As Barry Rubin points out in his article “Islamists to West: Put Up Your Hands and Hand Over Your Property!” (see below): Islamists will intimidate anyone who let them intimidate.

By Barry Rubin

UN peacekeepers monitor the Syrian side of the Israeli-Syrian border from an army post at Mount Bental in the Golan Heights last July (photo credit: Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90)

Here’s the perfect parable for understanding not just the contemporary Middle East but the wider world today.

Two unarmed Finnish soldiers assigned to the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) were observing along the Israel-Syria border from the Syrian side. Armed men stopped their car. While the two Finns didn’t speak Arabic they were quickly made to understand that the men wanted their UN vehicle and their other possessions.

Similar things have happened to Belgian and Italian soldiers in the UNIFIL force in southern Lebanon.

In short, the supposed representatives of the world’s community were being mugged and they could do nothing about it, or at least nothing but to give in.

A Finnish officer explained that the men weren’t in fear of their lives; the gunmen just wanted their property.

Now let me make it clear that I’m not criticizing the two soldiers. What are you going to do when you are unarmed and terrorists with guns hold you up? Yet this little story struck me as incredibly symbolic on several levels.

The world is constantly held up by terrorists and nowadays it tends to give in, if not to the specific operations to the narrative being imposed on it. We do see rescue operations sometimes — as in the Algerian army’s disastrous “rescue” in which all the technicians being held hostage at a gas field were killed — and sometimes we don’t, as in Benghazi while the U.S. government stood by as men it had sent into a dangerous situation were murdered.

Yet what happens is that even if the terrorists don’t always win in their military operations they succeed in intimidating the West to hand over its intellectual property — by suppressing its own debate — and sometimes to pay tribute money as well.

As a reward for failing to fulfill its commitments and cheering on terrorist attacks, the UN’s General Assembly assigned non-member state status to the Palestinian Authority. Billions of dollars of U.S. aid go to Pakistan, which helps the Taliban and shields al-Qaida. Arms are handed over to Syrian Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Turkish government backs a terrorist group to create a violent confrontation with Israel (the IHH in the Gaza flotilla) and President Obama declares that regime to be his soul mate. Even after an official report that Hizballah carried out a terrorist attack in Bulgaria, the European Union won’t put it on the terrorism list.

There is a long list of such items. Terrorism mugs the West and gets paid off as long as it doesn’t overreach too much. Not attacking the World Trade Center is enough to make some group America’s “friend.”

One reason the West tends to yield is that it is unarmed. Not literally, of course, But unarmed in terms of its ideas, analysis, and understanding.

As for a good case study, take Lebanon, a few miles from where the two Finns were mugged and where the much larger UNIFIL force has received the same treatment. In 2006 the UN and the U.S. government promised Israel, as a condition for ending its war with Hizballah, that a much-enlarged UN force would keep Hizballah in southern Lebanon and help stop arms’ smuggling from Syria to Lebanese terrorists.

Hizballah has walked all over the UN (UN Resolution 1701) and the U.S. commitments without any cost to itself. UN observers have been regularly intimidated by Hizballah, which has moved back into southern Lebanon and built new fortifications. See here, here and here. The UN and the White House have not only done nothing but they haven’t even criticized Hizballah for this behavior.

General Alberto Asarta, the Spanish general who commands UNFIL forces in southern Lebanon, cannot praise Hizballah highly enough. The area, he explains, is “the best and most stable in the whole of the Middle East” thanks to Hizballah’s cooperation. It is “the most successful model when compared to the experiences of other UN peacekeeping missions around the world.” And Hizballah has actually helped combat terrorist groups that sought to attack UNIFIL. Indeed, the cooperation with Hizballah is called — I kid you not — “The Partnership against Radical Islamic Terrorism.”

Memo to police forces: This could be a model for The Partnership against Crime to be formed in alliance with the Mafia. I can assure you that the Mafia is willing to help you from time to time against its competitors.

Did I mention that having won the last Lebanese elections — with a little help from violent intimidation and assassination of opponents — Hizballah now runs Lebanon? And did I mention that the new CIA director, John Brennan, is an apologist for Hizballah and has advocated normalizing relations between the United States and that terrorist group?

And, of course, unless hit with an Israeli air attack, Syria and Iran smuggle any weapons into Lebanon they wish without U.S. or UN objection or blockage. The effect of this smuggling is not only to set the stage for future Hizballah terrorism against Israel and a possible war, but helps to guarantee that Lebanon will continue to be in the hands of a terrorist group that is closely aligned with Tehran and advocates genocide against Jews.

Oh, and Israel is supposed to be the bad guy because it defends itself against muggers.

It’s bad enough to be mugged repeatedly but it’s even worse to provide the weapons and money for the assailants while also praising them. But that’s precisely the moral of the story as far as Obama Administration policy is concerned: Except for a few exceptions who won’t play politely (i.e., al-Qaida and part of the Taliban) if you’re nice to the terrorists and they’ll be nice to you.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest book, “Israel: An Introduction“, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include “The Israel-Arab Reader” (seventh edition), “The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East” (Wiley), and “The Truth About Syria” (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Wed, Jan 30, 2013 | By Halil M. Karaveli

This article was first published in the Turkey Analyst, vol. 6 no. 2 (www.turkeyanalyst.org), a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center. © Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, 2013.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s talk of joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization^[1] and abandoning the pursuit of EU membership cannot be dismissed as loose talk, but neither does it herald a major strategic pivot. The Turkey of Erdoğan will continue to privilege and nurture its relations with the West, above all with the U.S., Erdoğan’s anti-Western prejudices and sentiments notwithstanding. And Erdoğan’s embrace of a club of autocrats should not obscure the fact that a very significant portion of the population of Turkey still endorses the goal of EU membership, and that holds true not least among the voters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Is Erdogan looking for Eurasian realignment?

Background

When the AKP was founded more than a decade ago, its founders broke with the Islamist movement to which they had belonged, most notably with the Turkish Islamist tradition of anti-Westernism, instead embracing the goal of Turkish EU membership. That was a crucial departure from old ideological habits, as it helped establish the new party’s centrist, reformist credentials, making it possible for the AKP to appeal to constituencies far beyond the traditional core of Islamic conservative voters. It also bestowed legitimacy on the Islamic conservative rulers of Turkey on the international scene, securing the support of the EU and the United States for them as they set about to roll back the power of the military; the reforms that ended the regime of military tutelage were undertaken and legitimated as part of the effort to bring Turkey closer to the goal of EU membership.

Indeed, the strong public support for EU membership and the identification of the AKP with the EU dream effectively undermined the political position of the military; the generals became politically isolated from the mainstream of Turkish society when they confronted a ruling party which seemed to be working hard to realize a goal — EU membership — that an overwhelming majority supported and cared very much about.

Today, of course, the military is no longer in any position whatsoever to threaten the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Erdoğan has done what no other civilian, elected leader in Turkey had ever done, or had even attempted to do before him: he has broken the power of the praetorian guard of the republic, relegating the generals, who once thought of themselves as the rightful owners of the state, to the role of the loyal servants of the elected government. That means that the main political rationale behind Erdoğan’s and the AKP’s embrace of the goal of EU membership a decade ago has disappeared.

During a television interview on January 25, Erdoğan made the suggestion that Turkey join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) instead of keep knocking on an EU door that anyway seems to remain shut, a suggestion that has startled Turkish commentators and foreign policy experts. Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are SCO members. Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan are observer; and Turkey is a “dialogue partner” of the SCO, together with Belarus and Sri Lanka. Erdoğan recounted a conversation he had had with Russian president Vladimir Putin, during which he — then apparently half-jokingly — had appealed to him to invite Turkey to become a member of the SCO. Asked if the SCO is an alternative to the EU, Erdoğan replied that the former is “better and more powerful”, and that Turkey shares “common values” with its members, all of whom are autocracies; even though Erdoğan did not say so directly, his comments do suggest that he thinks that Turkey does not share common values with the democracies of the EU.

Ironically, Erdoğan’s Eurasianist rhetoric resuscitates a strategic and ideological concept that was espoused by several generals a decade ago; in response to the support that the EU and the U.S. had lent the AKP government, these generals called for a break with the West, and argued that Turkey should instead align itself with Russia, China and Iran; a Eurasian realignment would shore up the state authoritarianism that was being undermined by the EU reforms of the AKP government. Erdoğan’s motives for arguing for what seems to be a similar, geopolitical and ideological reorientation are not immediately apparent.

Implications

Turkish columnists and foreign policy experts are debating whether the prime minister is serious at all about joining the SCO; some suggest that Erdoğan is bluffing, in an attempt to force the hand of the EU to restart the membership process that has long since stalled. Others meanwhile, point out that Erdoğan has been in the habit, for some time, of making unexpected proposals that appeal to conservative voters, without harboring any intent to enact them. During the past year alone, Erdoğan has talked about banning abortion and restoring capital punishment, yet he has not made any subsequent attempt to translate his strongly conservative rhetoric into changes to laws.

The argument that Erdoğan’s main motive is to issue a wake-up call to the EU is not particularly plausible, since the Turkish prime minister himself has not demonstrated any zeal in the pursuit of EU membership for a long time. The explanation that Erdoğan intended audience is the conservative and Turkish nationalist voters is more plausible; Erdoğan himself most surely assumes that his talk of turning Turkey’s back to EU resonates among a broad section of Turkish society. However, that supposition may be more questionable than what is conventionally assumed. A public opinion survey carried out on behalf of the Istanbul-based Center of Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, EDAM, shows that 34 percent of AKP voters hold the view that Turkey should persist in EU membership in the next five years; 21 percent prefer that a new relationship based on mutual interests be formulated; only 12 percent of the AKP voters advocate that the EU membership track be abandoned altogether and that Turkey should create a rival organization to the EU.

The support for that path is strongest, with 17 percent, among the voters of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP). Support for EU membership has dwindled, but is still substantial — indeed remarkably so — given the lack of interest on the part of Ankara and Brussels’ cold-shouldering of Turkey since 2005. The support among the AKP voters is slightly above the overall support — 33 percent — and second only to the overwhelming support — 88 percent — expressed by the voters of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). If Erdoğan is appealing to a particular political constituency with his Shanghai statement, it would be to the ultra-nationalist conservative MHP voters, rather than to the Islamic conservative AKP voters.

Erdoğan’s Shanghai statement follows on a string of statements in which the Turkish prime minister has given vent to what is no doubt a deeply felt antipathy toward the West. Speaking at the University of Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey on January 19, Erdoğan claimed that “the West does not want Turkey to be powerful.” On his visit to Egypt last November, Erdoğan reminded his Egyptian audience that “you should be aware that the Western powers think of nothing but to tear apart the Muslim world, to destroy it from within.”

Erdoğan is too shrewd a practitioner of realpolitik and attuned to international political realities to sacrifice politically and economically beneficial relationships for the sake of ideology; in the television interview he underlined that it would not be right to break the relationship with EU without first having secured an alternative, and he pointed out that Turkey indeed benefits from the established relationship with the EU.

But it is as if Erdoğan wants to provoke or persuade the Europeans to take the initiative for a divorce, as if he is hoping that the EU will let Turkey off the hook, as these words suggest: “The EU wants to forget us, but it is reluctant, it cannot forget us. Yet if it only could come straight we will be relieved.”

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Conclusions

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s talk of joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and abandoning the pursuit of EU membership cannot be dismissed as loose talk, but neither does it herald a major strategic pivot. The Turkey of Erdoğan will continue to privilege and nurture its relations with the West, above all with the U.S., Erdoğan’s anti-Western prejudices and sentiments notwithstanding. It is to Washington that Erdoğan is eagerly waiting to be invited these days; as has been the case with every Turkish prime minister since the 1950s, an invitation to the White House is what Erdoğan cherishes above anything else. The relationship that he enjoys with Barack Obama helps Erdoğan feel truly important on the world stage, but it is with Vladimir Putin that he shares common values. His Shanghai statement serves to impress that fact.

As he took care to point out, Erdoğan is not going to initiate a divorce from the EU, but he may very well be entertaining the hope that the Europeans will heed his invitation and “relieve” Turkey — or rather him. Because Erdoğan’s embrace of a club of autocrats should not obscure the fact that a very significant portion of the population of Turkey still endorses the goal of EU membership, and that holds true not least among the voters of the AKP.

A decade ago, insufficient attention was paid internationally to the AKP’s instrumental perspective on the EU membership process, while Erdoğan and his party were accorded too much benefit of the doubt; today the risk is the opposite. It is too tempting to conclude that Turkey is a lost case, seemingly doomed to an autocracy bon pour l’Orient, when the towering Erdoğan no longer bothers to hide his aversion to liberal values. Yet while Erdoğan has reverted to his roots, his voters have to a significant degree evolved and internalized the goal of EU membership. They may not remain his voters for ever.

Halil M. Karaveli is Senior Fellow and Editor of the Turkey Analyst at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center.

Note:

[1] The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation or SCO is an intergovernmental mutual-security alliance founded in 2001 in Shanghai by the leaders of China, Russia and four Central Asian states: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The Shanghai Five, the SCO predecessor, was founded in 1996 by the present SCO member states except Uzbekistan. In 2001, Uzbekistan joined the Shanghai Five resulting in renaming the organization. In June 2002, the heads of the SCO member states signed the SCO Charter which expounded on the organisation’s purposes, principles, structures and form of operation, and established it officially from the point of view of international law. The SCO is an observer in the United Nations’ General Assembly and has established regional interaction with the European Union, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. The SCO member states objectives are 1) strengthening mutual trust and neighbourly policies; 2) effective cooperation in politics, trade, economics, science, technology, culture, education, energy, transport, tourism and environmental protection; 3) military cooperation, intelligence sharing, and counterterrorism ensuring peace, security and stability in the region; 4) advancing to a new geo-political and economic order.

RubinReports | By Barry Rubin

Poems of American Patriotism – Illustration by N.C. Wyeth

One of the highlights of the 1961 inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, 52 years ago, was a poem by the beloved Robert Frost. That morning I had watched the new vice-president, Lyndon Johnson, leave his home down the street and a bit later watched Frost read the poem on television that snowy day, looking at the same snow outside my window a few miles away.

The poem was entitled, “The Gift Outright,” and it began:

“The land was ours before we were the land’s.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England’s, still colonials….”

That poem could not be read today and if it were the result would be attacks, condemnation, and derision.

Why? Let’s count the reasons:

• The poem defines the birth of America as based on a gift. Today it would be said to be based on theft.
• A gift from whom? The implication is from God. To claim such a thing would be seen as hubris and dangerous non-atheism.
• It claims the land during the colonial period belonged to the colonialists whereas it is assumed now that it belonged to the “Native Americans” and thus such a statement is racist.
• It identifies America with people from England which would be the kind of racist, chauvinist thinking that could not be more derided. After all, what about the slaves as well as the Native Americans?

The fact that Frost was basically correct, that America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries arose from English settlers, that it belonged as a nation to those who became Americans, that it shaped those people in a positive way, and that the founders (who Frost is echoing in the poem) saw things in a similar way, are all deemed irrelevant.

But how can America exist as a legitimate nation if Frost’s view is condemned, even if one takes into account the country’s later direction and development?

This discussion reminds us that the hegemonic elite in the United States today has largely achieved something never done elsewhere: it has convinced itself and a large portion of the country’s youth that America’s whole history is evil. There is one other country (I’ll mention below) that has far more logically convinced most of its people to believe just one part of its history is evil. See if you can guess.

I don’t want to exaggerate here. Obviously not everyone feels that way and equally this sentiment is not applied to all things. In his second inaugural speech, President Barack Obama put forward contradictory ideas. On one hand, he tried to bridge the gap by saying that the founders were merely outdated and that he had now assumed their mantle. On the other hand, he played subtly on the evil rich white male heterosexual slaveholder theme.

So they succeed in having it both ways: America was a great idea but the way it was organized is obsolete; America has a terrible bloodstained history because it is so innately corrupted. Either way it has to be fundamentally transformed. During the last century a portion of the intelligentsia in all developed states has always been eager to condemn its own country, but more likely — and sometimes justifiably — for its current policies rather than its entire history and far more likely a small minority of people and not a large portion of the entire population.

The patriotic trimmings when invoked by those in charge nowadays seem cynical afterthoughts for political advantage rather than sincere sentiments. This is especially true in many classrooms which are shaping the next generation. It is no accident that one of the main textbooks used was written by a genuine Communist. The left-wing fringe rhetoric of the 1960s has now become the new normal.

The main theme is that America has been unfair, racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, a bully in the world, an oppressor of its own working class, etc. And of course it stole the land from the original inhabitants.

That country certainly sounds like a disaster. Why did its people even bother to continue such a failed experiment? Clearly it must be fundamentally transformed, no doubt.

And yet the French don’t say: How terrible is our country based on a thousand years of feudalism — nobility grinding the peasants’ faces in the mud, the bloody revolution, 25 years of aggressive war by Napoleon, decades of revolution and repression, the collapse of four republics, humiliating defeats in war, collaboration in World War Two, a colonial empire, and imperialist wars in Algeria and Indochina. They don’t say we are evil; our system is rotten; our souls deeply corrupted; we need fundamental transformation.

Even if you downgrade the extent to which this image of guilt and shame has pervaded American intellectual, cultural, and even political life of late, as one looks around the world it seems as if Americans can say, “We’re number one” when it comes to self-hatred.

While Europeans are aware of their colonialist past, their guilt trip is far more limited. Why is that? On the surface, they have America and Israel to claim as real villains — scapegoats whose condemnation banishes European guilt — but there is more to it than that.

One thing is that the United States can be said to be, in Marxist terms, a settler colonial society. But Latin American societies are based on far more deliberate and systematic genocide of the original inhabitants. Specific tales can be told of specific, usually small-scale massacres in America or the exile of the Cherokee. But in Spain’s colonies in the new world, there were deliberate massive killings, including — unlike the United States — of those who never attacked the Europeans or even fought wars against them.

Similarly, African history is marked by tribal warfare, displacement, and even genocide. While in Asia, the Japanese perpetrated horrors on China, for example, second only to those of Hitler and Stalin in Europe but can barely be made to offer perfunctory formal apologies. While one can find atrocities on the American side in the Philippines around 1900 or in Vietnam there’s nothing comparable. And such deeds were never matters of national policy. Oh, there was the internment of Japanese citizens in World War Two.

Regrettable but to be honest understandable at the time.

Indeed, leftists (including those pretending to be liberals) routinely rationalize cultures and societies built on far more repressive, racist, undemocratic behavior which continues down to today. Perhaps that, too, is part of the answer. Criticism of one’s own society is encouraged; criticism of others is deemed racist.

Examining Europe more closely, Austria and Italy feel that they were victims, not allies, of Hitler’s cause. Russia is not repentant about Communism’s mass killings and repression, though of course it has been much discussed. France doesn’t consider itself born in sin despite the suppression of other nations within it (whatever became of the Burgundians, the Bretons, the Normans? How about the brutal massacre of the harmless Cathars?) or its colonial behavior. As a result, today a Socialist government doesn’t hesitate to send an expeditionary force to bomb rebels in Mali, and unilaterally to boot, without any of the Obama Administration obsession with multilateralism.

The French tend to bury the collaborationist past in World War Two. Belgians don’t shed tears over their country’s terrible behavior in the Congo, perhaps the world’s single worst record of bloody colonialism.

For Europeans, war and conquest are seen as more normal even if the view is that they have outgrown such things today. Americans often seem to find conflict to be unnatural and in the well-ordered society they wouldn’t exist, everyone would be rich and happy. Thus, at least as its being presented today, conflict is a matter of mean, selfish people who just don’t have the right ideas.

True, European ruling classes have in some cases lost confidence in their own civilization but they don’t gnaw at themselves.

So what’s different about America on this point? I am trying out some preliminary ideas.

• America was a democracy and thus evil deeds cannot be put off onto an aristocracy or monarchy that no longer exists.
• Other countries just came into existence and there they were! Some countries were the products of conscious nationalist visions. But the United States arose from a political and philosophical concept: how can one build a country that is a sustainable republic where citizens are treated as equal. Thus, it can be judged on whether it has met that goal.
• America’s success at integrating other groups and freedom has created internal points of criticism. There are large minority groups which aren’t afraid to speak out and complain about the past. Indeed, members of the “majority” who do so are amply rewarded.
• Americans have a problem with integrating history into their thinking. The narrative of other countries is accepted and seen as a whole. The United States is much younger than most and has focused so much on change it is hard for most people to see their national rootedness.
• Because it always looked more inward than other countries, focused on prosperity and had a relatively easy geostrategic situation, Americans never even considered world conquest and when the country had the opportunity to do so after 1945 acted with incredible modesty and constraint. Today, that sentence would be mocked but it is nonetheless true. Perhaps there is a parallel to antisemitism in which the failure to behave as other nations have done makes everyone all the more suspicious that one is plotting behind the scenes.
• Of course, the above points may be too over-thought and the easier explanation is simply a cynical, deliberate indoctrination to turn Americans against their own country and history. But then one still has to explain why this hasn’t happened elsewhere.

It is normal to refuse to endlessly dwell on one’s own guilt and shortcomings. People want to feel good about themselves and their country. Rulers usually — unless they are in the midst of fundamentally transforming the country (ah, there’s a clue) — don’t want to admit the evil-doing of predecessors with whom they feel a strong continuity.

One might say, as noted above, that America conquered the original inhabitants. But if one goes back far enough that can be said of virtually every country. America had slavery but so did other countries, albeit mainly outside their own borders so it was less visible. There are differences but not as large as they might originally appear to be.

The one potential exception is Germany, which is still facing its national socialist past as a factor that does affect its behavior. Yet I don’t think Germans believe that this era reflects a fundamental flaw in their national character or which pervades their history. And, again, the United States never had anything equivalent.

Part of the problem is the misunderstanding — often deliberate — of American history. Yes, there was slavery but it was repugnant from the very start to many Americans, even including slaveholders among the founders. Not just the Civil War but the political history of the United States from 1820 to 1861 revolved largely around battle over this issue. The correct way to view this history is not that America was guilty of the fundamental sin of slavery but that America had a great struggle over the issue and ultimately resolved it properly because of the strength, powerful concepts of democracy and equality, and conscience built into its system.

Perhaps the internal drive to delegitimize America is precisely because patriotism is a strong force in American life that must be overcome by those who would transform the country’s thinking. Certainly, the United States has taken a lead in international affairs in the last sixty years but frankly it did a pretty good job dealing with very tough situations and no-win alternatives.

In William Shakespeare’s play, “Julius Caesar,” Mark Antony gives a brilliant speech which well sums up how those who slander America misrepresent its history:

“The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.”

And who today seek to be America’s undertakers?

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest book, “Israel: An Introduction“, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include “The Israel-Arab Reader” (seventh edition), “The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East” (Wiley), and “The Truth About Syria” (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Tue, Dec 18, 2012 | terrorism-info.org.il

Hezbollah has a 30-year history of terrorist activity in Lebanon, the Middle East and around the globe, directed against Israel, the Jewish people, the United States and the West, pro-Western Arab states and Hezbollah’s enemies in Lebanon. This study is published by The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. You can download this study in PDF format here.

Overview

Since its establishment in Lebanon 30 years ago, Hezbollah has, without interruption, carried out or planned a variety of terrorist attacks around the globe, using different methods. Those terrorist attacks are part of Iranian policy, which uses Hezbollah as its main proxy through the Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force and other governmental institutions. The targets and emphases change from time to time according to Iranian and Hezbollah considerations and interests. The targets include Israel and the Jewish people, the United States and other Western countries, Hezbollah and Syria’s opponents in Lebanon, and Arab regimes hostile to Iran and the “resistance camp” it leads.

In recent years Hezbollah has been involved in terrorist (an occasionally guerilla) activities in different arenas using various methods against its targets. At the same time, with Iranian and Syrian support, it has been upgrading its military-terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon, which far surpasses those of other terrorist organizations in the Middle East and beyond.

A short summary of Hezbollah’s terrorist and guerilla activity and its military buildup follows:

1. In Lebanon Iran and Syria have enlarged and upgraded Hezbollah’s militaryterrorist infrastructure since the Second Lebanon War. Its main military asset is an arsenal of an estimated 60,000 rockets and missiles which threaten Israel’s civilians. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, boasted that he had precise rockets and a bank of targets, and could turn the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians into a living hell. Hezbollah also carries out personal terrorism against its opponents in Lebanon, mainly senior figures. The objective is to scare and deter Hezbollah’s opponents, mainly after the erosion of its status following its support for the Syrian regime.
2. In the international arena, Hezbollah participates in the global terrorist campaign carried out by the Iranian Qods Force, whose main targets are Israeli diplomats and tourists. Hezbollah’s most recent attack was on an Israeli tourist bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, considered successful (by Iran and Hezbollah), after a series of failed attacks abroad in previous years.
3. In the Palestinian arena, Hezbollah helped Iran upgrade the military-terrorist infrastructure of the terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip after Operation Cast Lead, mainly Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. On the eve of Operation Pillar of Defense the terrorist organizations had many thousands of rockets, among them long-range Fajr-5 rockets manufactured in Iran (eight of which hit or were intercepted in the greater Tel Aviv area). In addition, Hezbollah encourages terrorist attacks against Israel from the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. During the Palestinian terrorist campaign known as the second intifada, Iran and Hezbollah provided the Palestinian terrorist organizations with financial and military support and handled terrorist squads in the Palestinian territories.
4. Inside Israel Hezbollah carries out intelligence and subversive activities. Hezbollah, with Iranian aid, recently sent an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to collect intelligence and to send Israel a deterrent message (UAVs could also be used for offensive purposes). Hezbollah also attempts to smuggle IEDs and weapons into for terrorist attacks (exploiting its ties to criminal networks) and to use Israeli Arabs for intelligence missions supporting its terrorist activities.
5. In Syria Hezbollah is part of the Iranian effort (led by the Qods Force) to prevent the topple of the Syrian regime, the central member of the so-called “resistance camp.” Hezbollah provides the Assad regime with guidance, military training, intelligence and weapons, and hundreds of its operatives are present in Syria. In recent months several Hezbollah operatives died in the battles and others were taken prisoner by the rebels. However, Hezbollah does not admit to its military involvement in Syria and claimed that its operatives died while “fulfilling their commitment to jihad.”
6. In the Arab states Iran uses Hezbollah for subversion, terrorism and guerilla activities: in Iraq Hezbollah operatives trained and handled the Shi’ite militias operated by the Qods Force against the United States and its allies (until America withdrew from Iraq at the end of 2011). In Yemen Hezbollah helped train the Iranian-supported Houthi rebels; and in Bahrain Hezbollah was recently publicly accused by Bahraini authorities of involvement in a series of explosions in the capital city of Manama. Its objective was to destabilize the Bahraini regime, against which Iran is waging a years-long campaign of terrorism and subversion. Hezbollah does not admit to involvement in terrorism and subversion in Arab countries.

The Structure of This Study

This study is the second part of comprehensive research into the terrorist and subversive activities Iran carries out around the globe directly, and though its main proxy, Hezbollah. The first part, which can also be accessed on the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center website,^[1] deals with the Qods Force as spearheading Iran’s global terrorism and subversion campaign during the last decade. Two additional parts, which will be issued in the future, will deal with the distribution (according to continent and country) of Iran’s global terrorist activity and an analysis of the methods used by Iranian and terrorism and subversion.

The three appendices of this study provide a chronological analysis of Hezbollah’s most glaring terrorist activities in the 30 years since its founding, integral to Iran’s overall policies.^[2] In addition to terrorist attacks on civilians, Hezbollah has engaged in guerilla warfare in Lebanon and Iraq, against the IDF and against the United States and other Western armies. The targets have changed from time to time depending on Iranian policy, the constraints Hezbollah has had to deal with in Lebanon and the changing regional and international strategic circumstances during Hezbollah’s 30 years of terrorist activity.

