US seeks to ‘restore its power in the region’ - Hezbollah official

The deputy head of the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah said the US is cooperating with Saudi Arabia in order to restore its power in the Middle East.

'The US, in cooperation with Saudi Arabia, is trying to restore its power in the region. However, we tell them that you will die before seeing your dream realized,' said Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem during his visit to Tehran on Thursday, the Iranian state media network PressTV reported.

Sheikh Qassem added that the US is continuously threatening the region's stability by selling American missiles on the pretext of serving US 'strategic interests' and promoting 'regional stability'.

'This comes as the US and Israel were defeated by Lebanon [in 2006] and recently by [Hamas in] Gaza in a very short period of time,' he said, referring to the October Israeli shelling of the Gaza Strip.

The 2006 conflict took place when Israel invaded Lebanon in response to a cross-border raid by Hezbollah and the abduction of two Israeli soldiers. The conflict lasted for 34 days and claimed the lives of more than 1,300 people before being halted by a UN-brokered ceasefire.

The US had been a staunch supporter of Israel, especially under Donald Trump. The US president made the contentious decision to move his country's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a city split between Israel and Palestine. Most of the international community stands for the so-called 'two-state solution' to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which stipulates that both Palestinian and Israeli states should exist, side by side, within internationally-recognised borders.

(SPUTNIK NEWS)