Nasrallah
Hassan Nasrallah also rallied against the US for abandoning their own allies in Afghanistan
The head of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, announced on 15 August that the group is ready to import Iranian fuel to Lebanon.

"Yes, we, will definitely bring gas and diesel to Lebanon from Iran, God willing. When? I will tell you when in the coming two or three days as I do not want to say everything this evening. We will bring [fuel] into Lebanon in broad daylight and publicly. We are not ashamed of this issue, we take pride in that we are offering to our people and kinfolk to alleviate their sufferings," Nasrallah said during the televised speech.

The announcement came hours after a deadly explosion at a black market fuel storage site in Akkar, northern Lebanon, where 28 people were killed.


Comment: Unlikely to be a coincidence: Forbes asks: 'Was Israel responsible for the Beirut explosion?'


Hezbollah had announced earlier that all logistics for importing fuel from Iran are complete and that the shipments can begin to arrive, bypassing the Lebanon's Central Bank so as to avoid violating US sanctions.

Lebanon sunk deeper into crisis last week when the Central Bank's Governor Riad Salameh unilaterally decided to end fuel subsidies, citing dwindling foreign reserves.

But while caretaker-government authorities condemned the move, no significant progress has been made in passing legislation that would force the Bank to restart the subsidies.

During his speech, the Hezbollah leader also rallied against US occupation forces in Afghanistan and blamed them for the current situation in the country.

"America has been running Afghanistan for 20 years, removing a government and installing another, and imposing its plan and policies on it. After 20 years, the Americans suddenly held negotiations in Doha with the Taliban and made the decision to pull out. Instead of waiting to exercise political pressure to achieve a political agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government, their friend, they did not bother themselves to do that," Hassan Nasrallah said on the day when the US scrambled to evacuate diplomatic staff from Kabul in images reminiscent of their defeat in Vietnam decades earlier.

Finally, the resistance leader issued a warning to those urging US assistance in Lebanon's crisis, saying: "Those Lebanese who want to wager on the US guarantees and promises, should keep the scene of Afghanistan before their eyes. This is America."