LEBANON: Live in Beirut, Nasrallah

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Hezbollah’s charismatic leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, made his first public appearance since fall 2006 on Saturday.

His unannounced emergence in the crowded streets of Beirut’s southern suburbs instantly set off a state of frenzy among the tens of thousands of Shiites who were marking the religious holiday of Ashura.

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television showed live footage of Nasrallah surrounded by tens of bulky body guards as he made his way through zealous crowds vowing to sacrifice their lives for him.

‘Oh God, preserve for us Nasrallah,’ chanted men and women draped in black as a sign of mourning for the death of Shiite saint Imam Hussein centuries ago.

He didn’t say anything new his speech, except to let on that Hezbollah has the remains of an Israeli soldier that it presumably wants to barter.

He slammed President Bush’s recent visit to the Middle East, and devoted a large part of his address to ridiculing Bush’s efforts to rally Arabs against Iran and ally them with Israel.

‘Bush wants to convince us that Israel is the friend and Iran the enemy,’ he told the faithful. ‘Is there a greater falsification in history?’

Nasrallah said his group had heads and other body parts, as well as “a nearly intact cadaver” of an Israeli soldier who died in the summer 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

The boast was reviled by some, such as the blog Little Green Footballs, which said Nasrallah ‘set a new standard for ghoulish threatening.’

Nasrallah has been out of public view for fear of being assassinated by Israel in the aftermath of the 2006 conflict. On Sept. 22 of that year, Nasrallah made a public speech before retreating to a hide-out. All of his later appearances were transmitted via giant TV screens.

— Raed Rafei in Beirut