●Nasrallah confirms Hezbollah fighting in Syria

On 30 April 2013 Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah explained the reasons for fighting in Syria: more than 30,000 Lebanese in the villages of the Qusayr countryside were under attack and the state could not send the army to them, and the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab was threatened with destruction by "the takfiri groups", whose blowing it up "would have very grave consequences". He said the aim of the war was "to destroy Syria as a state, a people, a society and an army", that the armed opposition "will not be able to bring down Damascus", and that Syria's allies would not let it fall into the hands of America, Israel and the takfiris; he denied the presence of Iranian ground forces and called on the Lebanese forces not to escalate.