The Daily Star reports: Hezbollah said Monday it would never resort to the use of chemical weapons in any future war with Israel but said its present arsenal was enough to deal a severe blow to the Jewish state.

The head of the Lebanese resistance group also warned that U.S. military bases in the region could be targeted by Iran if Israel launched an attack on the Islamic Republic.

“We don’t have chemical weapons and we don’t need to use them … because [Israel] has factories and locations that are in the reach of our rockets,” Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary general, said in a rare face-to-face interview with Almayadeen television.

He said it was religiously unacceptable for his group to use chemical weapons.

Several reports emerged over the past year of U.S. and Israeli concerns of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile falling in to the hands of the Lebanese resistance group.

Nasrallah, who said in August his group could wrack havoc should Israel launch an assault of Lebanon, reiterated his threat, saying even a first strike that wiped out many of the group’s missile sites would still leave enough rockets to harm hundreds of thousands of Israelis.

“We don’t have a mighty power but we have a power that is effective. The available power today can represent a powerful deterrent force,” the leader of Hezbollah said.

He also reiterated how the missiles his group enjoyed possessed advanced targeting and range capabilities.

“The rockets of the Islamic resistance can strike at any target in occupied Palestine [Israel] that you can think of,” Nasrallah said.

He also said the capabilities of his group should not be undermined and that the resistance remained on alert for any possible confrontation.

“Since 2000 until today, there is a perception that Hezbollah is preoccupied and there are a thousand issues that it has to deal with. However, we have a big team, the resistance’s team, which is not involved in domestic affairs but works day and night on training, arming, planning, and is concerned with keeping itself prepared [for any eventuality],” he said.

Asked about repercussions on the party as a result of the Syria crisis, Nasrallah said: “We are comfortable, reassured and confident, based on an objective view of what is going on in the world in terms of economic conditions, the changes … in Syria, Lebanon and North Africa.”

“We have a very optimistic view of the future,” he added.