Word: nasrallah
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...Western Europe and Arab states like Saudi Arabia, Siniora barely clings to power from his official residence and office in the Grand Serail, a former Turkish fortress surrounded by rings of barbed wire and riot police. But it is Hizballah's fire-breathing leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who's calling the shots...
...Nasrallah unleashed his fighters on the streets of Beirut after the government tried to shut down Hizballah's private telecommunications network. But he has been spoiling for this fight since November 2006, when Shi'ite parties walked out of Siniora's coalition Cabinet. Although Lebanon is a democracy, the legitimacy of its government depends on a system of sectarian quotas; without the Shi'ites--the country's largest, fastest-growing group--the Prime Minister, a Sunni, has lacked both validity and street cred. The Shi'ites' price for returning: a greater share of power, including the right to veto major...
...backed militia, which could return at any time. "I am a hostage now in my home in Beirut," he said over the telephone to his rival Nabih Berri, the speaker of parliament and a top opposition leader, while TIME waited nearby for an interview. "Tell [Hizballah leader] Sayeed Hassan Nasrallah I lost the battle and he wins. So let's sit and talk to reach a compromise. All that I ask is your protection...
...until last week Hizballah, which was born as an Islamic resistance group during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, had said it would never use its weapons against fellow Lebanese. But when the Lebanese government moved to close a private Hizballah telecommunications network used for coordinating military operations, Nasrallah declared it an act of war. Hizballah fighters swung into action, shocking the nation, and practically guaranteeing the collapse of this government...
...Indeed, the job was so easy for Hizballah that it left much of the wet work to others. On Thursday, after Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah denounced the government's attempt to shut down a private Hizballah telecom network used to coordinate military activity, opposition street gangs backed by a few trained fighters flushed out pro-government gangs from their positions. Hizballah regulars emerged only to close things out and make lightning incursions into West Beirut on Friday. By Saturday morning, most of them had vanished...