Financial Times
By Gareth Smyth in Beirut - Nov 16 2001 16:53:14
The leader of Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shia Muslim group, said he has rejected a secret offer from the US to "forgive the past" if Hizbollah dropped its hostility towards Israel.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's claim came in an interview published on Friday in the Kuwaiti newspaper, Al Rai Al Am. He said that unnamed intermediaries had suggested that the US would "forgive" Hizbollah for alleged involvement in kidnapping westerners in the 1980s, in the 1983 killing of 241 marines and 17 other Americans in two bombings, and in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA flight to Beirut, during which an American was killed.
As a quid pro quo, the US wanted Hizbollah to cut its ties to Syria and radical Palestinian groups, and give Washington intelligence on militant Islamist groups.
"Of course we rejected all these offers because we believe it's a political bomb aimed at finishing off Hizbollah," he said.
Sayyed Nasrallah said that the US offer followed the September 11 suicide attacks on New York and Washington.
"The United States thought we'd be stricken with fear," he said.
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