http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=4663 2003-03-13
Hezbollah: US troops will face suicide attacks
Sheikh Nasrallah warns US troops will face bloody resistance if they strike Iraq while marking Ashura.
BEIRUT - The leader of Lebanon's Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah warned here Thursday that US troops will face suicide attacks if they strike Iraq, in an address to hundreds of thousands of followers.
"We declare in no uncertain terms our rejection of the American war, its treacherous slogans and its lies about saving people and establishing democracy," Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said.
"Don't expect the people of the region to greet you with rice and rose water, but with bullets, guns, blood and suicide operations," he said, as the crowd gathered to mark Ashura chanted "Death to America".
Ashura commemorates the 7th century death in battle of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson Imam Hussein in Karbala, present-day Iraq.
In a pre-Ashura gathering, tens of thousands of Shiites demonstrated in Lebanon's southern port city of Tyre on Wednesday against any US-led invasion of Iraq.