Subhi al-Tufayli, leader of the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah in the 1980s, on Tuesday held current leader Hassan Nasrallah responsible for last week’s deadly Beirut explosion and called on Lebanese authorities to put him on trial, along with his patron Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran.
Tufayli, the original secretary-general of Hezbollah, is a longtime critic of the group’s current status as a hybrid terrorist militia, Lebanese political party, and Iranian proxy force. He has criticized Nasrallah for seeking too much authority within Lebanon’s government and for putting the interests of Iran above those of Lebanon, especially when Hezbollah began providing troops to fight for Iran’s interests in Syria.
Tufayli has no problem with terrorism per se, but he feels Hezbollah should primarily act as a Shiite Muslim religious organization instead of a sectarian political force and agent of Iranian politics. For example, in 2016 he castigated Hezbollah and Iran for playing into Western hands by getting involved in Syria “as a service for the U.S. against the global Islamic community.” Later he fulminated against his old organization and its Iranian masters for supporting corrupt officials in Iraq.
Tufayli has attacked the current Hezbollah leadership for stockpiling too many weapons and growing too dependent upon Iran for its munitions, arguing that other Lebanese factions feel obliged to arm themselves as heavily as Hezbollah and grow equally dependent on their own foreign benefactors. He also loathes the U.S. and Israel above all other powers with an interest in Lebanon.
On Tuesday, Tufayli said the explosion at the Port of Beirut was caused by Hezbollah’s huge stockpile of smuggled weapons.
“These weapons destroyed Syria. These weapons destroyed Iraq. These weapons destroyed Yemen. These weapons destroyed Lebanon. These weapons exploded Beirut,” he charged, referring to Hezbollah’s military involvement in various theaters as a proxy for Iran.
Tufayli said the current Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, must be held personally responsible for the horrific explosion because he is “above the president of the Republic, above the speaker of Parliament, above Hassan Diab.” Diab was the prime minister of Lebanon until his resignation on Monday.
“So [Nasrallah] is the man responsible,” Tufayli concluded. “He is the one that should be prosecuted first as a Lebanese – and behind him, Khamenei.”
“Let’s state things plainly and clearly. Who bears responsibility? Who is the ruler?” he asked, further holding Iran responsible for the violent crackdowns against Lebanese protesters because Lebanon’s security forces would never take such actions without orders from Tehran through its Hezbollah proxies and, of course, without a wink from the evil puppet masters of Israel, the authors of all misery in the Middle East in Tufayli’s eyes, even when Hezbollah’s stash of Iranian munitions blows up half of Beirut.
“I don’t want anyone to tell me, ‘you are attacking the arms of the resistance,’” Tufayli grumbled. “This is not resistance. After 2000, this is not resistance. These arms serve the Zionist enemy. These arms are protecting the Zionist enemy.”