Saudi envoy to Lebanon takes apparent swipe at Hezbollah after vote

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Saudi ambassador to Lebanon took an apparent swipe at Hezbollah on Twitter on Tuesday after official results of an election showed the Shi’ite Muslim group and its allies had lost a parliamentary majority.

Without mentioning Iran-backed Hezbollah by name, Waleed al Bukhari tweeted that the result “proves the inevitability that the logic of the state will win against the absurd excesses of the statelet disrupting political life and stability in Lebanon.”

Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi’ite Iran have long vied for influence in Lebanon and Riyadh has shown increasing frustration at the growing role of heavily armed Hezbollah.

(Reporting by Timour Azhari and Lina Najem; Editing by Edmund Blair)