Shiite Hezbollah Leader: ‘Wahhabism is More Evil Than Israel’

The Times of Israel reports: Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (pictured) told followers that the ultra-conservative Sunni Wahhabism practiced in Saudi Arabia is more dangerous to Islam than Israel, according to Lebanon’s Al Akhbar newspaper.

“Wahhabism is more evil than Israel, especially [in] that it seeks to destroy others and eliminate whatever thing that has to do with Islam and its history,” the paper quoted him saying Tuesday, according to a translation on the Ya Libnan website.

Hezbollah is an ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and Saudi rival Iran, and its troops have fought alongside Syrian government forces against Sunni rebel groups backed by Riyadh. Nasrallah said that the conflict raging in Syria wasn’t a sectarian conflict between the rival Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam, but one against Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi school.

It wasn’t Nasrallah’s first diatribe against Riyadh that referred to Israel. In July he criticized Saudi Arabia for an apparent warming of ties with Jerusalem, accusing it of “normalizing for free, without receiving anything in return.”