Hezbollah and Iran sound fresh warning to Israel

Beirut: Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah on Sunday joined Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in unleashing a volley of verbal attacks on Israel, warning the Jewish state against attacking the Lebanese group and accusing it of dragging the world into turmoil.

Nasrallah said the response from his fighters, should Israel attack them, would be more fierce than in the month-long war between the two enemies in 2006.

His remarks, made at a boy scouts ceremony, were in response to a similar warning from Israel's prime minister on Tuesday.

Ahmadinejad told supporters in the Iranian city of Arak: "About 2,000 organised Zionists and 7,000 to 8,000 agents of Zionism have dragged the world into turmoil."

If the West does not restrain Zionism, he said, "the powerful hand of the nations will clean these sources of corruption from the face of the earth".