump added. Applauding the Gulf Cooperation Council for “blocking funders from using their countries as a financial base for terror, and designating Hizbullah as a terrorist organization last year,” the U.S. leader praised Saudi Arabia for joining Washington this week in “placing sanctions on one of the most senior leaders of Hizbullah,” Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, who is the head of the party’s powerful executive council. “Of course, there is still much work to do,” Trump added. He lamented that “from Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, Iran funds, arms, and trains terrorists, militias, and other extremist groups that spread destruction and chaos across the region.” “For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror,” Trump charged.
He also applauded Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey for “their role in hosting refugees.” Trump also acknowledged the Lebanese army’s role in fighting IS militants on the eastern border, saying “many are already making significant contributions to regional security” and that “the Lebanese Army is hunting ISIS operatives who try to infiltrate their territory.” A defiant Safieddine had stressed earlier on Sunday that the U.S. administration will not be able to “harm the resistance,” three days after he was blacklisted by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia in an unprecedented “joint terrorist designation.” “America’s malice and siege against our region, countries, homelands and societies prove that it has become a lot weaker than it was in the previous years and decades, and that can be evidenced by the skepticism on Trump’s continued leadership of the United States of America and the daily attacks on him from most U.S. media outlets and the world’s media empires,” Safieddine said. “When the U.S. administration was in a good situation, it did not manage to harm the resistance, and therefore this mentally impeded and mad U.S. administration led by Trump will not be able to harm the resistance and they will not get anything,” the Hizbullah official added. “What they will get is further screaming in the media and everything they have done will come to an end,” Safieddine emphasized.
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on Sunday accused regional rival Shiite Iran of exporting extremist Islamic movements to the world and vowed to eliminate the Islamic State group. “The Iranian regime has been the spearhead of global terrorism since the (Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini revolution” in 1979, King Salman said in a speech to leaders including U.S. President Donald Trump. “We did not know terrorism and extremism until the Khomeini revolution reared its head,” he said. Saudi Arabia was also determined to “eliminate the Islamic State group,” the king said of the Sunni Muslim jihadist organization. The Saudi leader’s speech came minutes before a highly anticipated address by Trump, who arrived in the Sunni kingdom on Saturday on his first foreign tour since taking office. The United States and Saudi Arabia on Saturday announced an arms deal worth almost $110 billion, described as the largest in U.S. history. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the deal was aimed at countering “malign Iranian influence.”
Prime Minister Saad Hariri held brief exchanges Sunday in Riyadh with the kingdom’s deputy crown prince and the U.S. and Saudi foreign ministers. The talks were held on the sidelines of a landmark Arab-Islamic summit with U.S. President Donald Trump. The premier’s office said Hariri held brief exchanges with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir before the end of the summit. MTV had reported that Hariri held a brief chat with Saudi Arabia’s powerful Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after he was welcomed to the summit by King Salman bin Abdul Aziz. A close aide to Hariri had said that the prime minister’s stances at summit “will not breach Lebanese consensus.” “The participation was discussed in Cabinet and was coordinated between President Michel Aoun, PM Hariri and Hizbullah’s ministers in the government, and PM Hariri will not have stances that breach Lebanese consensus and there will be no dramatic and unusual decisions,” Culture Minister Ghattas Khoury told al-Mustaqbal newspaper in remarks published Sunday. “The issue of Hizbullah’s arms will not be tackled by the summit and I don’t think there will be anything new regarding the Lebanese situation,” Khoury added. Describing the Syrian refugee crisis as a “dramatic repercussion,” the minister said “Lebanon is concerned with asking the Arab, Islamic and international communities to close ranks to resolve the Syrian crisis peacefully to pave the way for the refugees’ return and for the start of the project of rebuilding Syria.” “Most participating countries have already labeled Hizbullah as a terrorist organization and they are not awaiting Lebanon’s stance in this regard and there will be nothing new on this,” Khoury went on to say. He also noted that Lebanon would not voice reservations over the summit’s resolutions or over the issue of combating terrorism “unless there will be resolutions pertaining to a domestic Lebanese issue.” “I however doubt that that will happen,” Khoury added. “President Aoun took part in the Jordan summit and the official rhetoric expressed the consensus of the Lebanese, and PM Hariri is heading to the summit with the same rhetoric on which the Lebanese have agreed,” the minister went on to say. Lebanon