This study includes the following sections:

1. Hezbollah’s role in the current global terrorist campaign against Israel.
2. Hezbollah’s support for the Assad regime in Syria — update.
3. Summary of Hezbollah’s record as a terrorist organization during the 30 years of its existence (1982-2012).
4. Reasons for designating Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
5. Three appendices dealing with the chronological distribution of Hezbollah’s terrorist activities:
   1. Appendix I: Hezbollah’s terrorist activity, 2000-2012
      1. Overview
      2. The Lebanese arena
         1. Building Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal after the IDF left south Lebanon (2000-2006).
         2. Using the rocket arsenal to attack civilian targets in Israel during the Second Lebanon War.
         3. Updating the rocket arsenal after the Second Lebanon War (2006-2012)
         4. Employing terrorism and violence against Hezbollah’s political opposition in Lebanon.
      3. The Israeli arena
         1. Overview.
         2. Sending a UAV into Israeli airspace.
         3. Using Israeli Arabs to collect intelligence.
         4. Using drug dealers to smuggle explosive devices into Israel territory.
      4. The Palestinian arena
         1. Iranian and Hezbollah (as a subcontractor) support for the Palestinian terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip (2006-2012).
         2. Iranian and Hezbollah encouragement for Palestinian terrorism during the second intifada (2000-2005).
         3. Hezbollah’s involvement in smuggling weapons from Iran for the Palestinian terrorist organizations during the second intifada.
      5. The global arena
         1. Hezbollah participation in the global wave of anti-Israel terrorism (2008-2012).
         2. Exposure of a Hezbollah network in Egypt which planned to carry out terrorist attacks (2008)
      6. The Iraqi arena
         1. The Qods Force’s use of Hezbollah to support the Shi’ite militias against the United States and its allies (2006-2011)
         2. The affair of Ali Musa Daqduq
   2. Appendix II: Hezbollah’s terrorist activities during the 1990s
      1. Overview
      2. The global arena
         1. Hezbollah’s terrorist attacks in Argentina (1992, 1994).
         2. The attempted bombing of the Israeli embassy in Thailand (1994)
      3. The Israeli arena
         1. Terrorist attacks in Israel originating in Europe.
         2. Terrorism and drugs: the abduction of Elhanan Tannenbaum (2000)
   3. Appendix III: Hezbollah’s terrorist activities during the 1980s
      1. Overview
      2. The Lebanese arena
         1. Bombing the American embassy and American and French military barracks in Beirut(1983).
         2. Severe blow to the Lebanese branch of the CIA.
         3. Abduction of Western nationals.
         4. Assassination of Western and Jewish figures.
         5. Epilogue
      3. The international arena
         1. Attacks on the American and French diplomatic missions in Kuwait (1983).
         2. Attempted assassination of the Kuwaiti emir (1985)
         3. Hijacking planes
            1. TWA (1985)
            2. Kuwaiti airplanes (1984, 1988)
            3. Air France (1987)
            4. Air Afrique (1987)
         4. Iranian and Hezbollah involvement in the wave of killings in Paris (1986-1987)
         5. Prevention of terrorist activity in Germany (1987, 1989)
         6. Hezbollah network exposed in Spain (1989)

Hezbollah’s Role in the Current Global Terrorist Campaign against Israel

For the past four years Hezbollah has participated actively in Iran’s global terrorist campaign against Israel. The recent attack on an Israeli tourist bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, which killed five Israeli tourists and their local bus driver, was the first “successful” attack in the current terrorist campaign, after a series of attempted attacks were foiled. In the terrorist campaign conducted abroad, Hezbollah serves as an Iranian proxy handled by the Qods Force, an elite unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRG), which spearheads Iran’s foreign terrorism.^[3] Even before the founding of the Qods Force, in the summer of 1982 the IRG established Hezbollah in Lebanon, and has provided it with massive military and financial support in the 30 years since.

Hezbollah’s current targets for terrorist attacks are primarily Israeli diplomatic missions abroad and groups of Israelis on vacation throughout the Mediterranean basin and other tourist destinations. Some of the attacks and attempted attacks were carried out by Hezbollah, directed and supported by the Qods Force (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Azerbaijan and Turkey) and some were carried out by the Qods Force without Hezbollah involvement (Azerbaijan, India, Georgia, Thailand and Kenya).

The terrorist campaign, from the Iranian perspective, is a Iranian response to the “soft war”^[4] being waged against Iran and the “resistance camp,” and is also intended to strengthen Iran’s strategic bargaining capabilities and show the United States, the West and Israel that it can harm their interests around the globe. As far as Iran and Hezbollah are concerned, the terrorist campaign is also a way of getting revenge for the death of senior Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh and the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists (for both of which Iran and Hezbollah blame Israel), thus deterring Israel from taking other actions, especially in its war against terrorism and the Iranian nuclear program.^[5]

The ruins of the Israeli tourist bus after the blast (Website of the ZAKA spokesman, July 19, 2012).

During the past four years (2008-2012) Hezbollah attempted to carry out six terrorist attacks, some of them in Mediterranean countries popular with Israeli tourists. One proceeded according to Hezbollah’s plans and the others were either prevented or failed. In our assessment, they were carried out by Hezbollah’s foreign operations unit (See below). The attacks were the following:

Sketch of the Hezbollah terrorist operative suspected of carrying out the attack in Burgas (Novinite.com website, July 27, 2012).

1. Blowing up an Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria (July 18, 2012): An IED weighing about 3 kilos, or about 6.6 lbs, blew up the back of a tourist bus about to take Israeli tourists from the airport to their hotel in the Black Sea resort of Burgas. According to the Bulgarian minister of the interior, the IED had been assembled in Bulgaria. The terrorist attack was carried out by a Hezbollah operative who, according to information from the Bulgarian authorities, had a local supporter who has not yet been detained. The terrorist was killed by a technical fault which caused the IED to explode prematurely. The blast killed five Israeli tourists, the Bulgarian bus driver and the terrorist. In addition, 36 Israeli civilians were wounded, three of them seriously.
2. Attack targeting Israeli tourists in Cyprus, prevented (July 7, 2012): The local authorities in Limassol detained a 24-year old Lebanese Hezbollah operative who was collecting information about Israeli tourists arriving on the island by air; he was carrying a Swedish passport (the Hezbollah terrorist operative involved in the attack in Thailand also carried a Swedish passport; see below). In our assessment, he was collecting information in preparation for an attack on Israeli tourists visiting the island, possibly the same sort of attack carried out in Bulgaria.
3. A terrorist attack on Israelis at a tourist center in Bangkok, Thailand (middle of January, 2012): Hezbollah, instructed by the Qods Force, attempted to attack sites visited by Israelis using IEDs. A Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist operative named Hussein Atris, carrying a Swedish and Lebanese passports, was detained at the Bangkok airport.^[6] Another Hezbollah operative, also carrying a Swedish passport, managed to escape. Hussein Atris’ interrogation led the police to a commercial building in Bangkok where they found a large quantity of chemicals used in the manufacture of explosives (about 4,400 kilograms, or 4.85 tons, of nitrogen and about 40 liters, or 10.5 gallons, of ammonium nitrate). In our assessment, the presence of such a large stock of potentially dangerous chemicals indicates the existence of a long-standing, well-established Hezbollah network in Thailand. A month later, on February 14, 2012, the Qods Force attempted another attack in Bangkok, this time using a magnet to attach an IED to the car of an Israeli diplomat. The attempt, like the Qods Force attacks in India and Georgia in the former Soviet Union, was prevented by the local authorities.
4. On January 5, 2012, the Israeli media reported that Hezbollah was planning to carry out terrorist attacks on Israeli tourists in Europe, especially Bulgaria. The Bulgarian news agencies also reported concerns about attacks on Israeli and/or Jewish targets in Bulgaria or Greece. On January 8 the Israeli media reported that a suspicious object had been found on a bus that entered Bulgaria from Turkey and was going to be used to transport Israeli tourists.
5. An unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Israeli consul in Istanbul using an IED (May 26, 2011): The blast injured eight Turkish citizens. In July 2011 the Italian Corriere della Sera reported that three Hezbollah operatives from Beirut had often followed the Israeli consul from his home to the consulate. According to Sky News (April 2012), the Qods Force’s Unit 400, responsible for attacks beyond the borders of Iran, was behind the attack. The attack was preceded, in 2009, by a joint Iran-Hezbollah attack on an Israeli target, and in 2010 by an Iranian attempt to attack an Israeli target, indicating Turkey as a favored location for Iran and Hezbollah’s terrorist campaign.
6. An attempted attack on the Israeli embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan (May 2008): The attack was carried out by Hezbollah, in our assessment with support from the Qods Force. The terrorist cell was composed of two Hezbollah operatives, Ali Karaki, from Hezbollah’s foreign operations unit, and Ali Najem al-Din, an explosives expert. The two underwent training in Iran before they were sent to Baku. They carried Iranian passports, and the Iranians also furnished them with a translator. Preparations for the attack, which had almost reached the final stage, were exposed when the Azeri security forces stopped a car carrying the two Hezbollah operatives. In the car they found guns with silencers, explosives, cameras, binoculars and pictures of the Israeli embassy. The two Hezbollah operatives were tried, found guilty, and sentenced to 15 years in prison (October 2009). During the first half of 2012 an attempted Qods Force assassination of two prominent Jewish figures in Baku was prevented. The attack was planned to be carried out during the Eurovision, without Hezbollah participation.

It is therefore evident that in recent years Hezbollah has been a close partner in Iran’s global terrorist campaign, accelerating since May 2011. The campaign directly threatens all tourism, but its main targets are groups of Israeli tourists and Israel’s diplomatic representatives around the globe. In our assessment, it reflects Iran and Hezbollah’s readiness to expose themselves to risks, even at the price of a possible escalation with Israel.

Hezbollah’s Overseas Terrorist Attack Mechanism

To carry out terrorist attacks abroad, Hezbollah maintains a designated mechanism called the Unit for Overseas Operations, whose existence Hezbollah denies. Overall responsibility for the unit belongs to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and his personal approval is required for overseas attacks. Since the death of Imad Mughniyeh, his second in command has been Mustafa Badr al-Din, head of the external operations networks. (Note: Mustafa Badr al-Din is accused by the International Court of complicity in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri). Second to al-Din is Talal Hamiya, head of Hezbollah’s overseas operations unit and commander of terrorist operatives in Lebanon and the target countries.

The Chain of Command for External Terrorist Attacks^[7]

Hezbollah’s external terrorist attack mechanism has made a considerable investment in establishing terrorist sleeper cells around the globe. There are weapons stores, local collaborators, safe houses and assets. In certain instances, the cells are linked to local criminal organizations which collaborate with Hezbollah and the Qods Force (particularly conspicuous in Latin American countries). With such capabilities, Hezbollah can carry out deadly terrorist attacks throughout the world when Iran makes the decision.

Portrait of a Terrorist: Mustafa Badr al-Din

Mustafa Badr al-Din, aka “Saab,” was both a cousin and brother-in-law of the late Imad Mughniyeh. Like Mughniyeh he served in Fatah’s Force 17 in Beirut (before 1982) and joined Hezbollah with him. At the start of his career he commanded the operation to assassinate the emir of Kuwait, which failed, and he spent five years in a Kuwaiti jail (See below). In 2008 he became Imad Mughniyeh’s second in command (Globaljihad.net). In June 2008, after Mughniyeh’s death, he replaced him as head of Hezbollah’s operational networks, which is involved in all the organization’s activities abroad.

Mustafa Badr al-Din had an important role in two major terrorist attacks, one abroad and one in Lebanon, carried out 20 years apart:

1. In 1985 he headed an operation to assassinate the emir of Kuwait; the attempted assassination was prevented. He was detained in Kuwait but managed to escape in early August 1990, finding sanctuary in the Iranian embassy in Kuwait, exploiting the disorder following Iraq’s invasion of the country. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards brought him to Iran and from there he returned to Beirut at the end of 1990 (Globaljihad.net). In Beirut he reestablished himself in the Hezbollah operational leadership.
2. Mustafa Badr al-Din is the main suspect in the affair of the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, who was killed on February 14, 2005. In early May 2010 the international tribunal which investigated Hariri’s death stated that Badr al-Din coordinated the assassination with Syrian support. On August 11, 2010, the tribunal announced that Hariri’s assassination had been coordinated and carried out by senior Hezbollah operatives, one of whom was Mustafa Badr al-Din, who would be tried for his crime (in all probability in absentia).

Portrait of Hajj Imad Fayez Mughniyeh, Arch Terrorist

Hezbollah’s overseas terrorist attack network and its military-terrorist apparatus were headed by Imad Mughniyeh, originally a Fatah Force 17 operative in Beirut who joined Hezbollah when it was founded. In the 1980s and 90s was responsible for a series of deadly terrorist attacks against the United States and other Western countries and against Israel and the Jewish people (including the bombing of the AMIA Jewish center building in Argentina). In the United States he was on the list of the 22 most-wanted terrorists in connection with the murder of an American citizen aboard hijacked TWA flight 847 in 1985. In Argentina he was on the list of Iranian terrorists for whom international arrest warrants had been issued in 2006 at the request of the Argentinean district attorney, because of his responsibility for the bombing of the AMIA building in Buenos Aires.

Until his death, Imad Mughniyeh was Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s military second in command. He was responsible for all Hezbollah’s military-terrorist activities, both inside Lebanon and abroad. He headed what was called the Jihad Council, the institution within Hezbollah headquarters responsible for constructing a military force and preparing it for emergencies. Mughniyeh constructed the militaryterrorist infrastructure in Lebanon which was used against Israel during the Second Lebanon War, while at the same time he commanded many terrorist attacks carried out against Israelis, Westerners and Arabs in Lebanon and beyond.

Imad Mughniyeh was killed in an explosion in Damascus on February 12, 2008. He was buried in a cemetery reserved for Hezbollah “martyrs” in the Ghubieri neighborhood of the Shi’ite southern suburb of Beirut. Senior Iranian and Hezbollah figures, as well as important foreigners visiting Lebanon, make pilgrimages to his grave.

Hezbollah’s Support for the Assad regime in Syria — Update^[8]

Hezbollah Support for the Syrian Regime and Its Significance

The heads of the so-called “resistance camp:” Ahmadinejad, Bashar Assad and Hassan Nasrallah (Sabla Oman Forum website, March 8, 2012).

For Iran, Hezbollah’s patron, preserving the regime of Bashar Assad, its main ally in the “resistance camp,” is of supreme strategic interest. However, Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah has interests of its own for wanting the Assad regime to survive: it is Hezbollah’s closest ally, providing it with strategic and logistical depth as well as its being an important prop. Along with Iran, Syria is vital to Hezbollah’s military buildup and to maintaining its ability to deter Israel. Syria also provides Hezbollah with advanced weapons and it is the main conduit for the weapons and ammunition Iran sends to Lebanon. In addition, Syria gives Hezbollah political and military backing in its struggle in Lebanon against its opponents (the March 14 camp).

Beyond that, Hezbollah’s involvement in suppressing the Syrian uprising is meant to give Hezbollah (and Iran) political influence in Syria the morning after the fall of the Bashar Assad’s regime and the ability to respond to what they consider the negative scenarios which might develop from the collapse: serious Western and pro-Western Arab-Muslim intervention in Syria’s internal affairs, the strengthening of the Al-Qaeda and global jihad groups participating in the fighting against the current regime, and increasing danger to the Syrian Shi’ites and Alawites, for whom Hezbollah has a strong religious-sectarian affinity.

In the face of the Syrian regime’s continuing decline, Iran and Hezbollah have focused their efforts on bolstering it, deterring its rivals and preventing the collapse of both the regime and the so-called “resistance camp.” In our assessment, that is because both Iran and Hezbollah assume that the Assad regime may possibly survive, and that with sufficient support the clock can be turned back. Iran and Hezbollah doubled their efforts in recent months as the threat to the regime grew, with Hezbollah prepared but having no choice but to pay the price, both politically and to its image: Hezbollah’s image as an Iranian-Syrian agent has become more defined inside Lebanon; its opponents have raised disputed issues, especially by questioning the legitimacy of Hezbollah’s weapons, the so-called “weapon of the resistance” (including by figures which were previously pro-Syrian, such as Lebanese President Michel Sulaiman); an increase in demonstrations of hatred for Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, from Syrian rebels and the local Sunni population; and severe criticism of Hezbollah from the Arab world, most of which stands behind the opponents of the Assad regime.

Pictorial Representations of Hezbollah’s Support for the Syrian Regime

In the United States, David S. Cohen, Treasury Department Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said the following of Hezbollah’s support for the Syrian Regime:

“‘Hizballah’s extensive support to the Syrian government’s violent suppression of the Syrian people exposes the true nature of this terrorist organization and its destabilizing presence in the region,’ said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen. ‘Long after the Assad regime is gone, the people of Syria and the entire global community will remember that Hizballah, and its patron Iran, contributed to the regime’s murder of countless innocent Syrians’” (Treasury Department website, August 10, 2012).

Levels of Hezbollah Support the Syrian Regime

Hezbollah is one facet of Iran’s overall support Bashar Assad’s regime, what Hassan Nasrallah calls “the resistance regime.” The support, military included, is led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force, which spearheads the Iranian drive to export the Islamic Revolution and plays a central role in terrorist and subversive activities carried out by Iran beyond its borders. In our assessment, in recent months Hezbollah has been drawn further and further into the Syrian turmoil, which is becoming more obviously a civil war as the Syrian regime continues to weaken. Hezbollah, however, denies providing military support to the Syrian regime.

The areas in which Hezbollah provides military and security support to the Syrian regime are the following:

1. Presence of Hezbollah operatives to Syria: So far, we assess the presence of Hezbollah in Syria as several hundred operatives, although it is possible that more may arrive. The Hezbollah operatives are there as advisors, but some of them may be involved in fighting the rebels, although they keep a low profile and their active involvement is clandestine (See below).
2. Training the regime’s forces: Hezbollah trains the forces loyal to the Assad regime, both regular army and special units, in guerrilla warfare, in which it has operational experience. That includes fighting in urban areas, explosives, sniping, etc. According to an article in the French newspaper Le Figaro, Hezbollah and Iran’s main contribution is training Bashar Assad’s forces (Le Figaro, August 17, 2012).
3. Providing intelligence: The Lebanese weekly Al-Shiraa reported that Hezbollah had sent groups of military operatives to assist Syrian intelligence (Al-Shiraa, July 11, 2011).
4. Providing the Syrian forces with weapons and logistical equipment: The Lebanese media reported that Hezbollah vehicles had entered Syria from Lebanon carrying operatives and weapons.
5. Providing the Syrian regime with strategic advice: Senior members of the Syrian regime have regularly consulted with Qods Force and Hezbollah commanders throughout the uprising.
6. Securing sites and facilities: A sensitive site for Hezbollah and Iran is the tomb of Zaynab, daughter of the imam Ali, a holy place for Shi’ite Muslims. Hussein al-Mikdad, allegedly a Hezbollah operative, captured by the Free Syrian Army, said that he belonged to a group of 250 operatives stationed near the tomb of Zaynab.
7. Activity along the Syria-Lebanon border: The Syria-Lebanon border has traditionally been a highway for smugglers, and Hezbollah controls it to prevent aid from Lebanon from reaching the Syrian rebels.
8. Taking preventive actions inside Lebanon: Hezbollah makes it difficult for the Syrian opposition to operate in Lebanon through assassinations, threats, detentions and even extraditing wanted individuals to the Syrian regime.

Bashar Assad and Hassan Nasrallah, apparently an old photo taken before the uprising (Hawamir forum website, Saudi Arabia, July 22, 2012).

The tomb of Zaynab, daughter of Ali, in Damascus (Lions of Iraq forum website, May 2011).

In addition to the above Hezbollah disseminates propaganda for the Syrian regime, and publicly and unashamedly supports it. It represents the regime as consistently supporting the so-called “resistance” while its opponents are represented as lackeys of a Western-Arab “plot” and terrorists. Syrian themes appear in Hezbollah’s media and is marketed to Lebanese and Arab target audiences by the speeches of Hassan Nasrallah; Hezbollah also holds pro-Syrian demonstrations in Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s Pro-Syrian Propaganda

The Religious-Sectarian Aspect: Support for Shi’ites and Alawites

There are indications that Iran and Hezbollah help the Syrian Shi’ite and Alawite communities defend themselves from Sunni attacks. It is part of the general support for the Alawite Syrian regime and is also motivated by religioussectarian solidarity.^[9] That support is founded on the assumption that when the Syrian regime falls, the Shi’ite-Alawite population affiliated with it will be exposed to reprisals of the Sunni opposition.

There are between 400,000 and 450,000 Shi’ites in Syria, about 2% of the population.^[10] Their situation has worsened during the Syrian uprising because of their affiliation with the Assad regime and because they live within Sunni districts (mostly in Idlib and the periphery of Aleppo). In recent months they have endured murders, abductions and attacks on their clerics. That raised concerns among Syrian Shi’ites that the fall of the Assad regime might bring about the growth of extremist Islamic movements hostile to Shi’ites (Alkuwaitiah website, Kuwait, September 13, 2012). With that in mind the Shi’ite settlements set up “popular committees” and local self-defense networks affiliated with the Assad regime. Shi’ite Hezbollah provides Syrian Shi’ites and Alawites with military support to preserve its assets in Syria and in preparation for the morning after, and for reasons of religious-sectarian solidarity.

The Lebanese media, quoting a “Hezbollah source,” reported that young Syrian Shi’ite men were being given military training in Hezbollah camps in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon to prepare them to defend their villages from the Sunnis (Al-Shiraa, Volume 127, early July 2012). According to another report from a Syrian opposition source, Hezbollah fighters were in the process of taking over a number of villages on the Syrian coast with Shi’ite majorities in preparation for establishing an “Alawite canton” (Ukaz, Saudi Arabia, October 17, 2012). Iranian and Hezbollah sensitivity to the tomb of Zaynab (one of several tombs in Syria sacred to Shi’ites) is another indication of how the religious and sectarian dimension influences Iranian and Hezbollah intervention in the Syrian cauldron.

On August 14, 2012, American Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that Iran was organizing and training a militia to support the Syrian regime (Telegraph.co.uk and Military.com websites, August 15, 2012). He did not explicitly mention Hezbollah but in our assessment it can be assumed that together Iran and Hezbollah were establishing a Shi’ite-Alawite militia in preparation for the morning after the fall of the Syrian regime.

Death of Hezbollah Operatives in Syria

In recent months Hezbollah operatives have been killed in battle in Syria, and were also killed while in rebel captivity.^[11] Hezbollah, which does not publicly admit to giving the Assad regime military aid, has not confirmed that its operatives were killed or captured in Syrian territory. However, in some instances Hezbollah held public funerals covered by the media, announcing that their operatives had died while “fulfilling their commitment to jihad.” In other instances operatives were buried in secret and their families were warned against disclosing the circumstances of their deaths (Aljazeera.net website, October 5, 2012).

Examples of Hezbollah operatives killed in Syria:

1. Ali Hussein Abdo Shams and Mahdi Abdallah Sabat, both Hezbollah operatives, were killed during the second half of June 2012. Syrian opposition sources reported that they were killed while fighting in Syria. Hezbollah, on the other hand, reported that they were killed while “fulfilling their commitment to jihad.” Their funerals were held on June 25, 2012. Mahdi Abdallah Sabat was buried in the town of Al-Eyn in the Beqaa Valley. Ali Shams was buried in the town of Al-Harmel, also in the Beqaa Valley (Al-Manar TV and Al-Intiqad, Lebanon, June 15, 2012).
2. A number of Hezbollah operatives were killed in Syria at the end of September 2012. Two of them, Ali Hussein Naseif (aka Abu Abbas) and Zein al-Abdin Mustafa (aka Amar), were killed in a Free Syrian Army ambush in the region of Al-Qasir Homs. Riyadh al-Assad, commander of the Free Syrian Army, claimed that Abu Abbas, whom he described as a senior Hezbollah operative, was killed by Free Syrian Army fighters when he was “on his way to one of the centers of Hezbollah operatives and [Bashar] Assad forces…” (Ukaz, Saudi Arabia, October 3, 2012). Hezbollah did not confirm that the two had been killed in Syria, saying that they had died while “fulfilling their commitment to jihad” (Al-Intiqad, Lebanon, October 2, 2012). The two were buried in the villages of Budai and the city of Baalbek in the Beqaa Valley.^[12]
3. On October 8, 2012, the funeral of Hezbollah operative Hussein Abd al-Ghani al-Nimr was held in Baalbek. Baalbek’s Hezbollah spokesman said that he died while “fulfilling his commitment to jihad” at the Syria-Lebanon border. The Lebanese media reported that his corpse was returned to Lebanon on October 7 and that Sheikh Muhammad Yazbek, head of Hezbollah’s religious authority, delivered the eulogy, saying that he “was killed in battle while defending national honor” (Al-Itihad; Saidaway; Lebanon News; Muslim Brotherhood in Syria website, October 9, 2012).

On November 1, 2012, Hezbollah operative Khaidar Mahmoud Zein al-Din was buried in the south Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh; another Hezbollah operative, Ahmed Mahdi Yassin was buried in the village of Yunin. Al-Manar TV reported that the two had been killed while “fulfilling their commitment to jihad,” however, according to Lebanese and Syrian opposition websites, they had been killed in Syria and that Hezbollah had forbidden the media, with the exception of its own journalists, to cover their funerals (MTV; the Facebook pages of the Free Syrian News and of the Lebanese supporters of the Syria revolution, November 2, 2012).

In an attempt to fabricate a palatable cover story for the death or capture of Hezbollah operatives in Syria, Hassan Nasrallah claimed that they were Lebanese living in Syria: “There are tens of thousands of Lebanese in Syria,” he said, “almost certainly hundreds of thousands…Every time a Lebanese is captured they say he is from Hezbollah, a Hezbollah officer” (Hassan Nasrallah broadcast by Radio Nur, October 11, 2012).^[13] However, an examination of the Hezbollah operatives killed or captured in Syria indicates that they were not Lebanese living in Syria but rather Shi’ites, Hezbollah operatives coming from south Lebanon, south Beirut and the Beqaa Valley. Members of the Syrian opposition also rejected Nasrallah’s cover story: George Sabra, spokesman for the Syrian National Council, said in response that “Nasrallah’s statement is a story he invented as an excuse for Hezbollah participation on the side of the [Syrian] regime.” Bassam Jaara, spokesman for the General Authority of the Syrian Revolution, said that “Hezbollah [operatives] were seen fighting in the outskirts of Homs” (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, to 13, 2012).

Other Examples of Hezbollah Support for the Syrian Regime

Interview with Hezbollah Operative Captured by the Syrian Rebels

According to a Free Syrian Army video uploaded to YouTube on August 13, 2012, its fighters captured a Hezbollah operative named Hussein Salim al-Mikdad in Damascus. Al-Mikdad said that he and 1,500 other Hezbollah operatives had entered Syria on August 3, 2012, and were divided among Damascus, Aleppo and Homs. About 250 operatives were sent to Damascus and posted to the region of the tomb of Zaynab (Note: The reliability of his statements in the video released by his captors is questionable).

According to al-Mikdad’s statement, Hassan Nasrallah met with Hezbollah operatives who were about to leave for Syria and told them that they were being sent [to Syria] to “support the Syrian Shi’ite regime” [that is, the Alawites in Syria, considered Shi'ites by the regime's supporters]. Al-Mikdad said that his specialty was sniping and that he had trained in the region of Baalbek.

Hussein al-Mikdad’s Lebanese documents were shown to the camera by his captors; they were apparently issued under another name (the video was unclear).

According to a posting on an anti-Hezbollah Lebanese website, Hussein al-Mikdad lived in the district of Al-Ruwais in the southern suburb of Beirut, where the Shi’ite al-Mikdad clan is centered. Some of the al-Mikdad clan were employed by Hezbollah. For example, Hussein al-Mikdad was killed in April 2006 while making preparations for a terrorist attack in Jerusalem.^[14] According to the same posting, Hussein al-Mikdad was a bodyguard for Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy. However, the al-Mikdad clan, which has its own militia, denied that Hussein al-Mikdad belonged to Hezbollah and abducted several dozen Syrians in Lebanon and one Turkish citizen and held them as hostages (who were eventually released, in our assessment following pressure exerted on the clan by Hezbollah and the Lebanese army).

Document Dealing with the Arrival of Armed Hezbollah Operatives in Syria

A Syrian news website affiliated with the opposition to the Assad regime published a communication from Syrian army headquarters to the military security division. The communication asked for 565 security authorizations and gun permits for “Hezbollah operatives being sent to us,” to be issued as quickly as possible. The document was dated December 22, 2011 (All4Syria, July 27, 2012).

