Hezbollah Chief Calls Iran’s Rafsanjani "Great Supporter" of Resistance Movement
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The secretary general of the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, expressed his condolences to the Iranian nation over the demise of Chairman of the Expediency Council Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
“We lost a great man among the elderly figures of the Islamic Ummah (community),” Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a message, according to the Arabic-language al-Ahed news website.
Over the past 34 years, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani had been a great supporter and backer of the (anti-Israeli) resistance, he noted.
The Hezbollah leader further emphasized that the late cleric believed in the Palestinian issue and resistance against the Zionist regime of Israel.
Ayatollah Rafsanjani passed away at a hospital in northern Tehran on Sunday at the age of 82 due to a heart condition.
He was among the main aides to the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini.
He played an influential role both during the anti-Shah struggles before the victory of the Islamic Revolution and afterwards through various stages of the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Rafsanjani was also a key figure during the eight years of Iraq’s imposed war on Iran (1980-88), serving as substitute to commander-in-chief of the armed forces.