Hezbollah

Legislation names Hezbollah, Hamas, the Islamic State, and Boko Haram as examples.

Foz do Iguaçu and Ciudad del Este,Tri-Border Area of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay

The State Department is denying that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday described Hezbollah as a legitimate actor in the Lebanese government, after the secretary’s comments drew harsh criticism from regional experts.

Congressional Republicans are calling for answers on the Obama administration's reported efforts to derail an initiative that tracked Hezbollah’s international web of criminal activities, efforts that former officials said were fueled in large part out of a desire to secure the 2015 nuclear deal…

The Obama administration hobbled a covert initiative that tracked Hezbollah’s web of criminal activities, allowing millions of dollars to fall into the hands of the Iran-backed militia, according to a Politico report. Efforts to stymie the initiative, former officials told Politico, were fueled in…

When it comes to Syria, Israel has a message and the government hopes a wider audience is listening. It was delivered in the form of two strikes inside Syria over the last week. By itself, an Israeli strike inside Syria is nothing extraordinary. The Israelis have long broadcasted their red lines in…

What are the Saudis trying to do in Lebanon? They have clearly forced the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Do they want to destabilize the country? Destroy its government? Is the new Saudi approach another example of the often-alleged incompetence and overreach of the crown prince,…

The resignation of Lebanon’s prime minister over the weekend is heightening congressional scrutiny of Hezbollah's wide-ranging influence in the country, with a top lawmaker calling on the Trump administration to reassess military assistance.

Donald Trump’s feud with North Korea’s “Little Rocket Man” notwithstanding, the most likely major war on the horizon is one between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia that, thanks to years of experience and an increasingly lethal arsenal, has become part of the vanguard in Iran’s…

Lawmakers will vote this week on strengthening sanctions against the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah and punishing Iran for its ballistic missile development, amid pressure from the Trump administration to come to a legislative solution related to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Ever since John Kelly was tapped as White House chief of staff, right-wing news outlets have been publishing articles making harsh allegations about Donald Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster.

Beirut

The U.S. is deploying special forces on the ground in Lebanon to provide training for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) for missions that partner with Hezbollah—Iran’s most valuable terrorist ally—against ISIS. Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon told the U.S.-based Al-Hurra Arabic TV network that American…

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…

American military assistance to Lebanon should be reevaluated in the coming year, top congressional sources and experts tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD, following reports that equipment provided to the Lebanese army had been transferred to the Hezbollah terrorist organization and used to boost the Assad…

The Task Force to Investigate Terrorism Financing of the House Financial Services Committee released a report Tuesday highlighting the methods terrorist groups use to secure money and prescribing ways for the United States to combat them.

Over the weekend, pictures of a Hezbollah parade in the Syrian city of Qusayr showed Hezbollah fighters using American-made M113 armored personnel carriers (APCs). If the vehicles were transferred by the Lebanese Armed Forces, a recipient of U.S. aid and equipment, to Hezbollah, as some analysts…

Over the last three years of the Syrian Civil War, Hezbollah has increasingly operated as a regular army rather than in its traditional, decades-long role as a guerrilla force. The Shiite group has operated Syrian tanks and artillery, jeeps with recoilless rifles, and is even rumored to have…

What a week for anniversaries! Thursday we'll be celebrating the first year of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It's Barack Obama's major foreign policy initiative, which ostensibly prevents Iran from a nuclear breakout, but in reality paves the way for the White House's realignment with the…

A deputy head in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard threatened that the Tehran-backed Lebansese terrorist group Hezbollah had the missile capability to launch a sustained attack on Israel. The Jerusalem Post reports:

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…

Sources in Beirut are confirming reports from various Middle East media outfits that Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ expeditionary unit, was wounded in the fighting in the Syrian city of Aleppo recently. Fighters from Hezbollah, according to sources close to…

Yesterday, members of Congress observed a moment of silence to commemorate casualties suffered by a community aligned with Bashar al-Assad in his exterminationist war against Syria’s Sunni Arab population. Last Thursday, two suicide bombers killed 46 people in Burj a-Burajneh, a Beirut neighborhood…

Last week, the Obama White House moved to ensure Hezbollah’s ability to point 100,000 missiles at Israel. That’s not how they would describe it, of course. But it was the Obama administration—as U.S. officials are quietly letting on—and not Russia that invited Iran to participate in talks in Vienna…

Even now with the Russians on the verge of combat operations in Syria, the White House still says it believes that they’re there to fight ISIS. John Kerry says that his Russian counterpart told him that the Russians are “only interested in fighting” the Islamic State. Other administration officials…

Radio host Hugh Hewitt interviewed Donald Trump Thursday and asked the Republican frontrunner some details on foreign policy. After Trump confused some terminology, he accused Hewitt of asking "gotcha questions."