The United States Announces Sanctions on Hezbollah because of its Support for the Syria Regime

On August 10, 2012, the United States Departments of State and the Treasury imposed [mainly symbolic] sanctions on Hezbollah because of the support it gave to the Syrian regime (by virtue of Executive Order 13582, which prohibits certain transactions with the Assad regime). The document mentions various types of support which Hezbollah provided to the Assad regime (Treasury Department website, August 10, 2012):

“Since the beginning of the Syrian people’s courageous campaign in early 2011 to secure their universal rights, Hizballah has provided training, advice and extensive logistical support to the Government of Syria’s increasingly ruthless efforts to fight against the opposition. Hassan Nasrallah’s Secretary-General, has Hizballah’s efforts to help the Syrian regime’s violent crackdown on the Syrian civilian population. Hizballah has directly trained Syrian government personnel inside Syria and facilitated the trained of Syrian forces by Iran’s terrorist arm, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF). Hizballah also has played a substantial role in efforts to expel Syrian opposition forces from areas within Syria.”

Hezbollah’s support, according to the Treasury Department, is coordinated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force:

“Hizballah has coordinated its support to the Government of Syria with the IRGCQF and senior Syrian government officials. The IRGC-QF, which serves as a conduit for Iran’s material support to the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate (GID), was listed for sanctions in the Annex to E.O. [Executive Order] 13572, which targets those responsible for human rights abuses in Syria…”

Summary

Hezbollah, along with Iran, plays an major active role in trying to stamp out the popular rebellion in Syria and thereby aids the continuing slaughter of Syrian civilians by the Assad regime. Hezbollah’s support reinforces its foothold in Syria and draws it deeper into the local cauldron, regardless of the price in operatives killed and wounded, political risks and damage to its image both inside Lebanon and in the eyes of the Arab-Muslim world.

A Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon will enable the organization to carry out violent activities in the future, both to defend the Alawites and Shi’ites in Syria (for whom Hezbollah feels sectarian solidarity) and to influence Syria’s military and politics the morning after the collapse of the Assad regime. Hezbollah’s involvement also increases the possibility that the Syrian crisis will leak into Lebanon.

A Short Summary of Hezbollah’s Record as a Terrorist Organization during the 30 Years of Its Existence (1982-2012)

John Brennan, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor, gave a speech in Dublin on October 26, 2012, in which he called for the European Union to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, saying it had a long history of terrorism. In point of fact, Hezbollah’s involvement in terrorist attacks around the globe in recent years is a continuation of its 30-year tradition of terrorism. Its terrorist activities are carried out in collaboration with Iran promoting Iranian strategic interests in Lebanon and beyond.

During its 30 years of terrorist activities Hezbollah has not claimed responsibility for attacks and in many instances responsibility has either been claimed by fictitious organizations or been totally denied. That is done to keep Hezbollah from incriminating itself and to keep it and Iran from being exposed to retaliation. However, the interrogation of Hezbollah operatives captured in various countries over the past 30 years, academic research, articles by experts and reliable intelligence information have exposed both Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and the direction and support it receives from Iran, the world’s principal exporter of terrorism.

Hezbollah was founded in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon (the Baalbek region) by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards in 1982, at the beginning of the Second Lebanon War, a joint Iranian-Syrian collaboration. Iran regards Hezbollah as its advance column in the heart of the Arab world, an important component in the pro-Iranian camp in the Middle East (the so-called “resistance camp”). Since Hezbollah’s founding, it has been Iran’s main proxy in the Iranian campaign against Israel, as well as a tool to gain political and ideological leverage with the Lebanese Shi’ites, and through them to influence Lebanon’s internal political affairs.

The Iranian leadership regards Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a “soldier [in the ranks] of supreme leader Khamenei” (as stated by General Yahya Safavi, advisor to Khamenei), while Hezbollah regards Khamenei as an ideological and strategic source of authority (as stated by Sheikh Naim Qassem, second in command to Hassan Nasrallah). For Iran, establishing Hezbollah and bringing the Shi’ites in Lebanon under its influence was the most successful achievement of exporting the Iranian revolution. Hezbollah’s terrorism is a strategic tool of the Iranian regime both in Lebanon and beyond. It is perceived by Iran as an effective weapon to promote Iranian interests in the Middle East and for the needs of its struggle against Israel, the United States and the West.

Hezbollah’s terrorist attacks have focused on targets in three main locations:

1. Israel
   1. The Israeli population and the Israeli economic-civilian infrastructure are the main targets attacked by the terrorist apparatus constructed for Hezbollah in Lebanon by Iran and its strategic ally, Syria. Today Hezbollah rocket arsenal includes 60,000 rockets and missiles (three times what it had in the Second Lebanon War), which pose a palpable threat to the Israeli civilian population, including the greater Tel Aviv area and the south. Hezbollah’s arsenal was also upgraded with more precise and longer-range missiles (Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly boasted that Hezbollah could inflict a “second blow” to Israel’s economy with a small number of precise missiles). Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal, which was used to attack Israel in the Second Lebanon War, is meant to be used against it in the future in accordance with Iran’s strategic considerations.
   2. During the terrorist campaign against Israel known as the second intifada (2000-2005) Iran and its sub-contractor, Hezbollah, provided the Palestinian terrorist organizations with military and financial support. The objective was to improve their ability to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, especially suicide bombing attacks in Israel cities. After the intifada, during the past six years (2006-2012) Iran and Hezbollah have provided support for the terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip, especially Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (on the eve of Operation Pillar of Defense the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip had many thousands of rockets, both standard and those they had manufactured themselves, including Fajr-5 rockets, which threatened the Israeli civilian front, including the greater Tel Aviv area).
2. Lebanon
   1. Lebanon is where Hezbollah, with support and direction from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, began its terrorist and guerrilla activity during the First Lebanon War (1982-1985). Initially the targets were Western (primarily American and French), and later the Israeli security forces operating in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s first terrorist attacks were carried out using car bombs driven by suicide bombers, which became the trademark of Hezbollah terrorism. The most prominent attacks were the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut (1983, 63 killed), the bombing of the multi-national force compound in Beirut (1983, 241 American marines and 58 French soldiers killed), and the bombing of the IDF base in Tyre (1983, 60 Israeli security force members killed). In addition, during the 1980s Hezbollah abducted almost 100 Western nationals and a group of Jews in Lebanon, to bargain with the Western countries and the State of Israel. Some of the Western hostages and the Jewish hostages were murdered by their captors.
   2. During the past decade a vast military infrastructure was constructed in Lebanon with an estimated 60,000 rockets and missiles, a palpable threat to the Israeli population. In addition, it made Hezbollah the strongest factor in Lebanon and gave it both the strength to face its opponents (the March 14 Camp) and great political influence inside Lebanon.
   3. In internal disputes Hezbollah traditionally uses personal terrorism as a weapon against its opponents. In recent years there has been a glaring series of assassinations of Hezbollah’s opponents in Lebanon, most importantly the Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri (February 2005. The Hezbollah operatives involved in his assassination are expected to be tried by an international tribunal). After the assassination of Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan, chief of the Internal Security Forces Information Branch (October 19, 2012), who had been affiliated with Hezbollah’s opponents, sources within the Lebanese opposition accused Syria and Hezbollah of responsibility.
3. The Arab States and the International Arena
   1. Since its inception Hezbollah 30 years ago Hezbollah has carried out many attacks on Israeli, Jewish, Western and Arab targets in the Middle East and beyond. In the 1980s Hezbollah was responsible for a wave of plane hijackings (including one TWA plane, two Kuwait planes and two Air France planes), attacking the American and French embassies in Kuwait, the attempted assassination of the emir of Kuwait and exploding bombs in Paris to kill French civilians.
   2. In the 1990s Hezbollah carried out two massive, deadly attacks, directed and supported by Iran, in Buenos Aires: in the first, Hezbollah blew up the Israeli embassy in 1992, killing 29 and wounding more than 220. In the second, using a car bomb driven by a suicide bomber, Hezbollah blew up the AMIA Jewish community center in 1994, killing 85 and wounding more than 300. Hezbollah’s attempt to blow up the Israeli embassy in Thailand in 1994 failed.
   3. In recent years Hezbollah has participated in Iran’s global wave of terrorism targeting Israeli diplomats and tourists (in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Thailand and Bulgaria). In 2008 Egypt exposed a Hezbollah network planning to attack Egyptian tourist sites, primarily those used by vacationing Israelis. In addition, for five years Hezbollah, with Qods Force support and direction, was active in Iraq, where it gave support to the guerrilla activities of the Shi’ite militias, leading to heavy losses among the American and other coalition forces the Americans withdrew in 2011. Moreover, in Syria Hezbollah, in collaboration with Iran, gives military support to the Bashar Assad regime to suppress the popular rebellion. In Yemen Hezbollah helped Iran train the Shi’ite Houthi rebels in their revolt against Yemen’s central government.^[15]

Hezbollah operative stands next to a rocket launcher (Kibrid website, Syria, October 16, 2012).

Milestones in Thirty Years of Hezbollah Terrorism

Reasons for Designating Hezbollah as a Terrorist Organization

In The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle: A Guide for Decision Makers,^[16] Dr. Boaz Ganor defines terrorism as “a form of violent struggle in which violence is deliberately used against civilians in order to achieve political goals (nationalistic, socioeconomic, ideological, religious, etc.).” Thus the central target of terrorist organizations is the civilian population, and it is the main factor differentiating them from other organizations and other types of violence.

According to the aforementioned definition, Hezbollah is clearly a terrorist organization, with jihad (or the so-called “resistance”) at the center of its ideology, despite the fact that it also conducts extensive political and social activities, interlaced with its military-terrorist activities. One of basic tenets of its ideology which, inspired by Iran legitimizes terrorism, is the continued, unrelenting campaign against Israel, to be conducted until “Jerusalem is liberated,” and the State of Israel is destroyed. Another basic tenet is deep hatred for the United States (the so-called “big Satan”) and the West, manifested by Hezbollah’s determined efforts to support the Iranian regime in its efforts to force the United States out of the Middle East.

Essentially Hezbollah is a hybrid terrorist organization, part Lebanese and part Iranian. However, an examination of its activities over the past 30 years shows its Iranian nature overwhelms its Lebanese identity. Not only does it identify ideologically with the Iranian regime, but it is totally dependent on Iranian military and financial support. Since its inception, Iran has directed Hezbollah in all the terrorist, guerrilla and subversive activities the organization has undertaken against what Iran perceives as its enemies: Israel, the Jewish people the United States, the West, Iran’s opponents in the Arab world, Hezbollah’s opponents in Lebanon and the rebels fighting the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria. Since its inception, however, Hezbollah has systematically denied its involvement in terrorism, fabricating names of fictional organizations which “take responsibility” for its attacks.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is responsible for directing the organization’s activities and fashioning its policies in every area, basing them on Iran’s overall strategy. While the Hezbollah leadership decides and deals with the organization’s political, social, economic and even criminal activities, its militaryterrorist activities have always been its focus, and it dedicates its own resources and those provided by Iran to developing and promoting those activities. In addition, many of Hezbollah’s other activities are aimed to create a system that supports its military-terrorist focus, as they are by other Islamist terrorist organizations. For example, Hezbollah is politically active in Lebanon in order to prevent the dismantling of “the weapon of resistance;” it is particularly active in the battle for hearts and minds, encouraging the younger generation of Shi’ites to join Hezbollah’ ranks, and it conducts social, cultural and religious activities to win the support of the Lebanese Shi’ites among whom it has located its military-terrorist infrastructure.

Since 1995 Hezbollah has been on the list of global terrorist organizations put out by the United States, which has been an important target for Hezbollah’s terrorist activities. The European Union, on the other hand, led by France, has refused, for political reasons, to include Hezbollah on its own list of designated terrorist organizations (despite the fact that European countries have also been targets of Hezbollah terrorist attacks). Their rationalization is that their influence and relations with Lebanon might be harmed if they designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization. That is because the Europeans claim that Hezbollah’s so-called “political wing” is part of the Lebanese administration and that Hezbollah provides extensive social services to the Lebanese population.

The European Union has consistently refused to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, even after Hezbollah’s terrorist attack in Bulgaria and the prevention of its attack in Cyprus. One of its arguments was that it could not be designated as a terrorist organization because in addition to its “military” wing it had a political party whose representatives sat in the Lebanese parliament. Another argument, not given public prominence, is, in our assessment, European concerns that UNIFIL forces and Western targets in Lebanon might be attacked (the Europeans have not forgotten the Hezbollah terrorist campaign in Europe and Lebanon in the 1980s). However, the Cypriote foreign minister, the presiding president of the European Union, said the EU might change its opinion if there were “tangible evidence” of Hezbollah involvement in terrorism (Agence France-Presse, July 24, 2012; Eldad Bek, Berlin, in Yedioth Aharonoth, July 25, 2012).

In view of the above, including Hezbollah involvement in providing military support to the Assad regime in Syria and fears of the Syrian crisis leaking into Lebanon, the issue of including Hezbollah in the EU’s list of designated terrorist organizations was reopened and the international community began taking a critical position toward Hezbollah. To that end, John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, gave a speech in Dublin in which he called on the EU to include Hezbollah in its list of terrorist organizations. He said it was the number one security challenge for the United States and Europe and appealed to the Europeans to be more “proactive.” He said that Britain and Holland were taking steps in the right direction, but that it was not enough, and that he expected other EU members to do the same. He called on the international community not only to recognize Hezbollah’s “terrorist and criminal activities,” but to join the United States “in condemning and disrupting those activities. “Let me be clear,” he added. “Failure to designate Hizballah as a terrorist organization makes it harder to defend our countries and protect our citizens.”^[17]

While Hezbollah does not claim responsibility for its terrorist attacks, the United States, various European countries and the international community all have tangible proof that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization.

1. During Hezbollah’s 30-year existence as a terrorist organization, much evidence has accumulated about its terrorist activities, which are integrated into Iran’s policy of exporting terrorism and subversion. The evidence includes reliable intelligence information possessed by the security services of the United States, European countries and Israel, all of which have been targets of Iranian and Hezbollah terrorism over the years. In addition, the judicial systems of those countries have also acquired a great deal of information by interrogating captured terrorist operatives, information proving that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization directed by Iran (such as the case of the bombing of the AMIA building). Hezbollah itself has issued announcements and visual materials boasting that Israeli civilians and population centers are targets in for its [Iranian- and Syrian-supplied] rocket arsenal. Based on the evidence, which unequivocally indicates Hezbollah responsibility for terrorist attacks, among them attacks on the United States which killed hundreds of Americans, the United States added Hezbollah to its list of international designated terrorist organizations.
2. Hezbollah consistently violates UN resolutions dealing with Lebanon, including Resolution 1701 (which marked the end of the Second Lebanon War, 2006) and Resolution 1559 (September 2, 2004). The resolutions called for the disbanding and disarming of all militias, the withdrawal of all armed groups and their weapons, and the establishment of Lebanese government sovereignty over all of Lebanon. Hezbollah did not comply with the terms of the resolutions; rather, in the six years since the end of the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah has upgraded its military capabilities, especially with its rocket and missile arsenal and network of launchers aimed at Israel’s civilian population. In the south and in other regions of Lebanon Hezbollah maintains a military-terrorist presence, weapons from Iran and Syria continue to flow into Hezbollah’s stockpiles and Hezbollah continues to abuse Lebanese sovereignty. In 2012, UN Secretary General Ban-ki Moon issued the Fifteenth Semi-Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559 (2004), which stated that “The armed component of Hizbullah is the most significant and most heavily armed Lebanese militia in the country, reaching almost the capacities of a regular army. The maintenance of arms by Hizbullah and other groups poses a serious challenge to the state’s ability to exercise full sovereignty and authority over its territory…” (Securitycouncilreport.org website, April 12, 2102)
3. The distinction made by the Europeans between Hezbollah’s military-terrorist and political wings has no basis in fact. In reality, no such distinction exists, they are one and the same. Its military might reinforces its political power while its political and social activities are exploited to reinforce its militaryterrorist wing and ensure justification within Lebanon for its existence. Moreover, Hezbollah’s upper institutions and leaders, especially Hassan Nasrallah, determine the use of the organization’s military-terrorist force, deliberately targeting non-involved Israeli civilians with a variety of means and methods (rocket fire, IEDs, suicide bombing attacks, etc.). Senior Hezbollah leaders have themselves said that no distinction can be made between Hezbollah’s political wing and its military-terrorist wing:
   1. Asked “who makes the decision for action, the fighters on the ground or the political leadership,” Hassan Nasrallah answered “the Hezbollah leadership.” The issue is not only up to the fighters in the field. The leadership of the organization is the leadership of the resistance [i.e., of its military-terrorist apparatus] and it examines all the data, the interests of resistance and its policies for action. The brothers in the field [i.e., the terrorist operatives] are those who carry out those policies” (Al-Majalla website, March 24, 2002).
   2. Muhammad Fneish, senior Hezbollah figure and member of the Hezbollah faction in the Lebanese parliament, said that “attempts are made to induce Hezbollah [to act] in order to halt it. The objective is not to damage it politically but rather to impair the capabilities of its military wing. However, I can tell you, that no distinction can be made between Hezbollah’s military wing and its politician wing (Al-Manar TV, Lebanon, January 19, 2002).

To read Appendix I, go here: Hezbollah’s Terrorist Activity, 2000-2012

To read Appendix II, go here: Hezbollah’s Terrorist Activities during the 1990s

To read Appendix III, go here: Hezbollah’s Terrorist Activities during the 1980s

Notes:

[1] http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/Data/articles/Art_20378/E_137_12f_2140163071.pdf

[2] This study deals with terrorist activities which our information clearly links to Hezbollah or Iran-Hezbollah joint attacks. Hezbollah has carried out other terrorist activities but its involvement in them is either unknown or about which we do not have solid information, and they are not included here. Terrorist activities carried out by Iran without Hezbollah involvement are also not included.

[3] For further information about the Qods Force, see the August 7, 2012 ITIC bulletin “The Qods Force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, spearheads Iran’s global terrorist campaign.”

[4] According to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, “today we are dealing with a different war, a soft war…and it is being waged by the United States, not only Israel (Al-Manar TV, Lebanon, July 25, 2012).

[5] Hassan Nasrallah publicly reiterated the threat of deterrence in his speeches. For example, on July 18, 2012, on the anniversary of the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War, he said that Hezbollah was deployed for a comprehensive war against Israel and that it would respond with a “great surprise” to any Israeli military strike.

[6] In the 1990s Hussein Atris married a Swedish woman and received a Swedish passport, which he used for his activities in Hezbollah’s foreign operations unit.

[7] On September 13, 2012, the American Treasury Department imposed sanctions on three members of in Hezbollah chain of command for external terrorist attacks: Hassan Nasrallah, Mustafa Badr al-Din and Talal Hamiya. The Treasury Department explicitly stated that the sanctions had been imposed because of Hezbollah’s involvement in supporting the government of Syria, further enabling the regime to carry out its bloody campaign against the Syrian people (www.treasury.gov).

[8] As of the end of November 2012.

[9] Orthodox Islam considers the Alawite Muslims infidels, but they are considered Shi’ites by Iran and Hezbollah. That began in the early 1970s when the Syrian regime attempted to appease the Sunni middle class and moderate their objection to an Alawite president. That was done by conspicuously representing Assad as an observant Muslim and the Alawites as Shi’ites. The Syrians were supported in their efforts by a Lebanese Shi’ite leader, the Imam Musa Sadr, who in 1973 publicly asserted that the Alawites were Shi’ites: In early July 1973 Musa Sadr participated in the ceremony appointing Ali Mansour as the new Shi’ite mufti of Tripoli, who was supposed to serve both Shi’ites and Alawites. An Alawite delegation from Syria was present at the ceremony, and Musa Sadr announced that the Alawites were Shi’ites and condemned all those who were trying to claim Islam as their own property (a hint at Sunni orthodoxy). Giving the Alawites religious legitimacy was the foundation for the close collaboration between the Shi’ites in Lebanon and the Syrian regime from the time of Hafez al-Assad to the present day.

[10] According to the center for religious studies in Qom, Iran, there are 400,000 Shi’ites in Syria (Aqaed website, Iran, October 31, 2012). According to Wikipedia and the March 14 Camp website Shi’ites also make up about 2% of the population.

[11] Fahed al-Masri, in charge of information for the Free Syrian Army, told a correspondent from the London-based newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that on the outskirts of Damascus the Free Syrian Army was holding 13 Hezbollah operatives who had admitted to involvement in murderous activities in Syria. He said that most of them had come from the region of Baalbek and Al-Harmel in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. Other sources told the paper that dozens of Hezbollah operatives had been killed in battles which took place on October 7, 2012 (Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, October 9, 2012).

[12] Hassan Nasrallah claimed that Abu Abbas was responsible for the military organizational structure of Hezbollah in the Beqaa Valley, and of its infantry. He also claimed that the inhabitants of the various villages in the Beqaa Valley had been shelled with artillery fire and attacked with IEDs, which had killed people, and “among the shaheeds was the shaheed Abu Abbas” (Radio Nur, October 11, 2012). In our assessment Nasrallah’s statement was false and a cover story suitable for describing circumstances of the deaths of Abu Abbas and other Hezbollah operatives who were killed in Syria.

[13] More specific information was broadcast by Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV regarding this sensitive issue, whose commentator said there were 14 villages of Lebanese in Syria which were subject to attacks by “armed groups” while the Syrian army did nothing to defend them. Therefore the Lebanese villagers living in Syria had no choice but to set up “armed defense committees” to protect themselves from attacks made by the “armed groups” (Al-Manar TV, Lebanon, October 15, 2012).

[14] A Hezbollah operative from the al-Mikdad clan, Hussein al-Mikdad was sent from Lebanon to Jerusalem in April 2006 to carry out a terrorist attack. He was critically injured when the IED he was preparing in his room at the Lawrence Hotel in Jerusalem blew up (a so-called “work accident”). The Israeli investigation revealed that he had been working for Iranian intelligence.

[15] Former Yemeni President Abdallah Salah accused Hezbollah of helping Iran train the Houthi rebels. A similar accusation was leveled by John Brennan, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor, in his speech in Dublin, where he said that “we have seen Hezbollah training militants in Yemen and Syria” (Washington Post website, October 27, 2012).

[16] Dr. Boaz Ganor, The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle: A Guide for Decision Makers, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ, 2007, p. 17.

[17] iipdigital.usembassy.gov.

Tue, Dec 18, 2012 | terrorism-info.org.il

Appendix I — Hezbollah’s Terrorist Activity, 2000-2012

Hezbollah has a 30-year history of terrorist activity in Lebanon, the Middle East and around the globe, directed against Israel, the Jewish people, the United States and the West, pro-Western Arab states and Hezbollah’s enemies in Lebanon. This study is published by The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. You can download the full study in PDF format here.

Overview

In May 2000 the IDF withdrew from Lebanon and deployed along the international border (according to a demarcation drawn by the UN called the Blue Line). Nevertheless, Hezbollah continued sporadically attacking the IDF through the Lebanese border on the pretext that the IDF still had a presence in the Shebaa Farms (on the Syrian-Lebanese border). At the same time, with Syrian and Iranian support, Hezbollah began upgrading its military infrastructure with an emphasis on a large rocket arsenal, with an eye to future attacks on Israeli civilians. Despite the fact that the IDF had fully complied with UN Security Council Resolution 425 calling for its withdrawal from Lebanon, and the recognition of the international community thereof, Hezbollah remained jihadist and in essence an Iranian proxy. Its terrorist activities in Lebanon came to a head in 2006 when it miscalculated, attacked an IDF patrol near the border and abducted two Israeli soldiers, which led to the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War.

During the past decade Hezbollah has focused on using rocket fire to attack Israeli civilians and the Israeli civilian infrastructure. During the Second Lebanon War (2006) the Israeli civilian front was repeatedly attacked by indiscriminate rocket fire, a war crime according to international law. After the war, with the support of Iran and Syria, Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal was replenished, increased and upgraded, and now stands at an estimated 60,000 artillery rockets and missiles which form a palpable threat to the Israeli civilian population. The upgrading of Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal was manifested by, among other things, the provision by Syria of precise, long-range missiles^[18] to Hezbollah (which claims it has a “basket of targets,”including economic civilian targets, and can strike Israel with a “second blow” using a small number of precise missiles).

The desire to harm the Israeli civilian population was also manifested by Hezbollah’s support for the terrorist campaign of the Palestinian terrorist organizations, part of an overall Iranian strategy. Thus Hezbollah sent aid to the terrorist organizations during the second intifada (2000-2005) and during the past six years of Hamas rule of the Gaza Strip. In recent years Hezbollah has become integrated into Iran’s global terrorist campaign, whose first success was the attack on the Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria (2012). In addition, a Hezbollah network was exposed in Egypt (2008) which was planning to attack Egyptian tourist sites popular with Israelis.

Hezbollah, directed by the Qods Force, gave support in training and advice to the Shi’ite militias in Iraq in the war against the United States and its allies (2006-2011). This past year Hezbollah has been integrated into Iran’s effort to prevent the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, the strategic ally of Iran and Hezbollah, and an important member of the “resistance camp.”

The Lebanese Arena

Building Hezbollah’s Rocket Arsenal after the IDF Left the Security Zone in South Lebanon (2000-2006)

Even after the IDF withdrew from the security zone in south Lebanon in May 2000 and deployed along the international border (the Blue Line), Hezbollah did not stop attacking Israel from south Lebanon. In addition, during the six years between the First and Second Lebanon Wars, Iran and Syria upgraded Hezbollah’s rocket and missile arsenal with an eye to the next round of attacks on the Israeli civilian population. Hezbollah received from Iran and Syria an enormous quantity of highquality rockets manufactured in those countries as well as in Russia and China. On the eve of the Second Lebanon War Hezbollah had more than 20,000 rockets with ranges long enough to allow them to attack the greater Tel Aviv area and the northern Negev.

The artillery rockets in Hezbollah’s arsenal on the eve of the Second Lebanon War did not have precision guidance systems and their level of accuracy was low. They could be used only to attack large targets, such as cities and towns, with the avowed objective of killing and wounding as many Israeli civilians as possible. In addition, some of the rockets launched in the Second Lebanon War were filled with ball bearings and caused serious injuries by virtue of their scattering. The use of rockets aimed to kill civilians, strew fear and demoralize the civilian population violates the rules of engagement of international law and is a war crime.

In the period preceding the Second Lebanon War Hassan Nasrallah made no attempt to hide his intention to use the large rocket arsenal Hezbollah was amassing to attack civilian targets in Israel (“occupied Palestine”). He said the following:

“I said recently in Bint Jbeil^[19] that the resistance [i.e., Hezbollah] had more than 12,000 rockets…a large, important, respectable rocket force and a source of pride. Thus I can say that all of northern occupied Palestine is within range of the rockets of the resistance. Naturally, that is the minimum. Regarding what is further away…that will remain a secret [a hint that Hezbollah had rockets which could reach the center of Israel]. The north [of Israel] is within range of the resistance’s rockets: its ports, its [military] bases, its factories, everything [i.e., Nasrallah made no distinction between civilian and military targets]. That creates a balance between northern Palestine and south Lebanon, and all Lebanon…It is sufficient that [Hezbollah and Lebanon] have the capability to destroy important, very sensitive targets in northern occupied Palestine…If I appear on TV today I will tell the residents of the settlements in northern occupied Palestine,^[20] in the name of Hezbollah, that I recommend you go into your shelters for a couple of hours. [As a result] everyone will [soon] be in Tel Aviv… (Al-Manar TV, Lebanon, May 27, 2006).

Using Hezbollah’s Rocket Arsenal to Attack Civilian Targets in Israel during the Second Lebanon War

The Hezbollah Attack that Led to the Second Lebanon War

In the Second Lebanon War Hezbollah carried out its plan for methodical rocket fire attacks on Israeli population centers. Initially rockets targeted the northern cities of Nahariya, Safed, Carmiel and Kiryat Shemonah. Hezbollah then extended its attacks in an arc which extended deep into northern Israel, attacking Haifa and its suburbs, Afula and Nazareth Illit, as well as Carmiel and Safed. As its final barrage, Hezbollah sprayed rockets at Kiryat Shemonah, Haifa, Afula, Ramat Yishai, Beit Shean and the towns and villages near the Lebanese border. During the war Tel Aviv was not attacked, but after it ended Nasrallah threatened that in the next war he would attack Tel Aviv. During the Second Lebanon War Hezbollah fired close to 4,000 rockets of various types at Israel population centers.

