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Hizbullah's Naked Aggression Strips Away Resistance Facade
(National-Abu Dhabi) Hussain Abdul Hussain - Many have argued that Gen. Al-Hassan was killed to settle a score relating to his role in the arrest of Michel Samaha, an Assad apparatchik who was caught planning a domestic bombing campaign during the summer. In fact, Al-Hassan was probably targeted because of his growing security role that had started to threaten Hizbullah's unrivalled control of Lebanon's intelligence apparatus. Whatever the cost, Hizbullah now calculates that an open conflict with Lebanon's Sunnis justifies turning its arms inward and away from Israel. And if Shiites are at war with Sunnis, that would rationalize the killing of Sunni Gen. Al-Hassan and the Hizbullah members fighting alongside Assad forces inside Syria. Meanwhile, wiping Israel off the map can wait. Conflict with Sunnis gives Hizbullah and its patrons in Damascus and Tehran a regional role; war with Israel is costly and unrewarding, a lesson that Hafez Al-Assad learnt some 40 years ago. The writer is Washington bureau chief of the Kuwaiti newspaper Alrai.