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Press TV has conducted an interview with Redwan Rizk, political analyst, about a senior official of a Lebanese Alawite party being assassinated in the northern city of Tripoli amid sectarian violence that is believed to be incited by al-Qaeda-linked Takfiri elements.

- How do you perceive the assassination of this senior Alawite party member, and also I’d like to get your thoughts over all on the recent violence in Lebanon, having in mind the deadly bombings that occurred on Wednesday in southern Beirut?

- Well I would like first to correct that this is not an Alawite party. This is a party [that] contains members from all sects and different religions, just to be right and clear about the name of the party. Maybe the leader descends from Alawite religion but it is not a religious group or a religious party. It is a national party [that] existed long time ago in Lebanon. This is first.

Second the assassination of Abdelrahman Diab who is in charge of the military wing of the party proves that the 14th of March forces went too far in their speech, far enough that now they have lost control over the ground.

Now this is the assassination [hitting] Ashraf Rifi the new justice minister, it is his stronghold, that is his neighborhood and he always claimed that he was in a good term and relation with the leaders of those troops or the terrorist groups on the ground in Tripoli.

Now it seems that the assassination went out of control and they have different agendas so neither Rifi or any other minister from the 14th of March forces will not be able at all to control those groups or to have their different agendas.

So I think that we are facing or coming to a new way of conflict. Now the whole Lebanese government including the 14th of March forces will be face to face with the terrorists that they have brought into the country, they have gave them shelter, they have supplied them and they have protected them along the years against the 8th of March forces.

Now they should be carried responsible for what they have done, for their action that during those years and now they should be held responsible for bringing terrorist groups into the country and now they have left them and they are out of control and they should have known from the beginning and they should have more [responsibility] that those groups are uncontrollable and the experience that we had with them in many different countries and now in Lebanon that proved with no doubt that those groups will only use any party just to smuggle in, to stay in and then they will implement their agendas as soon as they can.

And the assassination of Abdelrahman Diab is strong evidence and a proof that they have different agendas from anyone connected to al-Qaeda group which we are now facing in Lebanon an international terrorism organized by al-Qaeda and called Abdullah Azzam under a different name.

- Mr. Rizk, in the broader picture, who will benefit from such violence, and what are those responsible for such attacks trying to achieve?

- Well I think that igniting a sectarian war is the agenda of those groups and now if they want to say that Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah in his rationalist movement has detonated this ignition, and he calmed down the situation in Lebanon by compromising on forming the new Lebanese government which has eased the tension a lot in Lebanon but it seems that those groups are not very satisfied and they are not very happy with what happened so that is why they have their orders from outsiders who control them and who work with them, who support them to ignite this war.

They are going ahead. They are continuing their agenda, igniting a sectarian war which is the demand of the Saudis and ...the Israelis. So this war will drag or drown the Lebanese resistance into an internal war against each other among the Lebanese people.

So they were not very happy at all with the forming of the government so that is why they went ahead in their terrorist attacks.