During the Second Lebanon War Hassan Nasrallah reiterated that Israeli population centers were the prime target for his organization’s rocket fire. His speeches consistently bragged about the rockets Hezbollah was firing at the population centers of northern Israel. He also repeated the threat that Hezbollah’s rockets could reach large cities in the center of Israel (“further away than Haifa), i.e. the greater Tel Aviv area. Hezbollah’s media looped slides of Israel’s cities, town, villages and civilian infrastructures considered Hezbollah targets.^[21]

Hezbollah’s rocket fire killed 53 Israelis, one third of the total Israelis 159 killed in the war. Forty-one were civilians and 12 were soldiers (killed by an chance hit from rocket which landed at the entrance to the village of Kfar Giladi). Most of the victims lived in the cities, especially Haifa (13 civilians killed). Five civilians were killed in Acre, three in Maalot Tarshiha, two in Nahariya, two in Nazareth and one in Safed. In the smaller villages, three were killed in Arab al-Aramshe, three in Majd al-Krum, and two each in Meiron, Maghar and Dir al-Assad.^[22]

Hezbollah’s rocket fire caused severe damage to the civilian infrastructure of the State of Israel. According to the assessments of the relevant Israeli government agencies, during the war 12,000 buildings were damaged, 400 of them public buildings. It is estimated that 2,000 homes/apartments were completely destroyed.^[23] Six medical facilities were damaged, as were 23 schools, four kindergartens, two community centers and a great many places of business. More than 50 kilometers, about 30 miles, of roads were destroyed, and a sewage treatment plant in Safed took a direct hit. The extensive damage to civilian structures and medical and community facilities is incontrovertible proof that Hezbollah indiscriminately and deliberately attacked the Israeli civilian population.

Rocket Hits on Residences

Upgrading Hezbollah’s Rocket Arsenal after the Second Lebanon War (2006-2012)

Since the Second Lebanon War Iran and Syria has continuously replenished, increased and upgraded Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal, with regard to both quality and quantity. As of the summer of 2012 Hezbollah had an estimated 60,000 rockets and missiles with short, medium and long ranges (of them more than 40,000 rockets with ranges of up to 43 kilometers or 26.7 miles), three times what it had during the Second Lebanon War. Hezbollah has other weapons which can be used to strike civilian population centers, including C-802 shore-to-ship missiles, which were used during the Second Lebanon War, and Ababil UAVs.

Hezbollah’s upgraded rocket arsenal threatens the Israel’s entire population, north, central and south (of Beersheba). It can potentially cause more substantial damage to the Israeli civilian front through continuous, precise rocket attacks carried out through an extended period of fighting than was possible during the Second Lebanon War. In Hezbollah’s arsenal there are, among others, long-range Syrian-and Iranian-manufactured missiles, Iranian-manufactured 122mm rockets with a range of between 20 and 40 kilometers, Iranian-manufactured Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 rockets with a range of between 43 and 75 kilometers, 240mm flak rockets with a range of 10 kilometers, Iranian-manufactured Fatah 110 rockets with a range of 250 kilometers, Iranian-manufactured Zelzal rockets with a range of 250 kilometers, and Syrian-manufactured 302mm rockets with a range of between 110 and 115 kilometers.

At the end of Operation Pillar of Defense Hassan Nasrallah gave a speech stressing the claim that the rockets in Hezbollah’s arsenal could reach anywhere in the State of Israel. “If Israel was shocked by the number of Fajr-5 rockets which hit Tel Aviv,” he said, “how will it be able to bear the thousands of rockets which will rain on Tel Aviv and other places if it invades Lebanon? The campaign with Gaza was within a 40 to 70 kilometer range, [but] the campaign with us will be within the range of all occupied Palestine, from the Lebanese border to the border with Jordan, from Kiryat Shemonah to Eilat” (Note: Nasrallah gave the names of the cities in Hebrew to make his point clear) (Al-Manar TV, Lebanon, November 25, 2012).

Map of the Range of Hezbollah’s Rockets

Hezbollah’s Precise Long-Range Missiles

The upgrade in quality of Hezbollah’s post-Second Lebanon War missile arsenal includes the addition of precise long-range missiles. They have the capability to pinpoint targets deep within Israel, as claimed by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Appearing before the Israeli Parliament Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on May 4, 2010, Major General Yossi Baidatz, former commander of the Analysis and Production Division of IDF Military Intelligence, was asked about reports of the delivery of Scud missiles from Syria to Hezbollah. He said that long range Scud missiles had in fact “recently been delivered to Hezbollah from Syria, and that it was only the tip of the iceberg.” He said that “even today Hezbollah has an arsenal of rockets of every kind and every range, including missiles using solid fuel which had longer ranges and are more precise.” That meant, he said, that “the long ranges of the missiles possessed by Hezbollah make it possible for him to locate their launchers deep within Lebanese territory and that they have ranges greater than anything Israel has known in the past. Hezbollah of 2010 is a different model from Hezbollah of 20120 when it comes to its military capabilities, which have been greatly developed.”^[24]

The same information was given public confirmation in a speech by Hassan Nasrallah in the summer of 2012, who again boasted of the ability of Hezbollah’s precise missiles to attack Israeli civilians and the Israeli infrastructure:

1. In a speech given for the Iranian-initiated annual Jerusalem Day, Hassan Nasrallah boasted that Hezbollah had “precise missiles, a small number of which can hit pinpoint targets.” He added that Hezbollah had a number of missiles which could strike precisely at a large number of targets in Israel and that Hezbollah had their coordinates. Striking those targets, he said would “turn the lives of thousands of Zionists into a living hell.” He said he meant tens of thousands of dead Israeli civilians, not 300 or 400 or 500 (Al-Manar TV, Lebanon, August 17, 2012).
2. Asked by Al-Mayadin TV what he meant when he said he could turn the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis into a living hell, Nasrallah answered that in the next war Israel would not be able to strike a fatal blow to Hezbollah’s arsenal. That was because even after the first blow delivered by Israel, Hezbollah would still have “a few missiles” which “could turn the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis into a living hell.” He said Hezbollah had a basket of civilian, economic and industrial targets including power plants and nuclear targets. “[The Israelis] have power plants in the center [of the country], which, if attacked, will not only leave [the population] in darkness, but will severely influence the economy.” He said that “every target in the length and width of occupied Palestine… can be hit by the rockets of the resistance” (Al-Mayadin TV, September 3, 2012).

Smuggling Weapons into Lebanon

Weapons, including rockets and missiles, for Hezbollah are smuggled from Iran into Lebanon by sea, by air and overland, and Syria plays a vital logistic role. In most cases the weapons are delivered to Syria, where they are stored for Hezbollah. From Syria they are smuggled to various locations in Lebanon: the Beqaa Valley, greater Beirut and south Lebanon. The smuggling activity is carried out as a collaboration between the Syrian army and the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards.

Exposure of an Attempt to Smuggle Weapons to Hezbollah aboard the Francop (Prevented by the IDF on November 3, 2009)

Employing Terrorism and Violence against Hezbollah’s Political Opposition in Lebanon

Operating in internal Lebanese politics, Hezbollah uses a variety of methods to weaken its own and Syria’s opponents (especially the March 14 Camp) and to reinforce its hold on various government institutions. It makes political deals with its allies (those belonging to the March 8 Camp), exerts military force against its opponents in times of crisis,^[25] and appoints its supporters to key positions in various administration agencies (such as internal security, Lebanese army intelligence and inspection and oversight of the Beirut airport). Hezbollah’s infiltration of government agencies accelerated during the past two years as part of Hezbollah’s preparations for reinforcing its control of government agencies in case Bashar Assad’s regime is overthrown, an event which might harm Hezbollah’s status inside Lebanon.

One method used by Hezbollah against its opponents in Lebanon is personal terrorism. The most prominent example in the last decade was the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February 2005. Even after the assassination, of which Hezbollah was accused by the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Hezbollah continued the attempted assassinations of its Lebanese opponents. Its objective has been to increase it political influence after the Syrian forces withdrew from Lebanon, to deter its opponents lest they cross Hezbollah’s red lines (one of which is attempting to damage the so-called “weapon of resistance”) and to prepare themselves for the consequences of the weakening of the Assad regime or its possible collapse. Hezbollah was accused of being behind the assassination of Christian leader Pierre Gemayel in November 2006, the attempted assassination of Christian leader Samir Jaja in April 2012, and the assassination of Christian parliamentarian Boutros Harb in June 2012.

In recent months, with a civil war raging in Syria in the background, the Syrian regime and Hezbollah have become more daring in their intervention in internal Lebanese affairs and have employed violence against their opponents. Two incidents which raised a storm of protests in Lebanon were the following:

1. On August 10, 2012, Michel Samaha, former Lebanese minister of information and close to the Syrian regime, was detained on suspicion of transporting arms from Syria to Lebanon. The weapons were intended for use against the political and religious leaders of the March 14 Camp who opposed Syria and Hezbollah and to foment sectarian strife. Also involved in the affair were senior Syrian army officers (the open media and the UN secretary general’s report on the implementation of Resolution 1559 mentioned General Ali Mamlouk and Colonel Ali Adnan). The detention of Michel Samaha provoked an intense Lebanese public discourse regarding the issue of political violence and Hezbollah’s central role in it.
2. On October 19, 2012, Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan was assassinated. Al-Hassan was a Sunni from northern Lebanon and was chief of the information branch of Lebanon’s internal security force. A car bomb containing 70 kilos, or 154 lbs, of explosives was detonated in the Al-Ashrafiya neighborhood of eastern Beirut. The blast killed three people and wounded more than 100. Wissam al-Hassan, who had been affiliated with the March 14 Camp (the opponents of Hezbollah and Syria), was considered by Syria as a Hezbollah rival and close to the Hariri family. He had played a central role in the investigation which exposed Hezbollah’s involvement in the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. In recent months he had succeeded in preventing the Syrian regime from carrying out terrorist attacks in Lebanon from stoking the fires of sectarian confrontations [such as the Michel Samaha affair]. The opposition camp in Lebanon accused Syria of the assassination of Wissam al-Hassan and in several instances, accused Hezbollah as well.^[26]

Since its founding, Hezbollah’s personal terrorism against its opponents in Lebanon has almost never been legally proved. That is because the Lebanese legal system is subject to pressures which in most cases make it impossible for it to function independently and to bring to trial murderers who enjoy governmental backing (from Syria and Iran), or the backing of powerful terrorist organizations like Hezbollah.^[27] Therefore, an international tribunal was appointed to try the four Hezbollah operatives accused of Rafiq Hariri’s assassination. One of them was Mustafa Badr al-Din, a senior Hezbollah operative and responsible for the organization’s operational networks. The tribunal is expected to meet in March 2013.

The Israeli Arena

Overview

For the past ten years Hezbollah has been conducting intelligence and terrorist activities in Israeli territory. The intelligence, collected in a variety of ways, is intended for use in the support of terrorist attacks, to establish covert networks of Israeli Arabs and to encourage them to carry out terrorist attacks inside Israel. As is its custom, Hezbollah employs criminal elements, both Lebanese and Israeli, to promote its objectives.

In 2012 Hezbollah has been involved in three prominent affairs in Israel: sending a UAV on an intelligence mission which entered Israeli airspace, sending an Israeli Arab to collect intelligence about Israeli targets, and infiltrating powerful IEDs into Israel with the help of drug dealers:

Sending a UAV into Israeli Airspace

On October 6, 2012, the IDF’s early warning system identified a UAV which had entered Israeli airspace from the sea. It was an advanced Iranian aircraft sent by Hezbollah to gather visual intelligence to defy Israel. The UAV was dispatched from Lebanon, flew south over the sea, turned east over the Gaza Strip and was intercepted and downed by the Israeli Air Force in the Yatir Forest south of Mt. Hebron.

The area where the UAV was downed (Photo by Yehuda Lahiani, used courtesy of NRG, October 6, 2012).

Hezbollah, in collaboration with Iran, invested effort and resources to build a network of UAVs to be used both to collect intelligence and for purposes of attack. Hezbollah has a variety of Iranian UAVs, most of them the model called Ababil (called Mirsad by Hezbollah), which they received before the Second Lebanon War.^[28] The Ababil was developed by the Iranian aeronautics industry and is a copy of a Russian UAV. There are a number of Ababil models, including those for both conducting surveillance and for attack. The attack model carries a warhead of ten kilograms, or 22 lbs, of explosives. The planes can be remotely controlled either by camera at a distance of several dozen kilometers, or by a GPS guidance system (at a distance of more than 100 kilometers). In any event, the UAV dispatched into Israeli airspace on October 6 was an advanced model, as admitted by Nasrallah after the event (See below).

An Iranian-manufactured Ababil (Website of the “Islamic Resistance,” November 8, 2012).

Hezbollah’s Use of the UAV for Propaganda

On October 11, 2012, Hassan Nasrallah gave a speech in which he claimed responsibility for launching the UAV. The information revealed by Nasrallah in the speech was biased and clearly intended as propaganda. In our assessment the speech was aimed at Lebanese and Israeli target audiences and its purpose was to send a number of propaganda messages:

1. Addressing the Lebanese public, Hassan Nasrallah attempted to lessen the growing criticism of the legitimacy of Hezbollah’s weapons and its assistance to the Syrian regime. He drew attention to Israel and represented Hezbollah as “Lebanon’s defender,” giving it the legitimate right to a military infrastructure with advanced weapons beyond the control of the Lebanese army (in the words of Ibrahim Amin al-Sayed, chairman of the Hezbollah political bureau, “Resistance in Lebanon is a national need in the air, on land, and at sea”).
2. Addressing Israel, Nasrallah delivered a message of deterrence, saying that Hezbollah has highly developed military capabilities and can extract a heavy toll from Israel in an armed conflict. It was a follow-up to a series of public messages sent by Iran and Hezbollah intended to deter Israel from attacking Iran. In a November 12, 2012 speech, Hassan Nasrallah boasted that Israel had not reacted to the UAV incident despite Hezbollah’s claim of responsibility, “thanks to the force of deterrence created by the organization” (Al-Manar TV, November 12, 2012).

The following were the main points made by Hassan Nasrallah regarding the launch of the UAV (Radio Noor, October 11, 2012):

1. Claiming responsibility: Hezbollah, said Nasrallah, carried out “a very highquality and important operation” by sending an advanced reconnaissance drone from Lebanese territory into Israel from the sea on an intelligence-collecting mission. The mission was called “the Hussein Ayoub operation,” named after one of the founders of Hezbollah’s aerial forces, who died under circumstances Hassan Nasrallah did not mention.^[29]
2. The UAV’s route: Hezbollah, said Nasrallah, directed the plane over the sea for hundreds of kilometers and then turned it eastward over Israel’s south (“occupied southern Palestine”). Once over Israeli territory it flew dozens of kilometers until it was downed by the IAF (according to Nasrallah’s false claim, near the region of the southern town of Dimona).
3. UAV type: Nasrallah did not mention the type of the UAV. He said the mission had been a demonstration, the first of its kind, of Hezbollah’s improved aerial capabilities, and that the drone was superior to the Mirsad (i.e., Ababil) UAV launched in the Second Lebanon War (see below). The UAV in question, according to Nasrallah, was not Russian but rather of Iranian manufacture, assembled and manufactured by Hezbollah’s skilled professional operatives (“The Lebanese should be proud to have bright young people of such a caliber”).
4. The battle for hearts and minds: Nasrallah boasted about the UAV’s penetration deep into Israeli territory and represented it as a first in the achievements of Hezbollah and the “resistance movement” [i.e., the terrorist organizations]. He claimed the UAV had flown hundreds of kilometers in a region paved with Israeli, American, NATO and UNIFIL radars without being discovered, until it was finally shot down, which, he said, was “natural and expected, and it was not [to be considered] an [Israeli] achievement.” The penetration into Israeli airspace, he said, embarrassed Israel, which had boasted that its airspace could not be breached.
5. Hezbollah will continue sending reconnaissance UAVs over Israel: Hezbollah, claimed Nasrallah, had the “natural right” to send reconnaissance flights into “occupied Palestine” as long as it chose. That was because of the Israeli violation of Lebanese airspace and the helplessness of the Lebanese government. Therefore, he said, “this flight was neither the first nor the last, with the aid of Allah, may he be praised and exalted.”

[image]

Hassan Nasrallah delivers a speech claiming responsibility for launching the UAV (Al-Manar TV, October 11, 2012)

Reactions to the UAV in Iran and Lebanon

The UAV incident had no international or pan-Arab resonance. It was, however, extensively covered in Iran and Lebanon. Iranian spokesmen bragged about Hezbollah’s achievement, sending defiant messages to Israel:

1. Ahmad Vahidi, Iranian minister of defense, said that Hezbollah’s UAV flight demonstrated the helplessness and weakness of Israel (“the Zionist regime”). He claimed that in view of Israel’s frequent flights over Lebanon, Hezbollah regarded the UAV incursion as its “natural right.” As to the fact that the drone was of Iranian manufacture, and regarding the support Iran gave Hezbollah, he said that “Iran’s capabilities are very high, and they are at the service of the Islamic nations” (FARS News Agency, Iran, October 14, 2012). Elsewhere he said that Iran had UAVs more advanced than the one launched into Israel (ISNA, October 28, 2012).
2. Hassan Rowhani, representative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, claimed that the UAV had flown over sensitive areas and had been a “painful blow” to Israel (ISNA, October 14, 2012).
3. Basij chief Mohammad Reza Naqdi said that Israel should prepare for the day when hundreds of UAVs of 25 models would cross its territory without its knowing how to deal with them (Mehr, October 19, 2012).

Hezbollah’s opponents in Lebanon, on the other hand, argued that the launch of the UAV put Lebanon at risk for the sake of Iranian interests: Fouad Siniora, head of the Al-Mustaqbal (“Future”) faction in the Lebanese parliament and one of Hezbollah’s opponents, said that the decision to send the UAV had been Iranian, because it required technology possessed only by Iran. He said he was concerned that dispatching the drone would pose a risk for Lebanese national security and might embroil Lebanon in an Israeli response and in regional and international struggles (Lebanon Now news website, October 14, 2012). Ahmad al-Assir, a Salafi Sunni leader, called Hezbollah a terrorist organization and wondered, “Didn’t you get the message… that while Iran is making threats, Nasrallah is launching an Iranian UAV?” (Lebanon Now website, October 14, 2012). More implicit criticism was heard from Lebanon’s President Michel Suleiman, who argued that the incident highlighted the need for a Lebanese defense strategy that could take advantage of the capabilities of the “resistance”^[30] (Daily Star, October 13, 2012).

Past UAV Launches by Hezbollah

Hezbollah launched several Ababil UAVs into Israeli territory prior to and during the Second Lebanon War:

1. On the morning of November 7, 2004, a reconnaissance UAV penetrated Israeli airspace and photographed towns and cities in northern Israel. It returned to Lebanon’s airspace and then crashed into the Mediterranean, apparently due to a technical fault. It flew for about fifteen minutes without being detected by the IDF’s early warning systems. On April 11, 2005, Hezbollah launched another reconnaissance UAV that flew between the cities of Acre and Nahariya in Israel’s north and landed safely in south Lebanon.
2. On August 7, 2006, during the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah launched a UAV into Israeli territory to attack. It was identified by the Israeli Air Force and shot down by fighter jets about 10 km (6.2 miles) off the coast of Israel. The remains of the UAV were recovered from the sea by the Israeli Navy. The Hezbollah logo could be seen on its tail, along with the words “Islamic Resistance.”
3. On August 13, 2006, during the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah sent a UAV into Israeli territory to attack. It was shot down by the Israeli Air Force and crashed in an open area near Kibbutz Kabri in the Western Galilee.

Using Israeli Arabs to Collect Intelligence^[31]

In early September 2012 the Israeli security forces detained Milad Muhammad Mahmoud Khatib, from the Galilee village of Majd al-Krum, who had been recruited by a Hezbollah operative outside Israel. He admitted during his questioning by the Israel Security Agency that he had been recruited by a Lebanese-born resident of Denmark, who gave him a series of security-related tasks to carry out in Israel. They contacted each other by phone starting in 2009 and even met abroad on several occasions.

Milad Khatib agreed to collect information about security-related sites in Israel, including IDF bases, weapons storehouses and defense industry factories. He was asked by Hezbollah to gather information about protected Israeli VIPs, politicians, and other public figures. On one occasion he gathered information about the security arrangements for Israeli President Shimon Peres’ visit to his village (August 2012) for his Hezbollah handler.

On another occasion, October 24, 2012, Israeli security forces detained Essam Hashem Ali Mashahra, an Israeli resident from East Jerusalem (Jabel Mukaber). During questioning he admitted to having been recruited by Hezbollah while on a visit to Lebanon in June 2012. His recruiters instructed him to return to Israel and stay in touch with Hezbollah via the Internet.

During Israel Security Agency questioning Mashahra, a bus driver, admitted that he had given Hezbollah with information about a number of sites and institutions in Israel, such as the Israeli Parliament, the Government Compound, the Hebrew University, Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, and Hadassah Mt. Scopus Hospital. Mashahra is another example of Hezbollah’s efforts to recruit agents in Israel to collect intelligence and carry out terrorist attacks in Israeli territory.

Using Drug Dealers to Smuggle Explosive Devices into Israel Territory^[32]

In July 2012 a network of Israeli drug smugglers was exposed. As part of its criminal activity, the network helped deliver powerful C-4 explosive devices from Lebanon to Israel. Most of the drug dealers were from the village of Ghajar, on the Israeli-Lebanese border, and from the Nazareth region. The explosives were hidden in the back yard of a drug dealer from Nazareth. At first the drug dealer believed that the bag contained drugs but later found out that it contained explosives (Israeli daily Maariv, August 9, 2012: “ISA is looking for the terrorist squad that was waiting for the explosive devices”).

According to the ISA and the Israeli police, it is possible that Hezbollah handled a terrorist squad in Israel that was supposed to receive and use the explosive devices. The drug dealers were handled by Hezbollah, which often cooperates with criminal networks to promote its terrorist activity. A total of 12 suspects were detained and questioned in the incident. Charges were filed against eight of them.

The explosives which Hezbollah attempted to deliver to Israel in early June 2012 were standard C-4 explosives with a total weight of about 20 kg, or 45 lbs (the explosive device blown up on the bus in the Bulgarian resort town of Burgas weighed about 3 kg, or 6.6 lbs). Also seized were weapons (including an M-16 rifle) and activation systems for the explosive devices smuggled from Lebanon. In our assessment, Hezbollah was planning to use the explosives to launch a wave of terrorist attacks in Israeli territory.

On the Lebanese side, two Hezbollah-related individuals were involved in the incident:

1. Saad Jamil Yasser Qahmouz, a major drug dealer in Lebanon with ties to and handled by Hezbollah: Originally from the village of Ghajar. He escaped to Lebanon in 2006. At the time he was being investigated for spying on behalf of Hezbollah in 2003 and for providing Lebanese Hezbollah operatives with information and equipment in exchange for drugs.
2. George Nimr (Abu Ali), a drug dealer affiliated with and working on behalf of Hezbollah. He was involved in an earlier incident in 2003, in which Israeli security forces detained Ghajar residents for involvement in security-related activity as part of criminal activity.

This incident was another example of Hezbollah’s close ties to drug dealers who are in fact Hezbollah supporters. Through them Hezbollah takes advantage of its control of drug growing and production sites in the Beqaa Valley and south Lebanon, from which the drugs are shipped to Israel. Combining criminal activity with terrorist and intelligence activity has been characteristic of Hezbollah’s Lebanese-based operations against Israel. However, it is not used only in the Lebanese-Israeli context but in many other countries where Hezbollah operates. Conspicuous is the use made by Hezbollah and its Iranian handlers of criminal networks in Latin America for subversive and terrorist activities.

The Palestinian arena

Iranian and Hezbollah (as a Subcontractor) Support for the Palestinian Terrorist Organizations Operating in the Gaza Strip (2006-2012)

After Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2006, the focal point of Iran and Hezbollah’s support for Palestinian terrorism was moved to the Gaza Strip. The events in the Gaza Strip, accompanied by the deterioration of the security situation with Israel that peaked during Operation Cast Lead, created a new potential for the Iranians to challenge Israel’s civilian front, mainly by upgrading the rocket arsenal whose use had achieved “positive” results in Lebanon. In addition to helping with the military buildup, Iran and Hezbollah encourage the Gazan terrorist organizations to carry out terrorist attacks in Israeli territory, some through the Sinai Peninsula.

As a subcontractor, Hezbollah became part of the Iranian efforts to build up the military infrastructure of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, particularly Hamas and the PIJ (efforts first made public by Hamas, the PIJ and Hezbollah spokesmen during Operation Pillar of Defense). The military infrastructure established by Hezbollah in Lebanon and the use it made of rockets, IEDs and anti-tank missiles were a source of inspiration for the Gazan terrorist organizations.

The assistance provided by Iran to the terrorist organizations was manifested by smuggling weapons to the Gaza Strip, financial aid, sharing technological know-how, training terrorist operatives, etc. The assistance was used to rebuild the militaryterrorist infrastructure after Operation Cast Lead and create an upgraded arsenal of many thousands of rockets that threatened Israel’s south and the greater Tel Aviv area (over 1,400 rockets were fired at Israel during Operation Pillar of Defense, including eight Fajr-5 rockets that hit or were intercepted in the Tel Aviv region).

The link between Hezbollah and the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip was exposed in late 2008 when the Egyptian security services detained members of a Hezbollah network that operated in Egypt (see below). The network was handled by Hezbollah’s Unit 1800, which deals with the Palestinian issue through the countries bordering Israel. During questioning, the network operatives said that Muhammad Qabalan, the network’s chief handler in Lebanon, was involved in infiltrating operatives and smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip. The weapons, which included high-quality C-4 plastic explosives, were intended for preparing explosive belts and IEDs to be used in terrorist attacks against Israel.

Thus Hamas and the PIJ’s military buildup in the Gaza Strip allowed Iran to establish another hotspot of terrorism along Israel’s southern border. Prior to Operation Pillar of Defense, the rocket arsenal consisted of many thousands of rockets. It posed a threat not only to the million people living in southern Israel but also to the several million residents of Israel’s center (including Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, as was evidenced by Operation Pillar of Defense). Creating the arsenal was intended to give Iran the possibility of opening another front against Israel in addition to the Lebanese front in the north, in accordance with the strategic considerations of the Iranian regime.

Hamas’ relations with Iran and Hezbollah deteriorated in the wake of the uprising in Syria, resulting in the Hamas headquarters’ being removed from Damascus, and the Bashar Assad regime, Iran’s strategic ally, was publicly criticized by Hamas. The problematic aspects of Iran-Hamas relations were evident in Operation Pillar of Defense (November 2012), when, to Iran’s dismay, Hamas sided with the Muslim camp and the Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar). Nevertheless, however, in our assessment both sides still have much common ground as far as military activity is concerned, based on a shared interest to rebuild the military capabilities of Hamas and other terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip so that they can some day be used against Israel.

Their shared interests were apparent the speech made by Hassan Nasrallah during Operation Pillar of Defense, where he referred to Iran’s alleged abandonment of Hamas because the latter had withdrawn from the “resistance camp.” Nasrallah made it clear that Iran, Syria and Hezbollah would not abandon the Palestinian organizations in the Gaza Strip and would continue meeting their commitments towards them, regardless of any differences of opinion. He also stressed the importance of the military assistance extended by Iran and Syria (to the terrorist organizations) in the Gaza Strip and called on Arab and Muslim countries to provide the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip with weapons as soon as possible (Al-Manar TV, November 19, 2012).

Iranian and Hezbollah Encouragement for Palestinian Terrorism during the Second Intifada (2000-2005)

During the 2000-2005 Palestinian terrorist campaign (“the second intifada”), Iran and Hezbollah provided massive assistance to terrorist organizations operating in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. The assistance was intended to expand the wave of terrorism against Israeli citizens and improve the operative capabilities of the terrorist networks. The assistance included guidance, funding, smuggling weapons, providing training to terrorists, and transmitting technological knowhow.

