Al Arabiya airs interview with Hezbollah detainees

Al-Arabiya on Monday aired an interview with two Hezbollah members detained by Al-Nusra Front in Syria.

Journalist Carol Malouf said she and the Lebanese TV channel she works for were pressured by Hezbollah to prevent the broadcast of the interview she did in northern Syria with detainees Mohammad Shoaib and Hassan Taha. The channel aired only six minutes of the 30-minute interview.

Taha said Hezbollah had sent Shoaib and he “to an unsecured site and left them defenseless.” They said “sectarian mobilization and our living conditions” had pushed them to turn to the party. “Sectarianism and ideology have got us into this problem.”

They added: “If you don’t participate in the Syrian war, [Hezbollah] will take action against you.”

The said “Hezbollah is invading Syria, as Israel has done in Lebanon,” adding that they “met in the rural Aleppo with Iranians, Iraqis and Afghans,” and “the Iranians are leading the war on the ground.” They concluded that “ their fight in Syria isn’t justified in any way.”