Supporters of Lebanon's Iran-allied Shi'ite group Hezbollah chanted "Death to the Saud family" as their leader railed against Sunni-led Saudi Arabia on Saturday in a sign of deepening hostility towards the U.S.-allied kingdom.
Speaking on Ashura, the day on which Shi'ites commemorate the death of Prophet Mohammad's grandson, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah listed the Saudi leadership alongside traditional enemies Israel and the United States.
His armed group is an important player in the struggle playing out across the Middle East between the conservative Sunni Muslim-led government of Saudi Arabia and the Shi'ite Islamist government of Iran.
Thousands of its fighters are in Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad, taking part in a new ground offensive also backed by Iranian forces and Russian air strikes against insurgents who have received Gulf Arab backing.
The Saudi-Iranian rivalry is also playing out in Yemen, where Riyadh is leading a military intervention to try to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government and fend off what it sees as creeping Iranian influence.
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