The number of Palestinian terrorist networks constantly increased throughout 2001-2006, appearing mostly in Judea and Samaria but also in the Gaza Strip. They received assistance and guidance from Hezbollah, the Iranians’ subcontractor. The major networks were those that belonged to Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The peak year of Hezbollah’s assistance to Palestinian terrorism was 2006, when there were 85 networks operating with Hezbollah’s assistance. Subsequently, after the intifada, assistance to the groups in Judea and Samaria significantly decreased, and the focal point of Iran and Hezbollah’s assistance was moved to the Gaza Strip.

To fuel the intifada, Hezbollah encouraged the Palestinian terrorist organizations to carry out suicide bombings which became the signature of the Palestinian terrorist campaign. Hezbollah considers suicide bombing attacks (istishhad) as representing the “spirit of resistance” and the “culture of resistance.” In practical terms, it was Hezbollah, in Lebanon during the 1980s, that created the precedent-setting model of making widespread, successful use of the “suicide weapon” against Western and Israeli targets, a model which the Palestinian terrorist organizations studied and adopted.

While Hezbollah used the “weapon of suicide” selectively in Lebanon, its leader Hassan Nasrallah called on the Palestinians in the PA-administered territories to employ it frequently and routinely: “We expect there to be an act of suicide martyrdom [i.e., suicide bombing attack] every day or two” (Hassan Nasrallah, Al-Manar, June 7, 2001). When directing operative networks, Hezbollah instructed them to carry out mass-casualty attacks in Israeli territory. However, the networks (because of operational capabilities) could not always fulfill the expectations of their handlers, and thus for pragmatic reasons Hezbollah sometimes compromised “quality” for quantity.

Two Fatah Tanzim operatives in Ramallah carry a poster of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. During the second intifada, Nasrallah was perceived by terrorist operatives as a leader and a role model. The photo was found in an album seized during Operation Defensive Shield.

The following are examples of terrorist attacks in the PA-administered territories and Israel, carried out with the direction or assistance of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon or Hezbollah:

1. On March 30, 2006, a suicide bomber hitched a ride in an Israeli vehicle in the Kedumim region (west of Nablus) and blew himself up. The four Israeli passengers in the vehicle were killed. Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon had been in contact with Fatah Tanzim operatives in Nablus who carried out the terrorist attack, and provided them with funds and instructions for other terrorist attacks.
2. On April 24, 2003, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the train station entrance in the city of Kfar Saba, killing one person and injuring 15. The terrorist attack was carried out by Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in collaboration with the PFLP’s Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades. The suicide bombing attack was funded by the Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
3. On January 5, 2003, two Fatah suicide bombers carried out a double suicide bombing attack at the old central bus station in Tel-Aviv, killing 23 people and injuring 106. The attack was orchestrated by Fatah’s terrorist infrastructure in Nablus, which received guidance and funding from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon.

Hezbollah made determined efforts to carry out terrorist attacks during the second Lebanon war in 2006 to create a civilian front in Israel. Hezbollah attempted to encourage the Palestinian terrorist networks it handled to carry out showcase terrorist attacks in Israeli territory. In practice, it was unable to realize its plans due to the effectiveness of the Israeli security forces’ preventive measures.

Terrorist Attack against a Civilian Target in Israel: the Case of Matzuva

Hezbollah’s assistance to the Palestinian terrorist organizations during the second intifada was indirect. However, it was directly involved in at least one incident: on March 12, 2002, Hezbollah sent two Palestinian terrorists to northern Israel via the western sector of south Lebanon. Using a ladder to cross the border, the two terrorists fired small arms at Israeli vehicles near Kibbutz Matzuva in the Western Galilee. Five Israeli civilians and one IDF soldier were killed in the attack. The two Palestinian terrorists were killed as well. To conceal its involvement in the attack, Hezbollah used Palestinian (rather than Lebanese) terrorists and did not explicitly claim responsibility for it.

The ladder used by the terrorists to infiltrate Israel. It was found near the Israeli-Lebanese border a short while after the terrorist attack in Matzuva.

Hezbollah’s Involvement in Smuggling Weapons from Iran for the Palestinian Terrorist Organizations during the Second Intifada

At the beginning of the second intifada the Iranians provided the terrorist organizations with advanced weapons to improve their operational capabilities and foment the Palestinian terrorist campaign against Israeli citizens. Hezbollah, serving as Iran’s subcontractor, was involved in the effort as well.

The first significant attempt was thwarted on May 6, 2001, when the Israeli Navy intercepted the Santorini fishing boat off the coast of Tyre while it was en route to the Gaza Strip. During questioning the crew members said that the Santorini had carried out several smuggling runs to the Gaza Strip, and that the PFLP-GC, Ahmed Jibril’s terrorist organization, with the assistance of Hezbollah, was behind the smuggling operations. When intercepted the ship was found to carry RPG-7 anti-tank launchers, SA-7 anti-aircraft missiles, mortars, rockets, bombs and a large quantity of anti-tank grenades, mines and guns. The crew members also said that three smuggling runs they had gone on before were successful (some of the weapons reached the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula coast) and that the fourth had been intercepted. One of the successful attempts (the third one) was a smuggling operation carried out by Hezbollah from the coast of Jieh, south of Beirut, in April 2001. The questioning of the Santorini‘s crew revealed that smuggling was conducted as a military operation to all intents and purposes and that it involved 25 Hezbollah operatives.

The most significant example was the Karine A weapons ship, which the Israeli Navy intercepted in the Red Sea on the night of January 2, 2002. The ship, which had been sent from Iran for Yasser Arafat, was found to contain a large quantity of weapons to boost the terrorist organizations’ firepower, and would have allowed them to intensify their terrorist campaign against the citizens of Israel. The weapons found on the ship included 122-mm rockets for ranges of up to 20 km and 107-mm rockets, improved anti-tank launchers, mortars and 120-mm mortar shells and powerful explosives. Some of the weapons were of Iranian manufacture. The weapons had been loaded onto the Karine A off the coast of Iran.

Hezbollah was also involved in the smuggling effort, as illustrated by the interrogation of the Karine A crew. One of the crew members, a captain in the Palestinian naval force, said that in September 2001 he had received specific training in Lebanon in diving and operating the floatation tanks where the weapons were concealed. The training was given by Hezbollah operatives. He said that one of the Hezbollah instructors had been present when the weapons were loaded on board the Karine A off the coast of Iran. Another Karine A crew member said that in July 2001 he had gone to Syria to purchase a ship. He then met with a Hezbollah operative who gave him money to use as a down payment.

The Global Arena

Hezbollah Participation in the Global Wave of Anti-Israel Terrorism (2008-2012)

In recent years (2008 – 2012) Hezbollah has actively participated in the worldwide anti-Israeli campaign of terrorism led by Iran’s Qods Force, attempting to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli diplomats and tourists. Some of the terrorist attacks were carried out by Hezbollah by itself, while some were collaborations with the Qods Force. Iran and Hezbollah’s global terrorist attack has been accelerated this past year due to Iran’s strategic considerations.

Until the terrorist attack in Bulgaria, Hezbollah suffered a series of failures (in Cyprus, Thailand, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece). In its latest “successful” terrorist attack in Bulgaria, Hezbollah blew up a bus carrying Israeli tourists outside the airport in the Bulgarian resort city of Burgas. The attack killed five Israeli tourists, the Bulgarian bus driver and the Hezbollah operative. Thirty-six Israeli tourists were injured, three of them seriously. The terrorist attacks carried out by Hezbollah as part of the global terrorist campaign were listed at the beginning of this study.

Preventing Terrorist Attacks in Egypt (2008)

Overview

Egypt, an important country in the pro-Western Sunni Muslim Arab camp and signer of a peace treaty with Israel, has traditionally been the target of Iranian subversion and terrorism as part of the Iranian-Egyptian competition for hegemony in the Arab world. Prior to the fall of the Mubarak regime, the objectives of Iranian subversion were to undermine the domestic stability of the Egyptian regime, encourage terrorist attacks on and from Egyptian soil and transfer weapons through Egypt to the Gaza Strip. In Egypt, as in other countries, Iran used the Lebanese Hezbollah as its main proxy.

Exposure of a Hezbollah Network in Egypt

In late 2008 the Egyptian security services exposed a covert Hezbollah network operating on Egyptian soil and planning to carry out terrorist attacks on tourist sites frequented by Israelis. In the beginning of April 2009 the Egyptian government exposed the plot and revealed its implications. The exposed Hezbollah network was perceived by the Egyptian government as an Iranian “conspiracy” intended to destabilize Egypt and promote Iran’s strategic objectives in its drive for regional hegemony. In late July 2009 Egypt pressed charges against 26 detainees for membership in a terrorist organization planning to carry out attacks on Egyptian soil and providing weapons to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

According to reports in the Egyptian and Arab press, there were 49 operatives in the network and it was headed by a Hezbollah operative codenamed Sami Shihab. Its members were Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Sudanese, Israeli Arabs and Syrians (Al-Hayat, April 13, 2012). On April 13, Al-Masri Al-Yawm published the interrogation protocols of Muhammad Yussuf Ahmed Mansour, a Shi’ite Lebanese from the southern suburb of Beirut, who entered Egypt on a fake passport. Mansour admitted that he was a Hezbollah operative codenamed Sami Hani Shihab, which was confirmed by Hassan Nasrallah in his speech.^[34]

Following are the main points of Sami Shihab’s interrogation:

1. He was sent to Cairo in 2005 to establish a Hezbollah network called the “Egypt Branch.” Its goal was to “support the Palestinian cause.” His direct commander in Lebanon was a Hezbollah operative named Mohammad Qabalan, who was chosen for the mission because he had visited Egypt in 2007 and 2008 and had considerable knowledge about the southern Sinai Peninsula. He spent some time there on a fake Egyptian passport in the name of Hassan al-Ghul.^[35] “Egypt Branch” operatives conducted surveillance on tourist sites on the Red Sea coast to collect information about Israeli tourists staying there. Arab and Egyptian media reported that the network was planning to carry out several showcase terrorist attacks at the tourist sites using car bombs and explosive belts.
2. One of the network’s operatives was a resident of Port Said named Hassan al-Manakhili, who was instructed to gather information in the region of Nuweiba and conduct reconnaissance missions in the Ras al-Shaitan area (both tourist sites along the Red Sea coast). Sami Shihab admitted that in the course of his Hezbollah activity, he had joined the organization’s general recruitment department. He received military training but suffered a spinal injury. After his recovery he became a member of Unit 1800, which deals with the Palestinian issue in the countries surrounding Israel. He received considerable training in intelligence to prepare him to carry out the missions that he was given.
3. Mohammad Qabalan was involved in infiltrating operatives and smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip for terrorist attacks against Israel. To that end the network acquired C-4, a high quality plastic explosive, and stored it in the house of a network operative in El-Arish. The explosives were then used to make explosive belts and explosive bags. The network operatives also purchased supplies for preparing explosive devices, such as electric wires and iron pellets. Egyptian sources close to the investigation told an Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reporter in Cairo (April 18, 2009) that the explosives were meant to be transported to Israel by Israeli Arabs for terrorist attacks.
4. In preparation for smuggling weapons, Mohammad Qabalan went to Sudan “to attend to logistical matters and to meet with African and Sudanese smugglers to infiltrate fighters.” The agreement was that the smugglers would receive $2,000 for each person infiltrated into the Gaza Strip and $16,000 for a passenger car. While the network did succeed in infiltrating “fighters” (i.e., terrorist operatives) into the Gaza Strip, their number was small, related Sami Shihab.

Sami Shihab took advantage of the chaos prevalent in Egypt after the fall of the Mubarak regime and fled from the prison where he was being held. He managed to make his way to Lebanon and was given a warm welcome by Hezbollah. On February 16, 2012, Shihab took part in an annual rally held by Hezbollah in the southern suburb of Beirut commemorating the deaths of three of its high-ranking leaders (Imad Mughniyeh, Abbas Mussawi, and Ghareb Harb).

The Qods Force’s use of Hezbollah to Support Its Shi’ite Militias in Iraq (2006-2011)

Overview

The Lebanese Hezbollah was used by Iran’s Qods Force to help build and operate Shi’ite militias in Iraq and direct them against the armed forces of the United States and its allies. The Qods Force took advantage of Hezbollah’s proven abilities in terrorism and guerilla and the ethnic, cultural and religious bonds between Lebanese and Iraqi Shi’ites (which made it easier for Hezbollah’s Arabic-speaking operatives to blend into Iraq’s Shi’ite population).

Similarity between the Revolutionary Guards Logo and the Logos of Hezbollah in Iraq and Lebanon

The Revolutionary Guards Logo

Above the rifle is a Qur’an quotation: “Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power…” (Surah 8, An-Anfal, Verse 60), a Muslim call to prepare a military force to wage war against an enemy.

The Ali Mussa Daqduq Affair

One instance of Hezbollah’s aid to Iraq was the affair of Ali Mussa Daqduq, a Lebanese Shi’ite who had been a top Hezbollah operative since 1983. Before coming to Iraq he was the head of Hezbollah’s special operations unit and commanded the organization’s operative activities in Lebanon. In May 2006 Mussa Ali Daqduq was briefed by the Hezbollah leadership. His mission was to go to Iran to collaborate with the Qods Force in training pro-Iranian Shi’ite operatives in Iraq.

In May 2006 Hezbollah sent Ali Daqduq to Tehran accompanied by Yusuf Hashem, a high-ranking Hezbollah operative responsible for operations in Iraq. In Iran the two met with IRGC-QF commander Brigadier-General Qassem Suleimani and his deputy.^[36] Ali Daqduq’s activity centered on training groups of 20 to 60 new recruits in the use of explosively formed projectiles (EFPs), firing rockets and mortars, sniping, and running intelligence and abduction operations.^[37]

In addition to training Iraqi recruits in Iranian training camps, Ali Daqduq was sent by the Qods Force on operational missions in Iraq. On his return to Iran after the fourth mission, he was instructed by his Iranian handlers to establish “special groups” of Shi’ite operatives in Iraq based on the model of Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to a 2007 briefing given by Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner, United States Army spokesman in Iraq, Iran financed the special groups, giving them between $750,000 and $3 million every month. He said that Iran also trained them in the use of sophisticated roadside bombs (EFPs) which caused many casualties to the American and Iraqi forces.^[38]

Ali Mussa Daqduq’s data as they appeared on the website of the American forces in Iraq (Picture from usf_iraq.com)

Ali Daqduq was a consultant to Qais al-Khazali, the leader of Union of the Sons of Truth, a Shi’ite militia directed by the Qods Force. He participated in the militia’s January 30, 2007 military operation against the Allied forces. According to the American forces, he was involved in an attack on the Karbala Joint Provincial Coordination Center (KJPCC), in which five American soldiers were abducted and murdered. American Army spokesman Kevin Bergner stated that American satellite photos revealed that the Iranians had constructed a mockup of the KJPCC facility where the Iraqi militia operatives in Iran trained for the attack. According to one report, the attack was planned by a senior Qods Force commander named Abdul Reza Shahlai, whose name was mentioned in connection with the attempted assassination of the Saudi ambassador in the United States.^[39]

On March 20, 2007, Ali Daqduq was captured by the Coalition forces in Basra. In his possession was a large quantity of documents, one of them a 22- page training manual which dealt with planning attacks against American and Coalition forces. The documents dealt with placing IEDs, carrying out abductions and firing at helicopters.

Epilogue

The American forces put Daqduq under arrest. When the Unites States military presence in Iraq officially ended in late 2011, Ali Daqduq was handed over to the government of Iraq despite American concerns that he would be released to Iran. According to a United States administration official, the United States submitted a formal request to the Iraqi government to extradite Daqduq (Reuters, June 1, 2012), which Iraq rejected.

However, on November 16, 2012, Ali Daqduq was released by the Iraqi government and put on a flight to Beirut. According to his lawyer, he was released after an Iraqi court acquitted him of involvement in the killing of five American soldiers (Reuters, November 16, 2012).

To read the first part of the full study, go here: Hezbollah: Portrait of a Terrorist Organization

To read Appendix II, go here: Hezbollah’s Terrorist Activities during the 1990s

To read Appendix III, go here: Hezbollah’s Terrorist Activities during the 1980s

Notes:

[18] According to a report presented by Major General Yossi Baidatz, then head of the Analysis and Production Division of IDF Military Intelligence, to the Israeli Parliament’s (Knesset) Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, May 4, 2010.

[19] A Shi’ite village in south Lebanon.

[20] All Israeli cities, towns and villages are called “settlements in Palestine” by Nasrallah to express Hezbollah and Iranian denial of the legitimacy of their existence.

[21] For further information see the November 2006 ITIC bulletin “Hezbollah’s use of Lebanese civilians as human shields: the extensive military infrastructure positioned and hidden in populated areas. From within the Lebanese towns and villages deliberate rocket attacks were directed against civilian targets in Israel.”

[22] Data from the IDF Spokesman and Israeli National Insurance Institute.

[23] From a report issued in the summer of 2006 by the ministry of environmental protection (Environment.gov.il).

[24] Report by Major General Yossi Baidatz.

[25] One good example was the bloody riots in Beirut on May 7, 2008, during which at least 81 Lebanese were killed and 250 wounded. The pretext was the veto the Lebanese government imposed on Hezbollah’s private, Iranian-supported communications network. Another pretext was the removal from office of a high-ranking army office who supported Hezbollah, under whose aegis weapons were smuggled into Beirut when he was responsible for security at the Beirut airport. During the riots Hezbollah operatives took control of Beirut and other Lebanese cities, including Tripoli. Hezbollah’s violence forced the Lebanese government to surrender (May 14, 2008).

[26] Particularly prominent were the remarks of Samir Jaja, commander of the Lebanese forces, who accused Hezbollah of carrying out the assassination according to orders from Syria and Hezbollah. The reason, he said, was that Wissam al-Hassan had exposed the Michel Samaha affair (Nowlebanon website, October 15, 2012).

[27] One exception occurred in 1998 during the appeal of a Hezbollah operative named Hussein Mustafa Tlies, who admitted to killing the French military attaché in Lebanon. He also admitted his participation in planning the assassination of Camile Shamoun former Lebanese president and leader of the Christian camp (For details see below, Appendix III on Lebanon).

[28] Ababil is Farsi for “flock of birds.” The term appears in the Qur’an (Surat Al-Fil) as a demonstration of the mighty capabilities of Allah who sent large flocks of birds to drop rocks on his enemies.

[29] Hussein Anis Ayoub was from the village of Salaa in the Tyre region. He was formerly commander of Hezbollah’s aerial forces and is considered as having made a great contribution to Hezbollah’s aerial wing. He was involved in several showcase terrorist attacks against IDF forces in south Lebanon. He died at the age of 24 in a terrorist attack on March 4, 1996, when an IDF patrol jeep was hit by an IED in the Houleh-Markabeh region in the central sector of south Lebanon. In this attack, four IDF soldiers were killed during a chase in which an IED was activated against the Israeli force. Ayoub’s family joyfully received the news that sending the drone into Israeli territory was named after him and pictures of him were put up in the streets alongside Hezbollah flags (Al-Manar, October 13, 2012).

[30] For the past several months, the president of Lebanon, who was elected in May 2008 thanks to the support of Syria and Hezbollah, has been criticizing the issue of the weapons held by Hezbollah. For details, see the MEMRI report titled “E.B. Picali: Lebanese President Michel Suleiman Comes Out Against Hizbulla And Its Weapons” (October 22, 2012).

[31] This section is based on reports published on the ISA website (shabak.gov.il).

[32] This section is based on reports from the ISA website (shabak.gov.il) and the Israeli media.

[33] Source: Israel Security Agency, “Summary for 2007: Data and Trends of Palestinian Terrorism.”

[34] In his speech, Hassan Nasrallah admitted that he was indeed a Hezbollah operative involved in smuggling weapons and operatives to the Gaza Strip.

[35] The Egyptian intelligence services’ investigation showed that Hezbollah used the names of deceased Sunni Lebanese to forge passports for Hezbollah operatives (Al-Arab, April 22, 2009).

[36] From a briefing given by Brigadier-General Kevin Bergner, a spokesman for the multi-national forces in Iraq, on July 2, 2001 (longwarjournal.org) (hereinafter: Kevin Bergner).

[37] Kevin Bergner.

[38] Kevin Bergner.

[39] The Weekly Standard, October 12, 2011. In September 2008 the United States Treasury Department placed Shahlai on the worldwide list of terrorism. His name came up once again in 2011 as one of the people involved in the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

Tue, Dec 18, 2012 | terrorism-info.org.il

Appendix II — Hezbollah’s Terrorist Activities during the 1990s

Hezbollah has a 30-year history of terrorist activity in Lebanon, the Middle East and around the globe, directed against Israel, the Jewish people, the United States and the West, pro-Western Arab states and Hezbollah’s enemies in Lebanon. This study is published by The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. You can download the full study in PDF format here.

Overview

In the 1990s Hezbollah combined terrorist attacks in Israeli territory and overseas with guerilla warfare against the IDF in the Lebanese security zone and sporadic rocket fire at Israel. The terrorist attacks inside Israel were meant to undermine the Oslo Accords and challenge the Palestinian Authority, which supported the Hamas-led Palestinian campaign of terrorism. The terrorist attacks abroad were carried out in retaliation for the IDF’s attacks on Hezbollah, handicapping Israel’s fight against terrorism. The guerilla warfare in the security zone was intended to inflict casualties on the IDF, force it to and thus allow Hezbollah to complete its takeover of south Lebanon. The fight against the security zone, which was perceived as a success for Hezbollah, led to the IDF’s withdrawal from Lebanon on May 24, 2000, after which it deployed along the international border (the UN Blue Line).

Of the terrorist attacks carried out by Hezbollah outside of Israel, three were mass-casualty suicide bombing attacks against Israeli/Jewish targets in 1992 – 1994: two suicide bombing attacks carried out in Argentina, one on the Israeli embassy and the other on the Jewish community building (AMIA), were considered successful by Hezbollah, while another terrorist operation against the Israeli embassy in Thailand failed.

In addition to global terrorist operations, Hezbollah tried to carry out terrorist attacks in Israeli territory. To that end it used Shiite Lebanese operatives sent from Europe in the second half of the 1990s and in 2000 – 2001. Notable was the case of Hezbollah operative Hussein Mikdad, who was sent to Israel to carry out a showcase terrorist attack (he was severely injured in a “work accident” while assembling an IED in his Jerusalem hotel).

The Global Arena

Hezbollah’s terrorist attacks in Argentina (1992, 1994)

The Car Bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, 1992

On March 17, 1992, a pickup truck packed with about 300 kilos, or 660 lbs, of TNT and driven by a suicide bomber blew up in front of the Israeli embassy building in Argentina. The explosion destroyed a large part of the building. Twentynine Israelis and Argentineans were killed and about 250 people were injured. In addition, severe damage was caused to nearby buildings and cars.

“Islamic Jihad” (a fictitious name used by Hezbollah) claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming it was in revenge for the IDF killing of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Abbas Musawi the previous month (Sheikh Abbas Musawi died in a targeted killing in February 1992, about one month before the terrorist attack in Argentina).

The Scene of the Attack

In May 1999 the Argentinean Supreme Court concluded its investigation, and having determined that Hezbollah was responsible for the attack, issued a warrant for the arrest of Imad Mughniyeh, commander of Hezbollah’s militaryterrorist wing (Mughniyeh died in Damascus in 2008). An investigation carried out by Israel, whose results were made public in 2003 by former Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, showed that the highest levels of the Iranian regime knew about the intended terrorist attack and authorized Hezbollah to carry it out.

Silvan Shalom told a press conference that it was clear to Israel that Hezbollah, using its external operations apparatus commanded by Imad Mughniyeh, had been responsible for the terrorist attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires (Ynet.co.il website). In his book From Terror to Nuclear Bombs (Hebrew), Ephraim Kam wrote that several communications sent to and from the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires two weeks before the terrorist attack and intercepted by the American intelligence community, indicated that Iran was directly involved in the attack.^[40]

The Car Bombing of the Jewish Community Building (AMIA), 1994

Overview

On July 18, 1994, at 9:53 in the morning, a powerful blast shook the Jewish community center (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people in and around the building and wounding more than 300. A large part of the building collapsed and nearby buildings were damaged as well. The investigation revealed that the explosion had been caused by a suicide bomber driving a Renault van packed with about 400 kilograms (880 lbs) of explosives, which blew up near the building entrance. It took several weeks to evacuate the bodies.

The AMIA bombing was preceded by two Israeli strikes against Hezbollah: the abduction of Mustafa Dirani from Lebanon on May 21, 1994, and the killing of 26 Hezbollah operatives in an attack on the organization’s training camp in the east Lebanese village of Ein Dardara (June 2, 1994). Hezbollah leaders commented that the organization had the ability to retaliate abroad. For instance, about one month before the AMIA bombing, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was quoted as saying that “one thousand suicide commandoes are ready to strike Israel across the entire globe” (Al-Watan al-Arabi, June 17, 1994). Khader Tleis, a parliament member for Hezbollah, said after the attack in Ein Dardara Israel knew that Hezbollah could “do a lot even outside Lebanon,” and threatened that Israel would be hit “in and outside of Lebanon.”

The Main Findings of the Argentinean Investigation

On October 25, 2006, Argentinean attorney general Dr. Alberto Nisman and prosecutor Marcelo Martínez Burgos revealed the findings of the Argentinean investigation. The findings were issued in an 800-page report and the main points were revealed at a press conference: the investigation unequivocally determined that the decision to bomb the AMIA building had been made by the leadership of the Iranian regime and carried out by Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy for implementing its policies.

In light of the report, the Argentinean prosecution asked Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral to issue international arrest warrants for seven high-ranking members of the Iranian regime and one senior Hezbollah terrorist operative, all involved in the terrorist attack. One of the seven, some of whom still serve in high positions in the Iranian regime, was Ahmad Vahidi, today Iran’s defense minister and Qods Force commander at the time (1994). A warrant was not issued for the arrest of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, possibly for political considerations, even though the report explicitly stated that he had been party to the decision to carry out the attack.^[41]

The seven high-ranking Iranians and the senior Hezbollah operative for whom the Argentinean prosecution asked for arrest warrants (Imad Mughniyeh, who commanded Hezbollah’s militaryterrorist apparatus, is at the lower left).

Hezbollah’s Role, according to the Argentinean Attorney General’s Report^[42]

The report states that the decision to carry out the attack was adopted at the highest level of the Iranian government. Its main points regarding Hezbollah are the following:

1. The report describes in detail how the Iranian upper echelons arrived at the decision to carry out the attack. It was the work of a group called the Special Affairs Committee, whose members at that time were Ali Khamenei, Ali Rafsanjani, Ali Fallahian and Ali Velayati. They met in the Iranian city of Mashhad on August 14, 1993 and decided to carry out a terrorist attack in Argentina. The highest ranks of the Iranian regime ordered Hezbollah to carry out the attack against AMIA. The Iranian regime employed Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure.
2. The attack was carried out by a Hezbollah operational squad which arrived in Argentina on July 1, 1994. Imad Mughniyeh, head of Hezbollah’s External Security Service, was responsible for running the squad and to that end visited Argentina at the beginning of July 1994. The Argentineans have records of many phone conversations between Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s operational squad, Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon, and Hezbollah’s network in the Brazilian side of what is known as the tri-border region.^[43] On July 18 the last call received by Imad Mughniyeh’s cell phone was recorded and indicated that the attack had been carried out.
3. At 09:53 on the morning on July 18 a suicide bomber named Ibrahim Mohsen Berro blew himself up inside a Renault van carrying 300-400 kg (660-880 lbs) of explosives (Note: The Berros are a Shi’ite family in south Lebanon, some of whose members have links to Hezbollah and are involved in international drug trafficking). The report states that the method of the attack was identical to the one employed two years before in the attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires carried out by Hezbollah.

On November 10, 2006, Argentina’s attorney general asked for international arrest warrants for the eight Iranians on the grounds that they had committed “a crime against humanity.” Two weeks later Argentina asked Interpol to issue the warrants. Interpol, having studied the evidence presented by Argentina and Iran, agreed to issue them.

The Failure of the Attempted Bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Thailand (1994)

Overview

In March 1994 a suicide bomber attempted to carry out a car bomb attack on the Israeli embassy in Thailand. The terrorist attack was similar to the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina in March 1992 and of the Jewish community building in Argentina in July 1994. All the attacks were carried out by Hezbollah operatives with Iranian assistance.

