BEIRUT (AP) The leader of Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group showed up at a Shiite religious ceremony in southern Beirut on Thursday, vowing to keep his fighters in neighboring Syria as long as needed to shore up President Bashar Assad's struggle against Syria's rebels.
The public appearance of Hassan Nasrallah his second in as many days came as tens of thousands of Shiites and Hezbollah supporters marched for Ashoura, one of the Shiite sect's most important religious occasions.
"As long as there are reasons for us to stay in Syria, we will stay there," said the black-turbaned cleric, standing on an open-air podium, surrounded by several bodyguards.
"At your service, Nasrallah," thousands of followers chanted, waving their fists in the air.
Syria's civil war has pitted the mostly Sunni rebels against Assad's forces, dominated by his Alawite sect, a Shiite offshoot. Battle-hardened Hezbollah fighters openly joined the conflict earlier this year in a major boost to Assad and were instrumental in recent Syrian government victories, mostly in the suburbs of the Syrian capital of Damascus and in areas near the border with Lebanon.