(AKI) - Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah denied Thursday through its chief spokesman claims by a top United States official that it is involved in the insurgency in Iraq. "We are not responsible for the crimes being committed in Iraq, and we don't operate in any country other than Lebanon," the spokesman Husayn Nabulsi, told Adnkronos International (AKI). In an interview published in the London-based Arabic daily al-Hayat, David Satterfeld, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice's top aide on Iraq, said Hezbollah "takes active part in the violence in Iraq, causing the death of many Iraqis, Americans, Britons and other soldiers of the multinational coalition."
"The American claims don't come as a surprise to us," said Nabulsi, adding that "it is instead the United States that doesn't know how to deal with the chaos in Iraq and are trying to blame us for the crimes they themselves are committing."
In the interview Satterfield also accused Iran - which supports Hezbollah - of being involved in the violence in Iraq, especially in the "supply of sophisticated explosive material." He also accused another of Hezbollah's backers, Syria, of providing the "main corridor through which suicide bombers enter into Iraq." Instead Nabulsi told AKI that he believes that the United States has "fanned the flames of extremism in the region and aims to divide Iraq on the basis of ethnicity and religious faith, just like its (the US's) ally Israel."