The following is the information we have on the attempted terrorist attack:^[44]

1. On March 11, 1994, a suicide bomber came within 240 meters of driving a van laden with explosives into the Israeli embassy in Bangkok. As he exited an underground parking lot he crashed into a motorcycle taxi, panicked and fled the scene. When police inspected the van, they found a water tank filled with approximately 1,000 kg (2,200 lbs) of fertilizer, two oil containers, a battery and C-4 plastic explosives. They also found two switches beneath the driver’s seat, apparently wired to detonate the explosives.
2. After removing the explosives from the tank, police also discovered a dead body. The van’s owner recognized the body as one of her local drivers and said that she had rented the vehicle with the driver. Apparently he was murdered at some point by the Hezbollah terrorists who had rented the truck, and his body was placed in the explosive-filled tank. Had the bomb gone off as planned, his death would not have been discovered.
3. A group of Thai Hezbollah collaborators involved in the terrorist attack was exposed in 1999 with the arrest of Pandu Yudhawinata, a Hezbollah operative from Indonesia. Pandu was arrested in the Philippines as he stepped off a Philippines Airlines flight from Zamboanga City to Manila. His arrest led to the discovery of cells of Hezbollah operatives in Thailand. Under interrogation they provided information about Pandu’s terrorist network and Hezbollah’s role in the attempted 1994 terrorist attack.
4. Pandu, investigators discovered, had rented the van for the terrorist attack under a false identity. He was also in charge of coordinating with senior Hezbollah commanders in Lebanon and dealt with the network’s passports and purchases. Investigators also discovered that Hezbollah was planning to attack other Israeli and American targets in Southeast Asia and Europe.
5. An inspection of Pandu’s luggage revealed documents with the names and telephone numbers of various Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence operatives, five Philippine passports in various names, a photocopy of a sixth passport and personal data for five more individuals. Investigators concluded that one of Pandu’s specialties was procuring false passports for Hezbollah operatives. In addition, they found that Pandu maintained Hezbollah arms caches in both Bangkok and Manila.
6. From 1994 until his arrest in 1999, Pandu made several trips to Iran and Lebanon for training. He also carried out missions for Hezbollah which involved the procurement of weapons in Indonesia, arranging fake passports, surveillance of terrorist targets and recruiting operatives. Although he was living in Malaysia at the time, Pandu was also involved in stockpiling weapons in both Thailand and the Philippines, presumably in preparation for future missions.
7. In 1996, Hezbollah sent one of the operatives involved in the 1994 Bangkok bomb plot back to Thailand and other countries, apparently to prepare more terrorist attacks. However, they were apparently contingency plans in preparation for attacks to be carried out if and when the order was given.

Possible Similar Terrorist Attacks

On July 26, 1994, in the week after the AMIA bombing, a bomb blew up near the Israeli embassy building in London. A car packed with 20-30 kg (44-66 lbs) of explosives blew up at the embassy entrance, injuring 20 civilians and causing massive collateral damage. Thirteen hours later another explosives-laden car blew up outside the building housing the offices of the Jewish organizations in Britain, injuring six people. The bombing near the embassy took place one day after Israel’s PM Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan’s King Hussein met in Washington to sign a peace treaty between the two countries. No terrorist organization claimed responsibility for the attack.

We have no direct reliable information to tie Iran or Hezbollah to these terrorist attacks, even though there is circumstantial evidence: using two car bombings taking place at approximately the same time without claiming responsibility is an Iranian-Hezbollah modus operandi and requires operative capabilities that local terrorist networks do not usually have; the terrorist attacks in London were carried out shortly after the AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires and in the same year Hezbollah attempted to bomb the Israeli embassy in Thailand; in addition, the signing of the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan may have been a motivating factor for Iran and Hezbollah, which strongly oppose the peace process and seek to sabotage it.

The Israeli Arena

Terrorist Attacks in Israel Originating in Europe

In the 1990s and early 2000s Hezbollah was behind a series of attempted terrorist attacks in Israeli territory, in which Lebanese operatives with (real or forged) foreign passports were dispatched from Europe. In our assessment Hezbollah’s objective was to support the Hamas-led efforts of the Palestinian terrorist organizations, whose goal was to sabotage the Oslo Accords and challenge the Palestinian Authority. This method, used by Hezbollah’s Overseas Operation Unit (with Iran’s coordination and guidance, in our assessment), repeatedly failed.

Using Europe as a Launching Pad for Terrorist Attacks in Israel

Following are examples:

1. Hussein Mikdad (April 1996):
   1. Hussein Mikdad, a Shi’ite Lebanese citizen and Hezbollah operative, was sent from Lebanon to Israel to carry out a terrorist attack in Israeli territory. Mikdad flew from Syria to Austria and went by train to Switzerland. For a few days he stayed in a hotel in Zurich together with his handler, who prepared him for his entry into Israel. Mikdad entered Israel via Ben-Gurion Airport, using a forged British passport. He spent several days in Tel Aviv and subsequently in Jerusalem. He was seriously injured in a “work accident” while assembling an explosive charge in his hotel room at the Lawrence Hotel in East Jerusalem.
   2. Mikdad’s interrogation showed that Iranian intelligence was involved in handling and dispatching him. Due to the complexity of the terrorist attack he was assigned to carry out, he was recruited by Iranian intelligence in Lebanon, was trained in preparing IEDs and was then transferred to Iran, where he received the forged British passport he used to enter Israel.^[45]
2. Stefan Smirak (1997): Smirak, a young German who converted to Islam in 1994, wanted to become a shaheed by carrying out a suicide bombing attack in Israel. To that end, in August 1997 he approached a Hezbollah operative in Germany who referred him to Hezbollah headquarters for overseas terrorist activity in Lebanon. In November 1997, Smirak flew from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv. Upon arriving in Israel he was supposed to pick up an IED to carry out a suicide bombing attack.
3. Fawzi Ayub (2000): Ayub is a Lebanese Shiite with Canadian citizenship and an operative of Hezbollah’s Overseas Operation Unit. He left Lebanon for Europe in October 2000. Upon his arrival he purchased new personal belongings and was supplied with a forged American passport for his entry into Israel, leaving his Canadian passport in Europe. Ayub stayed in Jerusalem, where he looked for places to hide weapons that had been prepared in advance. In June 2002, during an Israeli military activity in Hebron, Ayub was apprehended by the Israeli security forces. In our assessment he came to Israel either to carry out a showcase terrorist attack or to gather operational intelligence on highpriority targets in Israel as part of preparations for setting up a terrorist network.
4. Jihad Shuman (2001): Shuman, a Lebanese Shiite and Hezbollah operative with Lebanese and British citizenship, was sent to Israel by Hezbollah. He flew from Lebanon to the United Kingdom on his Lebanese passport, which he was instructed to hide. He flew to Israel on his British passport, staying in Jerusalem to collect operational intelligence for a terrorist attack in Israel.

Terrorism and Drugs: the Abduction of Elhanan Tannenbaum (2000)

In the early 1990s Hezbollah was able to abduct a former Israeli officer in a foreign country to be used as a bargaining chip for the release of Hezbollah detainees held by Israel. The officer, Colonel (Res.) Elhanan Tannenbaum, was transferred to Lebanon and held hostage by Hezbollah between 2000 and 2004. A Belgium and Dubai were used to launch the operation.

The main points of the information in our possession, which involved both criminal and terrorist elements, are the following:

1. Elhanan Tannenbaum’s abduction was planned by Qais Obeid, an Israeli Arab from the town of Taybeh who worked for Hezbollah, and Qaid Berro, a member of a south Lebanese family involved in international drug trafficking.^[46] They planned to abduct an Israeli citizen and hand him over to Hezbollah to be used as a hostage for the release of prisoners held by Israel, including two criminal convicts from the Berro family.
2. In 2000 Qais Obeid approached Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was deeply in debt because of gambling and failed business enterprises, and offered him a partnership in a deal to import drugs into Israel; Tannenbaum agreed. On October 4, 2000, Tannenbaum went to Brussels, where he met with Qais Obeid and Qaid Berro, who provided him with a forged Venezuelan passport and convinced him to fly to Dubai.
3. From Brussels, Tannenbaum flew to Frankfurt and then to Dubai. In Dubai he was taken from the airport to a neighborhood of villas where he was brought into a house, attacked and sedated. He was then transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to some reports, Imad Mughniyeh was involved in Tannenbaum’s abduction and “purchased” him from his captors for an estimated $150,000.
4. On October 15, 2000, Elhanan Tannenbaum’s abduction was made public by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. He was returned to Israel in 2004 as part of a prisoner exchange deal with Hezbollah, in which the bodies of three IDF soldiers abducted by Hezbollah in northern Israel were returned in exchange for 435 prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Qais Hassan Kamal Obeid (Abu Hassan) is a member of a Palestinian family in Taybeh with relatives in the south Lebanese town of Jibshit (a Hezbollah stronghold). In the second half of the 1990s he was involved in criminal activity in Taybeh and in smuggling weapons to the PA-administered territories. The Obeid family had drug contacts and had dealt with the Lebanese Berro family (used for Tannenbaum’s abduction), and there was clearly a terrorist-operative potential inherent in Hezbollah’s criminal activity. In the wake of Tannenbaum’s abduction, Qais Obeid fled to Lebanon and became member of Hezbollah’s Unit 1800, which is responsible for terrorist attacks in Israel and the Palestinian Authority (Wikipedia).

To read the first part of the full study, go here: Hezbollah: Portrait of a Terrorist Organization

To read Appendix I, go here: Hezbollah’s Terrorist Activity, 2000-2012

To read Appendix III, go here: Hezbollah’s Terrorist Activities during the 1980s

Notes:

[40] Ephraim Kam, From Terror to Nuclear Bombs: The Significance of the Iranian Threat (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense Publishing House and the Tel Aviv University Yaffe Center, 2004), p. 274.

[41] It’s quite obvious that no such decision could possibly have been made without the complicity and authorization of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. The report issued by Argentinean state intelligence (CIDE) in March 2003 places responsibility for the attack on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as well. However, Argentina’s judicial system did not ask for an international warrant for his arrest, despite the fact that his name was mentioned in a 2006 report as one of the high-ranking Iranians who had been party to the decision to bomb the AMIA building.

[42] For more details, see our November 14, 2006 Information Bulletin: “Argentina accuses Iran of responsibility for the Hezbollah terrorist attack which destroyed Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, 1994. The Argentinean Attorney General’s office announced it had found Iran responsible for the terrorist attack and an Argentinean judge issued arrest warrants for seven senior Iranians and one senior Hezbollah member.”

[43] The tri-border region is the area where the borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet. A large Shi’ite population lives there and Hezbollah and other radical Islamic organizations maintain terrorist and subversive networks in the region.

[44] This paragraph is based on Matthew Levitt: “Hizballah poised to strike in southeast Asia,” The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute website, January 18, 2012.

[45] Ephraim Kam, From Terror to Nuclear Bombs (Hebrew), pp. 275-276.

[46] A Hezbollah operative from the Berro family, Ibrahim Mohsen Berro, was the suicide bomber who carried out the AMIA terrorist attack in Buenos Aires in 1994.

Tue, Dec 18, 2012 | terrorism-info.org.il

Appendix III — Hezbollah’s Terrorist Activities during the 1980s

Hezbollah has a 30-year history of terrorist activity in Lebanon, the Middle East and around the globe, directed against Israel, the Jewish people, the United States and the West, pro-Western Arab states and Hezbollah’s enemies in Lebanon. This study is published by The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. You can download the full study in PDF format here.

Overview

Hezbollah’s terrorist activity during the first years of its existence focused on the United States and France, the main targets of a wave of terrorist attacks in Lebanon and elsewhere. Later, Hezbollah waged guerilla warfare against the IDF in Lebanon, beginning with the bombing of the IDF headquarters in Tyre in 1983. The most notable operations in the anti-Western terrorist campaign were the bombing of the United States embassy in Lebanon, the bombing of the United States and French military barracks in Beirut, abductions and murders of Western figures in Lebanon, and the hijacking of a TWA flight en route from Athens to Rome.

Hezbollah’s terrorist attacks were part of an Iranian terrorist campaign waged to promote Iran’s political and strategic objectives. Some of its objectives were to undermine the influence of Western countries and Israel in Lebanon and keep France from assisting Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. Some of Hezbollah’s terrorist operations were intended to obtain hostages to be used to leverage the release of Hezbollah operatives held by Arab and Western countries and by Israel.

Hezbollah’s terrorist campaign led to proxies’ being used by Iran for terrorist activities. It allowed the Iranians to initiate terrorist attacks while denying any involvement in them and to avoid a head-on clash with the United States. The Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran’s leading proxy, also did not claim responsibility for its terrorist attacks and used pseudonyms. Categorical denial of any involvement in terrorist attacks has since become a trademark of both Iran and Hezbollah, even when the evidence for their involvement is solid (such as the AMIA bombing in Argentina).

Politically, it can be said in retrospect that Iran’s terrorist campaign in the 1980s, which focused on the United States and France, had significant achievements: in the short term, the terrorist attacks led to the withdrawal of the multi-national force from Lebanon (February 1984), which had been deployed in Beirut in the summer of 1982 to supervise the withdrawal of the Palestinian forces and maintain peace.^[47] The withdrawal of the multi-national force was perceived as an American loss of interest in the developments in Lebanon, and considerably weakened its political influence in the Lebanese arena and the Middle East in general. Consequently, Lebanon’s President Amine Gemayel lost strength and was forced to exchange his pro-Western orientation for a pro-Syrian orientation. The pressure caused by these developments led President Gemayel to cancel the American-brokered Israeli-Lebanese agreement (the May 17 Agreement, 1983), which was strongly condemned by Iran and Syria. France also agreed to make political concessions to Iran on bilateral issues in exchange for an end to the wave of anti-French terrorism.

The collapse of the May 17 Agreement, coupled with the wave of attacks against IDF troops in Lebanon, eventually led to Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon without a political agreement (1985). Furthermore, the political and military vacuum left by the IDF’s withdrawal and the collapse of the power of the pro-American and pro-Israeli Lebanese factions was filled by Syria and Iran. Thus, in the mid-1980s a new era began in the internal Lebanese arena, marked by a significant decline in the political influence of the United States, Israel, and the West. On the other hand, Syrian and Iranian influence grew while Hezbollah gradually became the leading military and political power in Lebanon.

From the operative point of view, an analysis of Hezbollah’s methods indicates that it employed two methods which, at the time, became symbols of Iransponsored terrorism: first, using suicide bombers against the United States and its allies, and later against the IDF; second, abducting Western hostages and hijacking airplanes for the release of prisoners, for revenge and for punishment. These two methods became a model for the Palestinian terrorist organizations, which turned suicide bombing terrorism into the weapon of choice in their 2000-2005 campaign of terrorism against Israel (the second intifada).

The Lebanese Arena

Bombing the American Embassy and American and French military Barracks in Beirut (1983)

Two of Hezbollah’s deadliest terrorist attacks were carried out in Lebanon in April and October 1983. They were orchestrated by Iran and executed by Hezbollah, then headed by Imad Mughniyeh, claiming responsibility with the pseudonym “Islamic Jihad”.

1. The suicide car bombing of the United States embassy in western Beirut (April 18, 1983). The car was packed with about 900 kg (1980 lbs) of explosives. Sixty-three people were killed in the attack, including 17 Americans, 32 Lebanese employees, and 14 visitors. Nearly 120 people were injured, including United States Ambassador Robert Dillon.
2. The attack against the Marine command center and the barracks of the French unit of the multi-national force: a truck carrying 5,450 kilograms (12,015 pounds) of explosives broke through the camp gate, entered the main building and blew up (October 23, 1983).^[48] The explosion caused the deaths of 241 American soldiers (including 220 Marines) and 58 French soldiers.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati denied Iranian involvement in the terrorist attack. However, sensitive intelligence information that leaked (or was leaked) in the United States clearly showed that Iran was behind the terrorist attacks against the United States. This was described in more detail by Dr. Shimon Shapira in his book Hezbollah between Iran and Lebanon:^[49]

“Before the headquarters of the multi-national headquarters was hit, the United States National Security Agency (NSA) picked up communications sent from the Iranian Foreign Ministry to the Iranian embassy in Damascus. In them Tehran asked for a massive attack against the Americans, providing the embassy in Damascus with the sum of twenty five thousand dollars. In addition, the NSA picked up telephone conversations in which the Revolutionary Guards in Baalbek asked permission from the Iranian embassy in Damascus to carry out the attack. However, the deciphered communications revealed nothing about the attack’s date, exact target or modus operandi. One week before the attack, Hossein Sheikh al-Islam, one of the closest aides of Iran’s Foreign Minister Velayati, arrived in Damascus and stayed at the Sheraton Hotel. He left the city one day before the operation. On the morning of the explosion, the Iranian embassy in Beirut was evacuated and its personnel were rushed out of the building.”

Courts in the United States found Iran responsible for Hezbollah’s terrorist attack, in which 241 American soldiers were killed in the Beirut command center. Eight verdicts pertaining to the issue ruled that Iran had to pay over $8.8 billion to the victims’ families. The last verdict, dated July 3, 2012, ruled that Iran had to suffer the consequences of supporting terrorism and pay $813 million to the families of the victims (Agence France-Presse, July 7, 2012).

Severe Blow to the Lebanese Branch of the CIA

The 17 Americans who died in the embassy included nine CIA members and support personnel, including the Beirut station chief. Also killed was Robert Ames, the leading CIA analyst in the Arab world, who was staying at the embassy during a visit to Beirut. It was “the deadliest day in the history of the agency”, says Tim Weiner in his book. “The blast was the work of Imad Mughniyah, supported by Iran.”^[50]

Among the Americans abducted was William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Lebanon, abducted in March 1984. On October 3, 1985, his captors claimed that they had killed him. The remains of his body were found in a plastic bag on the way to the Beirut airport in 1991.^[51]

The abduction and murder of American intelligence personnel during the bombing of the embassy were a severe blow to the capabilities of the American intelligence agency in Lebanon and elsewhere. According to Tim Weiner:

“As the CIA fought to rebuild in Beirut, it did not see a new force rising from the rubble. An assassin named Imad Mughniyeh, a chieftain of the violent terrorist group called Hezbollah, the Party of God, was gathering money and explosives, training his thugs for a series of bombings and kidnappings that would paralyze the United States for years to come. He reported to Tehran, where the Ayatollah Khomeini was creating an Office of Liberation Movements to further his messianic vision of conquering Iraq… Mughniyah’s name has been forgotten now, but he was the Osama bin Laden of the 1980s… The obliteration of the Beirut station and the death of Robert Ames destroyed the agency’s capability for gathering information in Lebanon and in much of the Middle East.”^[52]

Abducting Western Nationals

Overview

Another type of terrorist attack carried out in Lebanon in the 1980s, mainly by Hezbollah, was the abduction of Western nationals for punishment, intimidation and bargaining, intended to advance Iran’s interests and free detained terrorists. In the ten years between 1982 and 1992, 96 foreign nationals from 21 countries were abducted in Lebanon: 25 Americans, 16 French, 12 English, 7 Swiss, and 7 West Germans (Wikipedia). Most of the captives were innocent civilians who lived and worked in Lebanon, such as journalists, lecturers in higher education institutions (particularly the American University of Beirut), and humanitarian activists. Some of them were United States administration officials from other Western countries.

The abduction of the Western nationals was part of an overall Iranian strategy of making extensive use of terrorism for political gain and strategic gain. Most of the captives were released shortly after being abducted, but others were held in captivity for weeks, months and even years. Some of them were murdered by their captors. Hezbollah was responsible for most of the abductions, which were intended to advance the interests of Iran as well as those of Hezbollah itself. The abductions were carried out under such pseudonyms as Islamic Jihad, the Revolutionary Justice Organization, and the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth. When Iranian policy changed in the late 1980s, the wave of abductions stopped.

Information about some of the abductees (according to Wikipedia and other sources):

1. David Dodge: United States citizen, president of the American University of Beirut. Abducted in July 1982 and released on July 21, 1983. While in captivity he was transferred to Iran, where he was interrogated about his connections with the United States administration.
2. Frank Regier: United States citizen, lecturer at the American University of Beirut. Lived in Lebanon for 27 years. Abducted on February 11, 1984 and released in April of the same year.
3. Benjamin Weir: United States citizen. He and his wife were missionaries for the Presbyterian Church. Abducted in May 1984 in Beirut. Freed one year and four months later.
4. Peter Kilburn: United States citizen, librarian at the American University of Beirut. Abducted on December 3, 1984, about one month before his retirement. He was murdered by his captors. His body was found in April 1986 and brought back to the United States for burial.
5. Eric Wehrli: Swiss diplomat, served in western Beirut. Abducted on January 3, 1985. Freed on January 8 by activists belonging to the Amal movement. The Amal activists claimed that they had identified some of Wehrli’s captors as relatives of a Hezbollah operative who was detained at the Zurich airport on December 18, 1984.^[53]
6. Lawrence Jenco: American priest, director of the Catholic welfare services in Beirut. Abducted on his way to work on January 8, 1985. Freed on July 26, 1986.
7. Geoffrey Nash and Brian Lebick: two British subjects abducted in western Beirut. They were released shortly thereafter.
8. Terry A. Anderson: United States citizen, reporter on Middle Eastern affairs for AP. Abducted in Beirut on March 16, 1985, freed on December 4, 1991; moved from place to place while in captivity.
9. Jean Paul Kaufmann: French journalist, worked for Agence France-Presse in Beirut. Abducted on May 22, 1985 and freed three years later. Abducted at the same time was French sociologist Michel Seurat, who was conducting research on Shi’ite Islam in Beirut. In addition, three staff members of the French embassy in Beirut were abducted in March 1985. They were freed in November 1986.
10. David Jacobsen: United States citizen, director of the hospital of the American University of Beirut. Abducted in May 1985 and released on November 2, 1986.
11. Marcel Coudry: French businessman who lived in Beirut. Abducted on March 3, 1986, with four crew members of the France-2 TV channel. They were released on June 20, 1986.
12. John McCarthy: British citizen, reporter for CBE. Abducted on April 16 with Brian Keenan, from Ireland, also a reporter for CBE. McCarthy was freed on August 8, 1991. Kennan was freed by the Syrian army on August 24, 1990 and transferred to Damascus.
13. John Douglas and Philip Padfield: two British subjects who worked for the American University of Beirut. Their bodies were found in April 1986.
14. Frank Reed: United States citizen, director of the International School of Lebanon. Abducted on July 26, 1986 and freed in May 1990.
15. Joseph Ciccipio: United States citizen, worked for the American University of Beirut. Abducted on September 12, 1986 and freed in 1991.
16. Edward Tracy: United States citizen, author. Abducted on October 21, 1986 and released in August 1991.
17. Alan Steen, Jesse Turner, Robert Polhill: three Americans, abducted on January 24, 1987. Two of them taught at the American College in western Beirut, the third was a lecturer on business management at the American University of Beirut. They were abducted with an Indian citizen. Polhill was freed in 1991.
18. Alfred Schmidt and Rudolph Cordes: two businessmen from West Germany. Abducted in January 1987 and held hostage for the release of Muhammad Ali Hammadi, a Hezbollah operative held in Germany.
19. Roger Auque: French citizen, journalist, abducted on January 14, 1987. Freed on November 28 of the same year.
20. Terry Waite: British subject, human rights activist, author. Mediated the release of captives in Lebanon on behalf of the Anglican Church. Abducted on January 20, 1987 while on a mediating mission. Freed on November 18, 1991.
21. Charles Glass: United States citizen, TV reporter. Studied at the American University of Beirut and lived there for six years. Abducted on June 17, 1987.
22. Jackie Mann: British subject, served as Chief Pilot with Middle Eastern Airlines, Lebanon’s national carrier. Abducted in May 1989 and freed on September 24, 1991.
23. Emanuel Christen and Elio Erriquez: two Swiss nationals abducted in Sidon on October 6, 1989 while on a humanitarian mission for the Red Cross. They were freed ten months later.
24. Jeremy Levin: the CNN bureau chief in Beirut. He was abducted on March 27, 1984 and escaped from captivity in the Beqaa Valley on January 14, 1985.

Another top United States official who was abducted and murdered was Colonel William Higgins, chief of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSCO) in south Lebanon. He was abducted in February 1988, tortured and murdered by his Hezbollah captors.

Assassination of Western and Jewish Figures

Overview

Some of the Western hostages abducted by Hezbollah were murdered by their captors. In several cases their bodies were found and sent back to their home countries. The following are two examples of high-ranking Westerners who were stationed in Beirut and were killed in attacks carried out by Hezbollah:

Murdering the French Military Attaché in Lebanon (1986)

On September 18, 1986, Christian Gouttière, the French military attaché in Lebanon, was murdered by Hezbollah. Hezbollah operative Hussein Mustafa Tleis, a Shi’ite Muslim from the Beqaa Valley, participated in the murder. Terrorists armed with silencer-equipped pistols fired three shots into Colonel Gouttière’s head after he parked his car outside the French embassy compound in the eastern Beirut neighborhood of Hazmieh. After the murder, one of the Western news agencies in the city was called by an anonymous individual who claimed responsibility on behalf of a non-existent organization called the Justice and Vengeance Front. The caller also insinuated that the murder was part of the wave of killings that had taken place in Paris that year (UPI, Beirut, September 18, 1986).^[54]

During his trial and the appeal against the verdict, Tleis admitted to murdering Gouttière. He said that he had belonged to Hezbollah since 1982 and had been carrying out Hezbollah’s orders. According to Tleis, the murder was in retaliation for the 1983 French Air Force attack on the Hezbollah stronghold in Baalbek, Lebanon Valley. Tleis admitted that he was involved in a car bombing in northern Beirut and in planning to assassinate Camille Chamoun, Lebanon’s former president and the Christian camp leader (AP Beirut, February 25, 1998).

In 1994 Hussein Tleis was found guilty by a military court in Lebanon, which sentenced him to death. He was pardoned under the general amnesty granted to perpetrators of political crimes during the Lebanese civil war. His death sentence was commuted to a lifetime sentence. In 1998 Hussein Tleis escaped from the Roumieh Prison infirmary, where he was brought due to an illness (arabicnews.com, AP, February 25, 1998).

Murdering the President of the American University of Beirut (1984)^[55]

On January 18, 1984, Malcolm H. Kerr, the President of the American University of Beirut, was shot in the back of the head as he approached his office. The killers were two young men who fled the scene and were never identified. The assassination followed the modus operandi of murdering and abducting Western nationals, a tactic which Hezbollah employed in the 1980s at Iran’s bidding. The lecturers and staff of the American University of Beirut, perceived by Iran and Hezbollah as a symbol of Western culture, became favorite targets for abduction and murder.

Malcolm Kerr was born in Beirut in 1931 to American parents. He grew up near the American University of Beirut and studied at Princeton University. His first teaching job was at the American University of Beirut, where he taught at the department of Political Science for three years. He subsequently taught at UCLA. Kerr was considered an expert on the politics of the Middle East. One of his well-known books is The Arab Cold War, Gamal ‘Abd Al-Nasir and His Rivals (1958-1970).

In March 1982, after a twenty-year academic career at UCLA, Kerr returned to Beirut. In the same month he was appointed president of the American University of Beirut. The University continued functioning for two years despite the dramatic events taking place in Lebanon at the time (the civil war, the IDF siege on Beirut, the terrorist attacks on American targets in Beirut in 1983) until the morning of January 18, 1984, when Kerr was assassinated.

In 2002 Malcolm Kerr’s widow, children and sister filed a lawsuit in America against Iran and Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS)^[56] for their role in the assassination. The court was given evidence that Hezbollah had carried out the assassination using the pseudonym Islamic Jihad with the logistical and financial support of Iran and the MOIS. The court heard the testimonies of the United States ambassador to Lebanon at the time and American intelligence officials. The court found Iran responsible for the assassination of Malcolm Kerr, carried out by Hezbollah, and entered a judgment against Iran for compensatory damage to the victim’s family.

Kidnapping and Abducting Jews (1985)

After the IDF withdrew from Lebanon in 1985, Hezbollah carried out a wave of abductions of Lebanese Jews from families that had lived in Lebanon for generations. About half of the captives were over the age of fifty. They were executed several months after being abducted. As usual, Hezbollah did not claim responsibility but hid behind a pseudonym of the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth.

