Hizbullah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah declared on Friday that his terror organization has no cells operating outside of Lebanon. Nasrallah announced on the internet site of Hizbullah-allied Al-Manar TV that he would address Egypt's arrest, earlier in the week, of 49 people suspected of plotting attacks on various Egyptian targets. They are also accused of bidding to smuggle weapons into Gaza and of spreading Shi'ite ideology on behalf of Hizbullah.
Arrests were first made in November and the rest of the group was rounded up by the end of last month, a security official told Agence France Presse. The semi-official Egyptian daily al-Ahram says, despite Friday's declaration, that on December 28, Nasrallah mandated an "operations unit official" responsible for neighboring countries to prepare to execute "hostile operations" inside Egypt, including the opening of the Rafah border crossing during Israel's three-week military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.