Beirut: Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday denounced a $50 million grant from the United States to Lebanon's police force as threatening "security and national pride".
"Certain elements in the content of the grant are dangerous," Nasrallah said in an interview with Hezbollah's Al Manar television late Wednesday.
The 37-million-euro grant, which covers equipment and training for Lebanon's police force, stipulates that no member of its training programme be part of a "terrorist organisation."
The Shiite leader, whose party is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Washington, said: "The United States demands the right to access security headquarters without restrictions to see how the equipment it donates is being used.
"This equates to surveilling our security centres."
The US embassy in Beirut has not yet commented on the controversial grant or on a request for information on Lebanon's telecom sector, which it said would be used in training police.
Lebanon's interior ministry in March confirmed that the US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs had submitted the request for information through the US embassy last year.
The bureau helps in training Lebanese security forces.
Energy Minister Gebran Bassil, who was telecommunications minister at the time, confirmed to AFP that he had turned down the request for "access to very detailed information on mobile phone service providers in Lebanon."
The issue was starkly brought to light last month when As Safir, an Arabic-language daily close to Hezbollah, branded the request an attempt to "spy on all of Lebanon" on its front page.