The abductions began in late March 1985 in Wadi Abu Jamil, the Jewish quarter of western Beirut. Eight Jews were abducted simultaneously in a carefully planned operation, including Isaac Sasson, leader of the Jewish community, and Dr. Elie Hallaq, the community physician. The captors demanded the release of hundreds of Lebanese detainees held in Israel and in the South Lebanese Army’s Al-Khiyam detention facility. When their demands were not met the hostages were executed one by one. Some were buried at the Jewish cemetery in eastern Beirut; the other bodies were never found.

Epilogue

In the late 1980s, after the Iran-Iraq War, the wave of terrorism launched at Iran’s bidding came to a halt. For Iran, having Hezbollah hold Western hostages in Lebanon went from being an asset that occasionally proved itself to a liability for the Imam Khomeini’s successors, particularly President Rafsanjani. This was evident in Rafsanjani’s policy of its serving Iran’s interests to look for ways to approach the West and present a “smiling face” to the international community.

Once Iranian policy changed, Hezbollah’s wave of abductions stopped and within several months all the hostages held in Lebanon were released. Furthermore, after 1990, Hezbollah’s terrorist apparatuses no longer abducted foreign nationals in Lebanon. To paraphrase Shimon Shapira in his book Hezbollah between Iran and Lebanon,^[57] the violence was quelled by the hand that had unleashed it. In addition, the Syrians also wanted to stop the abductions and release the hostages as they completed their takeover of Lebanon after the withdrawal of the IDF.

The International Arena

Attacks on the American and French Embassies in Kuwait (1983)

On December 12, 1983, eight months after the attack on the United States embassy in Beirut, the embassies of the United States and France in Kuwait were hit by a wave of terrorist attacks, as were Kuwaiti targets. Orchestrated by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the attacks were carried out by Hezbollah using the methods employed in Lebanon. As usual, Hezbollah did not claim responsibility for the attacks (which were attributed, among others, to the “Islamic Jihad,” one of Hezbollah’s operational pseudonyms).

Details of the attacks:

1. On December 12, 1983, a van carrying 45 kg (99 lbs) of gas attached to plastic explosives broke through the front gate of the United States embassy in Kuwait. The van sped toward the three-story embassy building and blew up, demolishing half of the building and killing five people: two Kuwaitis, two Palestinians, and one Syrian (AP, January 1, 1983).
2. Approximately one hour after the attack a bomb went off in a car parked near the French embassy building. The explosion blew a hole in the embassy’s security wall. Five people were injured (AP, January 1, 1983).
3. At around the same time, more car bombings struck Kuwaiti and Western targets in Kuwait City.
   1. A van packed with explosives blew up about 150 m (about 490 feet) from a refinery and just several feet away from a site where chemicals were stored.
   2. Another car blew up at the control tower of the Kuwait international airport. American citizens lived near the explosion site and worked at a factory for an American company that delivered missile systems to Kuwait. One Egyptian technician was killed.

In his book Hezbollah between Iran and Lebanon, Dr. Shimon Shapira, relying on Professor Martin Kramer, divided the objectives of Iranian and Hezbollah terrorist activity at the time into several categories. In his view, the bombings of the United States and French embassies in Beirut were operations carried out to help Iran in its war against Iraq, more specifically, to force the ruler of Kuwait to stop supporting Iraq (the 1984 attempted assassination of the Kuwaiti emir was presumably carried out for the same purpose). The series of bombings in Paris in 1986 can also be considered signals to the French government to abandon its policy of selling weapons to Iraq (see below).^[58]

Attempted Assassination of the Emir of Kuwait (1985)

In mid-1985, an attempt was foiled to assassinate the Kuwaiti emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah. The commander of the assassination was Hezbollah operative Mustafa Badr al-Din, Imad Mughniyeh’s brother-in-law. Twenty years later, Mustafa Badr al-Din played a key role in the murder of Lebanon’s PM Rafiq Hariri (Mustafa Badr al-Din is supposed to stand trial before the international tribunal investigating Hariri’s murder).

Photograph from the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas: Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, the emir of Kuwait, in his first TV appearance after the attempted assassination (Hewarona.com website)

After the terrorist attacks on the embassies of the United States and France and the Kuwaiti targets, Mustafa Badr al-Din and 17 other Hezbollah operatives or collaborators were detained in Kuwait. Mustafa Badr al-Din was sentenced to death, but the execution of his sentence was deferred. Meanwhile, Hezbollah made an effort to release him and the other Hezbollah operatives held in Kuwait by hijacking airplanes for bargaining, including the hijacking of the TWA plane in 1985 and Kuwaiti planes in 1984 and 1988.

Hijacking Planes

Overview

In the 1980s Hezbollah, with Iranian assistance, carried out several airplane hijackings. Between 1982 and 1988, ten planes were hijacked by Shi’ite operatives,^[59] most of whom, in our assessment, were members of Hezbollah. The hijackings served Iranian interests, particularly in the context of the Iran-Iraq War, and were also intended to free Hezbollah operatives detained in Israel, Kuwait, France and other countries. The hijackings were masterminded by Imad Mughniyeh. The following are details of some of the major hijackings:

Hijacking a TWA Flight 847 (1985)

On June 14, 1985, TWA flight 847, a Boeing 727 en route from Athens to Rome, was hijacked by Hezbollah operatives using the pseudonym Islamic Jihad. Three operatives, Imad Mughniyeh, Hassan Izz al-Din, and Mohammed Ali Hammadi boarded the flight in Athens and smuggled guns and hand grenades on. Another operative, Ali Atwa, was not allowed to board. He was detained by the Greek police (he was later released as part of the deal that ended the hijacking incident). While the plane was in Beirut, 12 more operatives joined those who had boarded in Athens.

Having taken over the plane, the hijackers diverted it to the Beirut airport, where it was refueled, continued on to Algiers, headed back to Beirut, returned to Algiers, and returned to Beirut for a third time. During the second stop in Beirut, the Hezbollah operatives murdered Robert Dean Stethem, a United States Navy diver, and dumped his body from the plane onto the ramp.

The hijackers demanded the release of 17 terrorists held in Kuwait jails for their involvement in the 1983 bombing of the United States embassy; one of them was Mustafa Badr al-Din, Mughniyeh’s brother-in-law. They also demanded the release of 766 Lebanese Shi’ites transferred to Israel after the IDF’s withdrawal from Lebanon. About one month after the hijacking, Israel released more than 700 Lebanese detainees, even though it denied any connection between the release and the hijacking.^[60]

On October 10, 2001, after the September 11 events, the United States administration put the three TWA hijackers on the FBI’s most wanted terrorists list. A reward of up to $25 million was offered for information leading to the capture or conviction of Imad Mughniyeh.

Imad Mughniyeh (center) with other Hezbollah operatives who took part in hijacking TWA flight 847 (YouTube)

Another Hezbollah operative who took part in the hijacking of the TWA flight was Mohammed Ali Hammadi. He was sentenced to prison in Frankfurt in 1987 for attempting to smuggle liquid explosives into Germany. He was charged with the murder of the United States Navy diver during the hijacking and sentenced to life imprisonment. Hammadi was pardoned and released by the German government and returned to Lebanon in 2005. In 2006 the United States formally asked Lebanon to extradite him, but the Lebanese government did not comply.

In 2009 Hammadi went to Afghanistan and joined an Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic organization (Jama’at al-Jihad al-Islami) based in Waziristan, Pakistan. According to media reports based on Pakistani intelligence sources, Hammadi was killed in an American drone strike in 2010 (Palday.net/forum).

American bulletin in Arabic offering a reward of up to$ 5 million to anyone providing information on Hezbollah operative Mohammed Ali Hammadi (rewardsforjustice.net)

Hijacking Kuwaiti Airplanes (1984, 1988)

On December 3, 1984, a Kuwait Airways flight from Kuwait City to Pakistan was hijacked by four Shi’ite Lebanese who, in our assessment, were Hezbollah operatives. The flight was diverted to Tehran. The hijackers demanded the release of detained terrorists. Two Americans (members of the United States Agency for International Development) were shot during the hijacking. Other American citizens were threatened and tortured.

After six days, Iranian security released the hostages. Some passengers claimed that the hijackers had received weapons and additional equipment during the stay in Iran, including handcuffs to use on the passengers. Even though the Iranian authorities announced that they would bring the hijackers to trial, they were allowed to leave Iran (Pbs.org website).

On April 5, 1988, a Kuwaiti Boeing 747 en route from Bangkok to Kuwait City was hijacked with 111 passengers and crew on board. Three of the passengers were members of the Kuwaiti royal family. The plane was forced to land in Mashhad, Iran. The hijackers, Hezbollah operatives armed with guns and grenades, demanded the release of 17 Hezbollah operatives held in Kuwait. One of the hijackers was Hezbollah operative Hassan Izz al-Din, who had taken part in hijacking the TWA flight in 1985. Sixteen days later the plane took off from Mashhad and made a stop in Larnaka, Cyprus, where two passengers were killed and their bodies were dumped from the plane. The plane then continued to Algiers, where the passengers were set free. The Hezbollah operatives who hijacked the plane were given free passage to Beirut. The 17 prisoners held in Kuwait, including Mustafa Badr al-Din, were not released (but were able to escape from prison after the Iraqi invasion).

Kuwait blamed the hijacking on Lebanese Hezbollah, including Imad Mughniyeh, the organization’s top operative. The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas reported that 37 Lebanese Hezbollah operatives had come from Beirut to Iran in preparation for hijacking the Kuwaiti plane in 1988 (Al-Qabas, 1988). For the Kuwaiti regime, Mughniyeh’s death in Damascus in 2008 was a point of closure: on February 14, 2008, Kuwait’s minister of internal affairs told media that Imad Mughniyeh, who died in Damascus, had been responsible for the hijacking of the Kuwaiti flight, or as he put it: “Killing the criminal Imad Mughniyeh was divine vengeance for those who killed the sons of Kuwait, and for throwing [their bodies] from the plane in Cyprus” (techzone360.com website).

The (Lebanese) Hezbollah accused of cooperating with Iran to hijack the Kuwaiti plane (Al-Qabas, 1988)

The body of a murdered passenger being dumped from the plane by the hijackers during a stop at Larnaka Airport in Cyprus (Hewarona.com website)

Hijacking Air France Planes (1983, 1984)

As part of the terrorist campaign against France, Hezbollah hijacked planes to use as bargaining chips for the release of Hezbollah operatives. Two Air France planes and one Air Afrique plane were hijacked for that purpose.

Details of the hijackings:

1. On August 26, 1983, an Air France plane was hijacked out of Austria, apparently by Hezbollah operatives. They demanded the release of Lebanese prisoners held in France and the cessation of French military aid to Iraq, Lebanon and Chad.^[61]
2. On July 31, 1984, another Air France plane was hijacked en route from Frankfurt to France. It was forced to land in Iran, where it was blown up by the hijackers. An organization calling itself the Islamic Organization for the Liberation of Jerusalem (a pseudonym) claimed responsibility for the hijacking.

Hijacking an Air Afrique Plane (1987) and its Consequences

On July 24, 1987, an Air Afrique plane en route to the Congo was hijacked over Milan. The hijacker was Hezbollah operative Hossein Ali Mohammed Hariri, who demanded the release of his two brothers, terrorists held in West Germany (one of them on charges of involvement in the 1985 hijacking of the TWA plane). The hijacker also demanded the release of terrorists held in France (including Hezbollah operatives).

The hijacked plane landed at the Geneva airport to refuel, and a French passenger was shot dead by the hijacker during the stop. A stewardess who jumped on the hijacker was shot and wounded. Several hours later, the Swiss police took control of the plane and arrested the hijacker. The Iranians and Hezbollah attempted to pressure the Swiss into releasing him: in late July an explosive device blew up near the Swiss embassy in Beirut; in August an explosive device blew up in Geneva. Nevertheless, the hijacker was brought to trial and sentenced to life imprisonment.

True to form, Lebanese Hezbollah operatives abducted Swiss citizens in Lebanon as bargaining chips for the release of Hezbollah members held in Switzerland:

1. November 17, 1988: Peter Winkler, a Swiss citizen and chief of the Red Cross office in southern Lebanon, was abducted in Lebanon by three armed gunmen about one month after his arrival in the country. The hijackers apparently intended to exchange him for Ali Mohammed Hariri, the hijacker of the Air Afrique plane who had been arrested by the Swiss authorities (deseretnews.com, November 18, 1988).
2. October 6, 1989: two Swiss Red Cross workers, Emanuel Christen and Elio Erriquez, were abducted in Sidon. The hijackers demanded the release of the Air Afrique hijacker. The two men were freed on August 8 and 13, 1990 and transferred to Switzerland via Damascus (highbeam.com, August 9, 1990).

Iranian and Hezbollah Involvement in the Wave of Killings in Paris (1986-1987)

In the 1980s France was a preferred target for Iran and Hezbollah’s international campaign of terrorism. The anti-French wave of terrorism was manifested in various ways: bombing the multi-national force barracks in Beirut; attempting to bomb the French embassy in Kuwait; hijacking French planes; taking French hostages in Lebanon and launching a wave of terrorist attacks in France itself. The objectives were to stop French military assistance to Iraq, remove the French unit from the multi-national force in Lebanon, settle France’s debt to Iran and release detained terrorists — both from Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations — from prisons in France.

The terrorist campaign against France peaked in 1986, when three series of massmurder attacks were carried out in Paris by detonating explosive devices in crowded places. The terrorist attacks, which nearly paralyzed the city, took place in February, March and September, hitting commercial centers, intercity trains, the Paris Metro, the Champs Elysees, the Eiffel Tower and other public sites.^[62] Eleven people were killed and over 220 injured in the attacks. Responsibility was claimed by an unknown network calling itself the Committee for Solidarity with Near Eastern Political Prisoners (CSPPA). However, some time later the French security services received information indicating that Iran and Hezbollah were involved in at least some of the 1986 attacks.

In early 1987 French security forces exposed a Shi’ite network headquartered in a Muslim school in a Parisian suburb, directed by Fouad Ben Ali Saleh (www.start.umd.edu). The members of the Hezbollah-affiliated network were detained in March 1987 as they were about to complete preparations for a new wave of terrorist attacks. Fouad Ben Ali Saleh, the network leader, was a Shi’ite Muslim of Tunisian extraction who was born in Paris and had French citizenship. In 1981-1982 he received military training in Iran while studying in the city of Qom. After his arrest, he announced that Iran was the bastion of Islam and that France was an “enemy” for helping Iraq fight Iran. He said that his main purpose was to use violence to make France “think clearly.”

The trial of Fouad Ben Ali Saleh, his wife and another operative in the network (a Lebanese driver) began on January 30, 1990. According to the French prosecution, the network worked for Hezbollah to force France to stop its assistance to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War and free detained terrorists.^[63] Fouad Ali Ben Saleh was sentenced to life and two of the network’s operatives were sentenced to twenty years in prison.

A second network was exposed in Paris in March-April 1987. Its operatives were affiliated with one of Hezbollah’s terrorist groups in Europe. It was exposed after the arrest of Hezbollah operatives in Italy and Germany in January 1987. The network’s operatives were involved in preparations for terrorist attacks and maintained contact with the Iranian embassy in Paris. In 1987 approximately sixty people were arrested on suspicion of involvement or membership in the terrorist network.^[64] Two Lebanese nationals, Abbas Hawajeh and Mohammed Moussawi, were among those detained in Paris. According to the spokesman of the French interior minister, Moussawi had been in contact with the Iranian embassy in Paris (Los Angeles Times, July 26, 1987).

Fouad Ben Ali Saleh’s network was placed under surveillance, leading investigators to another suspect, Wahid Gordigi, who worked as an interpreter at the Iranian embassy in Paris. Gordigi was suspected of coordinating many of the terrorist operations carried out in 1986. The network he handled consisted of Tunisian, Lebanese and Armenian operatives, and carried out terrorist attacks in crowded places in Paris starting in February 1986.^[65] Wahid Gordigi escaped to the Iranian embassy and was able to avoid being arrested. Iran, which argued that he had diplomatic immunity (even though he was not officially listed as a diplomat) gave him asylum and refused to extradite him (New York Times, July 3, 1987). French police forces then surrounded the Iranian embassy in Paris. In response, the Iranian police laid a siege to the French embassy in Tehran.^[66]

The embassy sieges led to a crisis in France-Iran diplomatic relations. On July 16, 1987, Iran said it was reducing the staff of its Paris embassy and threatened to break off relations within 72 hours unless France stopped blockading the embassy and punished a policeman who had beaten an Iranian representative (Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1987). As a result, the diplomatic ties between Iran and France were severed that month. Hezbollah reacted by taking several French citizens hostage in Lebanon.^[67]

The crisis ended in late 1987 and during 1988. Vahid Gordigi supposedly turned himself over to the French authorities, was questioned for two hours and put on a direct flight to Iran. In addition, France partially complied with Iran’s demand for the return of the loans it had received during the Shah’s regime (approximately $330 million out of $1 billion); Iranian opposition activists (particularly members of the Mojahedeen-e Khalq organization) were expelled from France. The measures led to the release of the last French hostages in Lebanon in May 1988. The diplomatic ties between Iran and France were reinstated on June 16, 1988, and their relations went back to normal.^[68]

For Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, using terrorism as a weapon proved worthwhile in the case of France as well, even though the French authorities denied making any deals with Iran and Syria, which were behind Hezbollah’s campaign of terrorism.^[69]

Prevention of Terrorist Activity in Germany (1987, 1989)

On January 13, 1987, Mohammed Ali Hammadi, a Hezbollah operative who had taken part in the 1985 hijacking of the TWA flight, was arrested in West Germany. He was caught trying to smuggle liquid explosives into Germany hidden in three large bottles of arak. During questioning he revealed the locations of large stockpiles of weapons near the French-German border. He was tried in Germany, convicted of the murder of the United States Navy diver during the hijacking of the TWA flight and sentenced to life imprisonment. Hezbollah responded by taking five German citizens hostage in Lebanon between 1987 and 1989. Eventually Mohammed Hammadi was pardoned, freed in 2005 and returned to Lebanon.

In March 1989 German security forces in the city of Darmstadt arrested Bassam Gharib Makki, a Hezbollah operative and student in Germany. In his possession were documents containing information on Israeli, Jewish and American sites in Germany that had been chosen as targets for terrorist attacks. He also had intelligence on British, French, Iraqi, Saudi and Kuwaiti sites that were being considered as potential targets. A search of his apartment revealed evidence linking him to terrorist activity, including instructions in Arabic for preparing and activating explosive devices.

Hezbollah Network Exposed in Spain (1989)

In November 1989 a Hezbollah cell was exposed in the city of Valencia. It consisted of several Hezbollah operatives and local collaborators. The cell was exposed after a large stockpile of weapons (including explosives and detonators) was found on board a ship that had arrived in Spain from Lebanon via Cyprus. The cell members were arrested and weapons were discovered in their homes. They admitted during questioning that they intended to use the weapons to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli and American targets in Europe.

To read the first part of the full study, go here: Hezbollah: Portrait of a Terrorist Organization

To read Appendix I, go here: Hezbollah’s Terrorist Activity, 2000-2012

To read Appendix II, go here: Hezbollah’s Terrorist Activities during the 1990s

Notes:

[47] In February 1984 President Ronald Reagan announced the pullout of U.S. troops from Lebanon. His example was soon followed by France and Italy, the United States’ partners in the multi-national force in Lebanon.

[48] The FBI’s forensic laboratory called it the largest conventional explosion its experts had ever had to deal with (from an American Defense Department report published in the Marine Corps Gazette, February 1984).

[49] Shimon Shapira, Hezbollah between Iran and Lebanon (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2000), pp. 165-167 and footnotes 109-111, p. 233. Shapira notes that the leaking of this sensitive intelligence information, intended to prove that the United States was aware who was behind the terrorist attacks against it, angered many of the United States intelligence community senior officials. He also notes that immediately after the information was published, Iran stopped exchanging communications between the Foreign Ministry in Tehran and its embassy in Damascus.

[50] Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Doubleday, 2007), p. 391.

[51] Weiner, p. 393. According to Tim Weiner’s book, “the CIA came up with at least a dozen plans to free Buckley,” including kidnapping Imad Mughniyeh, but it never had enough intelligence to execute them.

[52] Ibid., pp. 390-391.

[53] The Hezbollah operative was found with explosives intended to be used in a bombing on the United States embassy in Rome.

[54] See also: Amine Gemayel, Al-Rihan al-Kabir (Arabic) (Beirut: Dar al-Nahar lil-Nashr, 1988), p. 123.

[55] This subsection is based on the decision issued by the U.S. court in the lawsuit filed by Malcolm Kerr’s family against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

[56] In the 1980s and 1990s, the MOIS was responsible for several terrorist attacks directed by Iran in various locations across the globe.

[57] Shapira, p. 167.

[58] Shapira, pp. 161-162.

[59] Kam, p. 265.

[60] Weiner, p. 401.

[61] Shaul Shay, Terror at the Command of the Imam (Hebrew), p. 75. At the time, France opposed the Libyan invasion of Chad. This led to tensions in France’s relations with the government of Libya, which also supported international terrorism.

[62] For a table listing the sites of the terrorist attacks in Paris, see Jeremy Shapiro and Bénédicte Suzan, “The French Experience of Counter-terrorism” (Survival, vol. 45, No. 1, Spring 2003).

[63] Shay, pp. 110-111.

[64] Ibid., p. 113.

[65] Kam, pp. 267-268.

[66] Shay, pp. 96-97, 112; www.pls.org, August 6, 2011.

[67] pls.org, August 6, 2011.

[68] Shay, pp. 96-97, 112; Kam, p. 268 (Hebrew); pls.org, August 6, 2011.

[69] Shapiro and Suzan, “The French Experience.”

RubinReports | By Barry Rubin

The final goodbye to Superpower America?

If we reach the following, highly unpleasant, conclusion what are the implications?

The United States has taken a political turn which at least for the next four years will guarantee that it does not play the role of a great power mindful of and willing to protect its own true interests, supporting its allies, and combating its real foes? On the contrary, through inaction or active effort the leadership of America will take counterproductive actions that achieve the opposite result. And there are certain factors — radical ideological hegemony, a weak economy and growing debt, structural social changes, the weakness and disorganization of the opposition — that may make this situation regarding America’s international behavior and policies a long-term, partly irreversible condition.

In other words, we don’t know if America is finished as the world’s leading power but we do know that it will not take leadership and certainly not leadership in a good direction for a while and perhaps will never fully recover. Please note carefully that I am speaking here only of U.S. foreign policy and more remarking on the domestic situation.

So what do those outside the United States do to face this situation?

There are those readers who would contest the accuracy of this statement. They will say that Barack Obama is a great president or at least a decent one. There is no big problem regarding U.S. foreign policy at all. In fact, he and his team, which now includes Secretary of State-designate John Kerry, will be just fine or at least okay. They will make the point — valid but irrelevant — that the United States doesn’t control everything in the world. Of course, but what about the things it can affect?

Unfortunately, American allies and clients cannot afford the luxury of clueless optimism or wishful thinking. Some will grumble publicly and scramble to limit the damage. Others will smile, praise the president, and scramble to limit the damage. To put it another way, it doesn’t matter whether you agree with me. I’m telling you what’s actually happening.

Other readers will want to debate endlessly on the cause of the problem. Why is this happening? Is it deliberate or due to incompetence and bad ideology? Various conspiracy theories will be raised and time wasted on them. To put it another way, for the purposes of this particular article at least I don’t care who or what you blame or what you intend to do about it, I’m talking about what’s happening right now.

It is fortunate that in these post-Cold War times there is no candidate to replace America as world leader. Instead, we have candidates to be regional leaders: China in Asia; the European Union already playing that role in Western Europe; Russia trying to do this in Central/Eastern Europe; and Egypt, Iran, and Turkey competing for hegemony in the Middle East.

But here’s the real issue: things look bad. What does this mean specifically and how can potential victims react? Let’s begin with a very brief survey of the world scene.

Latin America. There are now several radical regimes in the area — most notably Venezuela — alongside, of course, Cuba. America’s allies in the region are dismayed that the former group (except for Cuba) gets soft, even favorable, treatment by Washington. Fortunately, radical revolutions or major armed insurgencies don’t seem probable. So leaders in the region will worry a lot, be frustrated (why should we be nice to the United States when it doesn’t help us but rather rewards being anti-American?) but get through it. Ironically, of course, the current administration favors policies that are sure to fail in South America so to the degree Washington has influence it will help sabotage the region’s economic progress.

Sub-Saharan Africa: What is truly remarkable is how the Obama Administration has done nothing to change U.S. policy in the area. One might have expected that given its worldview and certain ethno-racial factors and ideas in the U.S. leadership, Obama would have wanted to make this region a showcase of how he differed from his predecessors, as a model of reparations for past colonialism and racism. No such luck for the Africans. They will continue to suffer economic and political hardship without significantly increased U.S. help. Bad but not a change from the usual neglect. Let them eat rhetoric!

South Asia: The pro-Pakistan policy will continue; India will be mistreated. Again, bad but no big change. It will just be more of watching Pakistan help conceal al-Qaeda terrorists, work for a radical Islamist Afghanistan once the U.S. forces withdraw, and sponsor terrorism against India as Washington pays more billions in aid money. That Afghanistan issue might cause a crisis: Why did hundreds of Americans die there? Someone — albeit not so much in the mass media — might ask if and when Kabul is taken over by a new anti-American regime. Also slated to be killed, Afghans who helped the Western forces. They will start seeking new protectors very soon.

East Asia: The smaller countries which want U.S. help and protection against what they perceive as an ever-stronger China won’t get it. This will make them very nervous indeed. Since I believe China doesn’t have aggressive geopolitical intentions, that situation won’t deteriorate too much in military terms. Yet in economic terms the U.S. government is ceding a great deal to China. Much or most of Asia may become a Chinese economic zone and that will be costly to Americans since potential markets for American goods will in some cases go to China instead, further reducing opportunities for the U.S. economy. Leaders of other countries will scramble to get in good with the new regional superpower as they perceive the United States no longer matters very much. And we all better hope that North Korea doesn’t get too confident — hopefully Beijing will restrain that wacko dictatorship — and attack the South.

Western Europe: Honk if you love Obama. Since European leadership is still obsessed with the EU project and seeks to varnish over rather than deal with their deep economic and social structural problems, they will have no big problems with Obama. He doesn’t attack them, just feeds their addictions. We are familiar with the European stereotype of Americans as the ignorant, irresponsible cowboy (applied to George W. Bush) but there is far less talk about the European stereotype of Americans as naive, blundering, would-be do-gooders who make a giant mess (Barack Obama). Yet there are elements of American decline that many Europeans and European leaders like. The day may come when they think otherwise. As I once remarked to a European ambassador, who agreed, they spent eight years trying to hold Bush back and now are spending four years trying to pull Obama forward.

Central/Eastern Europe: Here is a potential big problem. Russian leader Vladimir Putin thinks he can do whatever he wants. He will continue to turn as much as possible of the ex-Soviet now independent states into a Russian zone of influence. If he ever decided he wanted to take over Belarus or Ukraine, or to attack Georgia again, he knows this can be done without any problem from America. Similarly, the regional states know they cannot depend on American support. Have no doubt that people in countries like Poland and the Czech Republic think about this every day.

So we see in Latin America, Asia, and Central Europe that American allies have no reliable protector anymore. They are left potentially helpless to possibly voracious local powers that are more radical than themselves. And of course they are all hurt by the ongoing poor state of the American economy. Lesson: Don’t make the bad guys angry if possible; move away if possible from relying on the United States.

Some, however, will benefit from policies that ensure the export of American jobs. But the Chinese — who seem on the surface to be the main beneficiaries — are horrified to find themselves holding so much American debt as a U.S. government inflates the dollar and goes ever deeper into debt. It is a very bad investment indeed.

The thing to watch for is if there’s a crisis. How well would the United States respond to wars, coups, invasions, revolutions, economic collapses? What kind of leadership would be shown in cases paralleling, say, the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait? What would Washington do if massive repression breaks out in Egypt with the massacre of Christians? Or how would Obama respond if Putin were to grab some neighbor’s territory in part or in full? You can come up with a great many scenarios that could happen. And in each case the local leaders and a lot of people both think and worry about such scenarios becoming real.

