Hizballah to partially withdraw from Syria: Nasrallah

The head of Lebanon's Hizballah movement Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday he had decreased the number of fighters supporting the Assad regime in neighbouring war-torn Syria.

"We are present in every area that we used to be. We are still there, but we don't need to be there in large numbers as long as there is no practical need," he said in an interview broadcast on Hizballah's Al-Manar television.

The head of the Iran-backed movement, which has been fighting in Syria on the regime’s side since 2013, did not quantify the extent of the reduction.

Backed by Russia and Iran, the Assad regime has taken large swathes of territory from rebels and Islamist militants since 2015, and now controls around 60 percent of the country.

Nasrallah said none of his fighters were currently involved in fighting in Syria's northwestern region of Idlib, where regime and Russian forces have increased deadly bombardment of opposition-held areas since late April, killing over 600 civilians.

He spoke after Washington announced fresh sanctions on Tuesday against Hizballah, targeting elected officials from the movement for the first time.

"All dealings with the Syria file has nothing to do with the sanctions or the financial austerity," he said.

Hizballah is considered to be a terrorist organisation by the United States, and is the only political faction not to have disarmed after Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.

But it is also a major political player in Lebanon, with its support base mainly in the Shia Muslim community. It won 13 seats in parliamentary elections last year and has three posts in the current cabinet.

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