Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, specializing in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Syria. He contributed analysis to The Weekly Standard on Middle Eastern geopolitics, with particular focus on Hezbollah, Iranian influence, and the Syrian conflict. His expertise spans the complex political and military dynamics of the Levant and the broader region.
Two weeks ago, Israel Defense Force Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot took the unusual step of confirming claims in the media about the May 13, 2016, killing of Hezbollah military commander, Mustafa Badreddine. A video report last month on the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya network had claimed that Badreddine’s…
Following the mysterious death of Hezbollah senior military commander Mustafa Badreddine in Syria last week, speculation continues to swirl over the identity of his possible successor. The prevailing theory holds that this role will fall to Ibrahim Aqil and/or Fuad Shukr, ranking members of…
Last week, the Israeli Air Force struck a cache of long-range missiles belonging to Hezbollah and put the Shia militia on notice. As air force chief Major-General Amir Eshel explained, "Our ability today to attack targets on a large scale and with high precision is about 15 times greater than what…
Thirty years ago last month, Hezbollah blew up the barracks of the U.S Marines and French paratroopers stationed at the Beirut airport, killing 241 U.S. servicemen and 58 Frenchmen. It wasn’t Hezbollah’s first terrorist operation, but this attack, the most memorable in Lebanon’s vicious and chaotic…
The latest military developments in Syria are now generally understood as ushering in a new phase in the Syrian conflict. What’s less observed is that the minority Alawite regime’s mass killings of Sunnis and the intense fighting around the cities of Homs and Hama also seem to replicate significant…
With the popular uprising in Syria completing its first month, protests against Bashar al-Assad’s regime have spread to encompass most Syrian regions and cities, including now the capital, Damascus. On Friday, April 15, crowds from surrounding suburbs swarmed the city, heading downtown to…
Reporters covering the ongoing popular revolt in Syria were recently introduced to a new term from the sociopolitical lexicon of the Levant—the shabbiha.