At a minimum, knowing they cannot depend on U.S. help makes moderates and democrats more reluctant to fight, more willing to concede or surrender, and certain to despair.

In short, this current (voluntary, not inevitable) decline of the United States places a lot of people at risk. The question is whether there will be crises in which bad and weak American performance makes things worse.

And this brings us to the Middle East where we know such crises will take place. I don’t want to repeat what I’ve written many times. But to put the whole thing into three sentences:

Israel, relatively moderate Arab regimes (including, yes, Saudi Arabia), and real moderate opposition movements know they cannot depend on the United States for the next four years and perhaps for much longer. To make things worse, the U.S. government is aiding their enemies. Consequently, they must act on their own to protect themselves.

For the Saudis, this can mean supporting establishment (Bahrain’s government, Lebanese Sunni Muslims) or even Salafist forces (as in the Syrian opposition) that they feel can be turned into clients. We all have good reasons for not liking the current Saudi regime but imagine the country being run and the oil money being in the hands of someone like Usama bin Ladin or the Muslim Brotherhood, dedicated to overthrowing all the other regimes in the region and forcing out U.S. influence.

For Israel, lacking a chance to build real alliances with Arab states or oppositions, it requires unilateral action.

Everyone else — including Christian minorities and women who want equality — is pretty much up the creek without a paddle. The democratic oppositions (and that includes Egypt, Tunisia, and Lebanon as well as Turkey and Iran) will have their hearts broken as they see their own countries as lost to a long reign of even worse tyranny and their hopes for better days dashed. Countries as diverse as Algeria, Morocco, and Jordan will have to maneuver and use force to keep Islamists from taking over. In other words, you may be very courageous but you will give some serious thought to running away as far as possible, to Europe, North America, or Australia.

It is very scary and even tragic for a lot of people.

Here, however, is the main point I wish to communicate: Americans can debate whether this shorter-term vacuum of responsibility and longer-term decline is happening. Much of the world already takes this outcome for granted.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest book, “Israel: An Introduction“, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include “The Israel-Arab Reader” (seventh edition), “The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East” (Wiley), and “The Truth About Syria” (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

RubinReports | By Barry Rubin

Al Gore sells out to al-Jazira

What would you call it if a former vice-president of the United States had sold his television network to a fascist or Communist front group at a time when such forces threatened America? Nothing very nice. But now Al Gore has sold out his admittedly obscure channel to al-Jazira and taken a position on its board. Here’s an interview of myself on this issue.

1.) Is Al Jazira a news station a former American vice president should want to associate with?

BR: Absolutely not. There are multiple reasons.

First, al-Jazira was originally run by Arab nationalists but these people were replaced by Islamists about four or so years ago. It is thus a radical media outlet run by people who are anti-American, anti-Christian, antisemitic, and anti-Western. In other words, it is an instrument of extremist revolutionary movements. On a number of occasions it has lent itself to promote and be used by violent terrorist groups.

Second, while al-Jazira is more open to dissenting views that previous state-controlled media this is misleading. It is more open in English than in Arabic but former staffers in the English section about how it is not a free agent but the news is slanted to please the Qatari government which owns it. So al-Jazira is also an instrument of concealed propaganda.

Third, when al-Jazira does have on dissenting views it tends to follow a formula. On a discussion show there is a radical and a moderate. The host sides with the radical and the callers always seem to be 100 percent radical (this reflects reality but also very possibly a selection by the station staff). The moderate is insulted and threatened. Thus much of the nominal openness is used to create a frenzy of hatred. Incidentally, the former Berlin correspondent spoke up publicly about al-Jazira’s lack of function as a free media outlet and dishonesty just a few days ago.

So Gore had every reason to know what he was doing.

2.) Do you think al-Jazira is using Gore to gain legitimacy?

BR: Of course. They did this before by setting up their own organization in the United States and hiring some legitimate journalists who ended up resigning in disgust when they saw what it was like.

Remember that as a station, Gore’s property is worthless. No one watches it. The thing is being bought only to gain its access into American homes.

Finally, a speculative point. Who is going to watch al-Jazira most? Presumably the kind of individual who will find its ideology and indoctrination to be congenial. It will make them hate America, the West, real democracy, and Israel even more. As they watch al-Jazira’s exaggerations and fabrications of anti-Muslim violence as well as its glorification of terrorism, might they be more inclined to engage in violence?

3.) What are your thoughts on al-Jazira? Do you consider it anti-Israeli or anti-American?

BR: Of course. And again, Gore should know this. Therefore his behavior is disgraceful. But consider what it means in this case to say anti-Israel and anti-American. The same might be said of the BBC, for example, but saying that is based on the fact that it is often or usually so. al-Jazira is always that way because it has a coherent political line that always must be expressed or the program will not be aired and the reporter will be fired. In other words, the former vice-president of the United States cannot tell the difference between a free media and a state-controlled propaganda organ, or — which is worse — doesn’t care.

Incidentally, there are even Arab television options to al-Jazira. If he had sold to al-Arabiya for example it would have been much more acceptable since it is more moderate.

In former, sane, times, doing something like this would have finished Gore’s credibility forever. Needless to say, sanity has long since jumped out the window.

By the way, remember that al-Jazira is controlled by an oil-producing state whose goals include maintaining the highest possible use of petroleum, a goal that is contrary to Gore’s obsession with what he says is the threat of man-made global warming to destroy the planet in the near future.

4.) Finally, do you believe there should be a distinction between al-Jazira Arabic and al-Jazira English (the new network is going to be al-Jazira America). Or are they all equally problematic?

BR: Clearly, al-Jazira English tries to be more moderate taking care not to offend the audience. But its main goal is to keep the home office happy by not compromising any Islamist principles so it is restricted. As the Big Bad Wolf said, “All the better to eat you with!” The Muslim Brotherhood’s website is also more moderate in English than in Arabic because of its purpose.

And the basic answer is no: he is giving credibility to a pro-terrorist, radical, anti-American enterprise which is only apparently more moderate in its English to better achieve its goals.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest book, “Israel: An Introduction“, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include “The Israel-Arab Reader” (seventh edition), “The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East” (Wiley), and “The Truth About Syria” (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Fri, Nov 30, 2012 | MEForum | by Raymond Ibrahim

Originally published in the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

(source: investigativeproject.org)

Around 1985, current al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri fled his homeland of Egypt, presumably never to return. From his early beginnings as a teenage leader of a small jihadi cell devoted to overthrowing Egyptian regimes (first Nasser’s then Sadat’s) until he merged forces with Osama bin Laden, expanding his objectives to include targeting the United States of America, Zawahiri never forgot his original objective: transforming Egypt into an Islamist state that upholds and enforces the totality of Sharia law, and that works towards the resurrection of a global caliphate.

This vision is on its way to being fulfilled. With Islamist political victories, culminating with a Muslim Brotherhood president, Muhammad Morsi, Egypt is taking the first major steps to becoming the sort of state Zawahiri wished to see. He regularly congratulates Egypt’s Islamists — most recently the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Cairo — urging them to continue Islamizing the Middle East’s most strategic nation.

He sent a lengthy communiqué during the Egyptian revolution in February 2011, for example, titled “Messages of Hope and Glad Tidings to our People in Egypt.” In it, he reiterated themes widely popularized by al-Qaeda, including: secular regimes are the enemies of Islam; democracy is a sham; Sharia must be instituted; the U.S. and the “Zionist enemy” are the true source behind all of the Islamic world’s ills.

Zawahiri continues to push these themes. Last September he sent messages criticizing Morsi, especially for not helping “the jihad to liberate Palestine;” called for the kidnapping of Westerners, especially Americans — which the U.S. embassy in Cairo took seriously enough to issue a warning to Americans; and further incited Egypt’s Muslims to wage jihad against America because of the YouTube Muhammad movie.

In short, a symbiotic relationship exists between the country of Egypt and the Egyptian Zawahiri: the country helped shape the man, and the man is fixated on influencing the country, his homeland. Accordingly, an examination of Zawahiri’s early years and experiences in Egypt — a case study of sorts — provides context for understanding not only Zawahiri, the undisputed leader of the world’s most notorious Islamic terrorist organization, but also explain how Egypt got where it is today. The two phenomena go hand-in-hand.

In this report, we will explore several questions, including: What happened in Egypt to turn this once “shy” and “studious” schoolboy who abhorred physical sports as “inhumane” towards jihad? What happened to turn many Egyptians to jihad, or at least radical Islam? What is Zawahiri’s relationship to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis — Egypt’s two dominant Islamist political players? Did the 9/11 strikes on America, orchestrated by Zawahiri and al-Qaeda, help or hinder the Islamists of Egypt?

Background

Little about Zawahiri’s upbringing suggests that he would become the world’s most notorious jihadi, partially responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocents in the September 11 attacks and elsewhere. People who knew him stress that Zawahiri came from a “prestigious” and “aristocratic” background (in Egypt, “aristocrats” have traditionally been among the most liberal and secular). His father Muhammad was a professor of pharmacology; his mother, Umayma, came from a politically active family. Ayman had four siblings; he (and his twin sister) were the eldest. Born in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on June 19, 1951, Zawahiri, as a BBC report puts it, “came from a respectable middle-class family of doctors and scholars. His grandfather, Rabia al-Zawahiri, was the grand imam of al-Azhar, the centre of Sunni Islamic learning in the Middle East, while one of his uncles was the first secretary-general of the Arab League.”

According to the Islamist Montasser al-Zayyat, author of the Arabic book, Al Zawahiri: As I Knew Him (translated in English as The Road to Al Qaeda: the Story of Bin Laden’s Right-Hand Man), Zawahiri was “an avid reader” who “loved literature and poetry.” He “believed that sports, especially boxing and wrestling, were inhumane…. people thought he was very tender and softhearted…. nothing in his youthful good nature suggested that he was to become the second most wanted man in the world…. He has always been humble, never interested in seizing the limelight of the leadership.”

Even so, he exhibited signs of a strong and determined character, as “there was nothing weak about the personality of the child Zawahiri. On the contrary, he did not like any opinion to be imposed on him. He was happy to discuss any issue that was difficult for him to understand until it was made clear, but he did not argue for the sake of argument. He always listened politely, without giving anyone the chance to control him.”

For all his love of literature and poetry, which Islamists often portray as running counter to Muslim faith, Zawahiri exhibited a notable form of piety from youth. “Ayman al-Zawahiri was born into a religious Muslim family,” al-Zayyat wrote. “Following the example of his family, he not only performed the prayers at the correct times, but he did so in the mosque…. He always made sure that he performed the morning prayers [at sunrise] with a group in the mosque, even during the coldest winters. He attended several classes of Koran interpretation, fiqh [Islamic jurisprudence] and Koran recitation at the mosque.”

Otherwise, he appeared to lead a normal, privileged lifestyle. Like his family, he followed a prestigious career path. Zawahiri joined the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University, graduating in 1974 with the highest possible marks. He then earned a Master’s degree in surgery from the same university in 1978. He went on to receive a PhD in surgery from a Pakistani university, during his stay in Peshawar, when he was aiding the mujahidin against the Soviets. People who know Zawahiri say that the only relationship he had with a woman was with his wife, Azza, whom he married in 1979, and who held a degree in philosophy. She and three of Zawahiri’s six children were killed in an air strike on Afghanistan by U.S. forces in late 2001.

Death of a Martyr

The initial influence on Zawahiri’s radicalization appears to have come from his uncle Mahfouz, an opponent to the secular regime and Islamist in his own right, who was arrested in a militant round up in 1945, following the assassination of Prime Minister Ahmed Mahfouz. In reference to this event, Zawahiri’s uncle even boasted: “I myself was going to do what Ayman has done,” according to Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.

Though Mahfouz was likely the first to introduce young Ayman to the political scene of radical Islam, no one appears to have had an impact on Zawahiri’s development as much as Uncle Mahfouz’s mentor and Arabic teacher, Sayyid Qutb — often referred to as the “godfather” of modern jihad. Qutb, then the Muslim Brotherhood’s premiere theoretician of jihad, has arguably played the greatest role in articulating the Islamist/jihadi worldview in the modern era, so much so that Zawahiri and others regularly quote his voluminous writings in their own work.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, “Three basic themes emerge from Qutb’s writings. First, he claimed that the world was beset with barbarism, licentiousness, and unbelief (a condition he called jahiliyya, the religious term for the period of ignorance prior to the revelations given to the Prophet Mohammed). Qutb argued that humans can choose only between Islam and jahiliyya. Second, he warned that more people, including Muslims, were attracted to jahiliyya and its material comforts than to his view of Islam; jahiliyya could therefore triumph over Islam. Third, no middle ground exists in what Qutb conceived as a struggle between God and Satan. All Muslims — as he defined them — therefore must take up arms in this fight. Any Muslim who rejects his ideas is just one more nonbeliever worthy of destruction.”

Qutb’s primary target — and subsequently Zawahiri’s — was the Egyptian regime, which he accused of being enforcers of jahiliyya, obstructing the totality of Sharia. Because Qutb was so effective at fomenting Islamist animosity for the regime, President Gamal Abdel Nasser had him imprisoned and eventually executed in 1966. That act only succeeded in helping propagate Qutb’s importance to the jihadi movement, which came to see him as a “martyr” (a shahid, the highest honor for a Muslim), turning his already popular writings into “eternal classics” for Islamists everywhere.

As Zayyat observes, “In Zawahiri’s eyes, Sayyid Qutb’s words struck young Muslims more deeply than those of his contemporaries because his words eventually led to his execution. Thus, those words provided the blueprint for his long and glorious lifetime, and eventually led to its end…. His teaching gave rise to the formation of the nucleus of the contemporary jihadi movements in Egypt.”

It is no coincidence, then, that Zawahiri founded his first jihadi cell in 1966 — the year of Qutb’s execution — when he was only 15-years-old. Embracing Qutb’s teachings — that jihad is the only answer, that talk, diplomacy, and negotiations only serve the infidel enemy’s purposes — his cell originally had a handful of members. Zawahiri eventually merged it with other small cells to form Egyptian Islamic Jihad, becoming one of its leaders. Zawahiri sought to recruit military officers and accumulate weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch a coup against the regime; or, in Zawahiri’s own words as later recorded by an interrogator, “to establish an Islamic government …. A government that rules according to the Sharia of Allah Almighty.”

Humiliation of Defeat

A year following the establishment of Zawahiri’s cell, another event took place that further paved the way to jihad: the ignominious defeat of Egypt by Israel in the 1967 war. Until then, Arab nationalism, spearheaded by Nasser, was the dominant ideology, not just in Egypt, but the entire Arab world. What began with much euphoria and conviction — that the Arab world, unified under Arab nationalism and headed by Nasser would crush Israel, only to lose disastrously in a week — morphed into disillusionment and disaffection, especially among Egyptians. It was then that the slogan “Islam is the solution” spread like wildfire, winning over many to the cause.

At the time of the 1967 war, the future al-Qaeda leader was 16 years old. Like many young people at the time, he was somewhat traumatized by Egypt’s defeat — a defeat which, 34 years later, he would gloat upon in his 2001 book Fursan Taht Rayat al-Nabbi, (“Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet”), writing:

“The unfolding events impacted the course of the jihadi movements in Egypt, namely, the 1967 defeat and the ensuing symbolic collapse of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was portrayed to the public by his followers as the everlasting invincible symbol. The jihadi movements realized that wormwoods had eaten at this icon, and that it had become fragile. The 1967 defeat shook the earth under this idol until it fell on its face, causing a severe shock to its disciples, and frightening its subjects. The jihadi movements grew stronger and stronger as they realized that their avowed enemy was little more than a statue to be worshipped, constructed through propaganda, and through the oppression of unarmed innocents. The direct influence of the 1967 defeat was that a large number of people, especially youths, returned to their original identity: that of members of an Islamic civilization.”

This theme — that the “enemies of Islam,” first the secular dictators, followed by the USSR and then the U.S., were “paper tigers” whose bark was worse than their bite — would come to permeate the writings of al-Qaeda and other jihadis. For instance, in March 2012, in response to President Obama’s plans to cut Pentagon spending, Zawahiri said, “The biggest factor that forced America to reduce its defence budget is Allah’s help to the mujahideen [or jihadis] to harm the evil empire of our time [the U.S.],” adding that American overtures to the Afghan Taliban for possible reconciliation was further evidence of U.S. defeat.

The 1973 war between Egypt and Israel appears to have had a lesser impact on Zawahiri, who by then had already confirmed his worldview. Moreover, it was during the 1970s that he was especially busy with “normal” life — earning two advanced university degrees (one in 1974, another in 1978), getting married, and starting a family. Even so, the subsequent peace treaty that the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed with Israel incensed many Islamists in Egypt, including Zawahiri, who saw it as a great betrayal to the Islamic Nation, or Umma, prompting jihadis to act now instead of later.

Accordingly, Sadat was targeted for assassination; the time had come for a military coup, which was Islamic Jihad’s ultimate goal. But the plan was derailed when authorities learned of it in February, 1981. Sadat ordered the roundup of more than 1,500 Islamists, including many Islamic Jihad members (though he missed a cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who succeeded in assassinating Sadat during a military parade later that same year).

Prison Torture

Zawahiri was among the thousands of Islamists rounded up after Sadat’s assassination, leading to one of the most talked-of episodes of Zawahiri’s life: his prison experience. He was interrogated and found guilty of possessing firearms, serving three years in prison. During that time, he was among many who were tortured in Egyptian prisons.

Much has been made of Zawahiri’s prison-time torture. (It is curious to note that when Egyptian officials called to investigate the officers accused of torturing the Islamist inmates, Zawahiri did not file a case against the authorities, though many others did, and though he bothered to witness to the torture of other members.) Several writers, beginning with al-Zayyat, suggest that along with the dual-impact of the martyrdom of Qutb and the 1967 defeat, this event had an especially traumatic effect on Zawahiri’s subsequent development and radicalization.

Still, one should not give this experience more due than it deserves. Zawahiri was an ardent jihadi well over a decade before he was imprisoned and tortured; the overly paradigmatic explanation of humiliation-as-precursor-to-violence so popular in Western thinking is unnecessary here.

On the other hand, in the vein of “that which does not kill you makes you stronger,” it seems that Zawahiri’s prison experience hardened him and made his already notorious stubbornness and determination that much more unshakeable. In short, if his prison experience did not initiate his jihadi inclinations, it likely exacerbated it.

Moreover, being “found out” had an indirect impact on his radicalization. After he was released, and knowing that he was being watched by the authorities, he was compelled to quit his native Egypt, meeting other Arabic-speaking Islamists abroad. He met Osama bin Laden as early as 1986 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. That led him to relocate to the Afghan theater of jihad, where the final coalescing of his global jihad worldview culminated.

Shifting Strategy

During his time in Egypt, Zawahiri was a staunch proponent of jihad — believing that no real change or progress can be achieved without armed struggle. This never changed. However, his strategic goal of toppling the Egyptian regime grew more ambitious over time, especially after the Afghan war experience and partnership with bin Laden.

In Egypt, Zawahiri’s goal was clear: overthrowing the regime and implementing an Islamic government. The enemy was internal, the secular Hosni Mubarak regime, that took over after Sadat’s death. In Zawahiri’s thinking, one could not consider fighting the far or external enemy until he had beaten the near one. (This is the famous “near/far enemy” dichotomy Islamists have written much on.)

Accordingly, until the late 1990s Zawahiri rarely mentioned what are today the mainstays of Islamist discontent, such as the Arab/Israel conflict, or other matters outside Egypt’s borders. In fact, in a 1995 article titled “The Way to Jerusalem Passes Through Cairo” published in Al-Mujahidin, Zawahiri even wrote that “Jerusalem will not be opened [conquered] until the battles in Egypt and Algeria have been won and until Cairo has been opened.” This is not to say that Zawahiri did not always see Israel as the enemy. Rather, he deemed it pointless to fight it directly when one could have the entire might of Egypt’s military by simply overthrowing the regime — precisely the situation today.

Then, in 1998, Zawahiri surprised many of Egypt’s Islamists by forming the International Islamic Front for Jihad on the Jews and Crusaders, under bin Laden’s leadership. It issued a fatwa calling on Muslims “to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military, an individual obligation incumbent upon every Muslim who can do it and in any country — this until the Aqsa Mosque [Jerusalem] and the Holy Mosque [Mecca] are liberated from their grip.” Until then all of Zawahiri’s associates believed that his primary focus was Egypt, overthrowing the regime — not the Arab-Israeli conflict and the United States.

Zawahiri’s “Mistake”?

It is for all these reasons that many of Egypt’s Islamists, beginning with the Muslim Brotherhood, saw al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks, partially masterminded by Zawahiri, as a severe setback to their movement. The attacks awoke the U.S. and the West, setting off the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and also giving many Arab regimes — including Mubarak’s — free reign to suppress all Islamists. Those regimes happily took advantage. As al-Zayyat, Zawahiri’s biographer, wrote:

“The poorly conceived decision to launch the attacks of September 11 created many victims of a war of which they did not choose to be a part…. Bin Laden and Zawahiri’s behavior [9/11] was met with a lot of criticism from many Islamists in Egypt and abroad…. In the post-September 11 world, no countries can afford to be accused of harboring the enemies of the United States. No one ever imagined that a Western European country would extradite Islamists who live on its lands. Before that, Islamists had always thought that arriving in a European city and applying for political asylum was enough to acquire permanent resident status. After September 11, 2001, everything changed…. Even the Muslim Brotherhood was affected by the American campaign, which targeted everything Islamic.”

In retrospect, the “mistake of 9/11″ may have indirectly helped empower Islamists: by bringing unwanted Western attention to the Middle East, it also made popular the argument that democracy would solve all the ills of the Middle East. Many Western observers who previously had little knowledge of the Islamic world, were surprised to discover post 9/11 that dictatorial regimes ran the Muslim world. This led to the simplistic argument that Islamists were simply lashing out because they were suppressed. Failing to understand that these dictatorships were the only thing between full-blown Islamist regimes like Iran, many deemed democracy a panacea, beginning with U.S. President George W. Bush, who invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, partially to “spread” and in the name of democracy.

With the so-called “Arab spring” that began in 2011, the Obama administration has followed this logic more aggressively by throwing the U.S.’s longtime allies like Egypt’s Mubarak, under the bus in the name of democracy — a democracy that has been dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, which, as has been mentioned, shares the same ultimate goals of Zawahiri and other jihadis. Recent events — including unprecedented attacks on U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya, ironically, the two nations the U.S. especially intervened in to pave the way for Islamist domination — only confirm this.

Zawahiri and the Muslim Brotherhood

While Zawahiri’s early decades in Egypt are mostly remembered in the context of the above — prestigious and academic background, clandestine radicalization, jihad, prison, followed by fleeing the country — the al-Qaeda leader has a long history with other Islamist groups in Egypt, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Since the “Arab Spring” and ousting of longtime President Hosni Mubarak, it has been the Brotherhood who have, not only dominated Egyptian politics, but have a member, Muhammad Morsi, as Egypt’s first elected president.

Zawahiri joined the Brotherhood when he was only 14, then abandoned it to form his own cell less than two years later after Qutb’s execution. A proponent of the slogan “jihad alone,” Zawahiri soon became critical of the Brotherhood’s pragmatic strategies, and wrote an entire book in 1991 arguing against their nonviolent approach.

Titled Al Hissad Al Murr, or “The Bitter Harvest,” Zawahiri argued that the Brotherhood “takes advantage of the Muslim youths’ fervor by bringing them into the fold only to store them in a refrigerator. Then, they steer their onetime passionate, Islamic zeal for jihad to conferences and elections…. And not only have the Brothers been idle from fulfilling their duty of fighting to the death, but they have gone as far as to describe the infidel governments as legitimate, and have joined ranks with them in the ignorant style of governing, that is, democracies, elections, and parliaments.”

It is perhaps ironic that, for all his scathing remarks against them, time has revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategy of slowly infiltrating society from a grassroots approach has been more effective than Zawahiri’s and al-Qaeda’s jihadi terror. The Brotherhood’s patience and perseverance, by playing the political game, formally disavowing violence and jihad — all of which earned the ire of Zawahiri and others — have turned it into a legitimate player. Yet this does not make the Brotherhood’s goals any less troubling. For instance, according to a January 2012 Al Masry Al Youm report, Brotherhood leader Muhammad Badie stated that the group’s grand goal is the return of a “rightly guided caliphate and finally mastership of the world” — precisely what Zawahiri and al-Qaeda seek to achieve. Half a year later, in July 2012, Safwat Hegazy, a popular preacher and Brotherhood member, boasted that the Brotherhood will be “masters of the world, one of these days.” Most recently, President Morsi gave himself unprecedented powers in order to empower Sharia law in Egypt.

Zawahiri and Egypt Today

In light of the Egyptian revolution that accomplished what Zawahiri had tried to accomplish for decades — overthrow the regime — what relevance does the al-Qaeda leader have for the Egyptian populace today? The best way to answer this question is in the context of Salafism — the popular Islamist movement in Egypt and elsewhere that is grounded in the teachings and patterns of early Islam, beginning with the days of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and under the first four “righteously guided” caliphs.

As a Salafist organization, al-Qaeda is very popular with Salafis. Its current leader, the Egyptian Zawahiri, is especially popular — a “hero” in every sense of the word — with Egyptian Salafis. Considering that the Salafis won some 25 percent of votes in recent elections, one may infer that at least a quarter or of Egypt’s population looks favorably on Zawahiri. In fact, some important Salafis are on record saying they would like to see Zawahiri return to his native Egypt. Aboud al-Zomor, for instance, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader who was implicated for the assassination of Sadat, but who has now been released and is even a leading member of the new Egyptian parliament, has called for the return of Zawahiri to Egypt, “with his head held high and in safety.”

Zawahiri’s brother, Muhammad, is also an influential Islamist in Egypt, affiliated with the Salafis and Al Gamaa Al Islamiyya. He led a mass Islamist demonstration last spring with typical jihadi slogans. He also was among those threatening the U.S. embassy in Cairo to release the Blind Sheikh — the true reason behind the September attack, not a movie — or else be “burned down to the ground.” When asked in a recent interview with CNN if he is in touch with his al-Qaeda leader brother, Muhammad only smiled and said “of course not.”

Under Zawahiri’s leadership, al-Qaeda has made inroads on Egyptian territory. For example, several recent attacks in Sinai — such as the attacks on the Egypt-Israel natural-gas pipeline — were in fact conducted by a new group pledging allegiance to al-Qaeda. Zawahiri publicly congratulated them for destroying the pipelines, and the organization itself has pledged its loyalty to Zawahiri. More recently, al-Qaeda in the Sinai has been blamed for attacking and evicting Christian minorities living there.

This highlights the fact that groups like the Brotherhood and the Salafis have the same goals — establishment of a government that upholds Sharia law — though they differ as to how to achieve this. Salafis like al-Qaeda tend to agree that jihad is the solution. Yet, given the Brotherhood’s success using peaceful means — co-opting the language of democracy and running in elections — many Salafis are now “playing politics” even though many of them are also on record saying that, once in power, they will enforce Islamic law and abolish democracy, which is precisely what President Morsi and his cohorts have begun to do, in the face of widespread condemnation and protests in the Egyptian street.

It is not clear where Zawahiri stands regarding Egypt. Because of his deep roots there, Egypt undoubtedly holds a special place for him. But as the leader of a global jihadi network, he cannot afford to appear biased to Egypt — hence why he addresses the politics of other nations, Pakistan for example, and themes like the Arab-Israeli conflict, with equal or more attention.

Likewise, there are different accounts regarding his personality traits and how they would comport with Egypt’s current state. For example, whereas his biographer described young Zawahiri as averse to the limelight and open to others’ opinions, most contemporary characterizations of Zawahiri suggest he is intractable and domineering — a product, perhaps, of some four decades of jihadi activities, as well as the aforementioned experiences. While the personality traits attributed to him in youth would certainly aid him in influencing Egyptian Islamist politics, those attributed to him now would not.

He has been away too long, and others have stepped in. Either way, to many Islamists around the world, Egypt in particular, Zawahiri is a hero — one of the few men to successfully strike the “great enemy,” America. Such near legendary status will always see to it that Ayman Zawahiri — and the Salafi ideology al-Qaeda helped popularize — remain popular among Egypt’s Islamists.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.