Over the weekend, thousands of Lebanese took to the streets to protest against their country’s corrupt political culture. The immediate cause of their concern, and anger, is that the country’s garbage has not been collected for a month and has come to pose, as Lebanon’s health minister warned, a…

Israeli media is reporting that an IAF strike on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights border killed several pro-Assad fighters today. One of them is believed to be Samir Kuntar. Many are hoping that it is.

In response to yesterday’s Bloomberg View report that Iran’s forces and the United States share bases in Iraq, Senator Tom Cotton has issued a strong statement against the administration’s partnership with the Islamic Republic.

Immediately after the Golden State Warriors won the NBA championship Tuesday night with a 105-97 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers, one of the commentators asked Golden State coach Steve Kerr who he was thinking about. “Lute Olson,” said Kerr, referring to the legendary University of Arizona…

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…

Bill Roggio and Caleb Weiss, at longwarjournal.com, write that:

The ouster of ISIS fighters from Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, has been widely celebrated. Although this victory was brought about in no small part by American airpower, it was a triumph for Iran more than for the United States. The vast majority of fighters on the front lines belonged to…

Sunday night, Stephen Hayes noted (via Twitter) a Times of Israel article that the 2015 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Communities delivered annually by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to a Senate committee had "removed Iran and Hezbollah from its list of…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on his feature story "Hard Times for Hezbollah."

Experts continue to debate whether the explosion at an Iranian military base at Parchin earlier in the week was an act of sabotage.

During the first two weeks of the Gaza conflict, Hamas landed at least two significant punches. In firing missiles at Ben Gurion Airport, Hamas convinced the Federal Aviation Authority and European air carriers to temporarily suspend flights to Israel. The fact that relatively primitive rockets…

Last month the president of the Syrian Opposition Coalition went to the White House. Ahmad Jarba and the Syrian rebels want American weapons, in particular the shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles that might neutralize Bashar al-Assad’s air force and stop it from dropping barrel bombs loaded…

Six years ago Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh was assassinated when the headrest in his car was detonated in Damascus. While Israeli intelligence neither denies nor confirms its involvement, the Mossad is generally believed to have been responsible for his death. And yet there is no shortage of…

Remember a few years ago when Iranian officials had to intervene to prevent Hezbollah gunmen from turning on their Syrian patrons? Few people do. Today, the "axis of resistance" is as strong as ever, with Iran and Hezbollah fully committed to fighting for the survival of Bashar al-Assad’s regime,…

The Hague, Netherlands

A car bomb detonated today in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold. So far, four are reported dead and over 50 have been injured. With rumors spreading that the bombing may have been the work of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, a Sunni jihadist group with ties to al Qaeda, it seems…

In the wake of the interim deal that the White House signed with Iran Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry said on the Sunday talk shows that nothing has changed, not with the American position in the Middle East, or with the U.S. alliance system in the region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin…

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…

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Lebanese authorities have arrested two suspects affiliated with a pro-Syrian regime group in the bombing of two Sunni mosques in Tripoli on Friday. Forty-seven people were killed in the attack in the northern Lebanese city, likely retaliation for a bombing the previous week in the southern suburbs…

The Obama administration is heralding a conference later this month in Geneva where representatives of Bashar al-Assad’s regime will ostensibly sit down with the Syrian rebel forces opposing them. The effect will be to prop up Assad. Sen. John McCain, on the other hand, is committed to the Syrian…

For over a week now, the Syrian town of Qusayr in Homs Province has seen some of the heaviest fighting in the two-year conflict. The struggle for Qusayr, says besieged President Bashar al-Assad, “is the main battle” in all of Syria. Lying adjacent to a highway linking Homs to the north and Damascus…

Are we watching Hezbollah closely enough these days? Probably not. Given events in Syria and the Balkans, it appears that we’re in for a whole new set of problems to be presented by Iran’s favorite proxy.

At a 2008 event to promote his then-recently published book, Chuck Hagel expresses more concern over Israel's nuclear weapons than Iran's and advocates the U.S. engage with Iran and Syria:

The New York Post editorializes:

Yesterday the Bulgarian government announced the results of its investigation into the July 18, 2012 bus bombing that killed 5 Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver in the city of Burgas. At least two members of what appears to have been a three-man team belong to Hezbollah. More…

There are reports this morning that Israeli jets conducted a raid on the Syria-Lebanon border yesterday. On Tuesday, chief of military intelligence Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi was reportedly in Washington to speak with high-level American officials, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin…

Informed sources are confirming reports that there was a major explosion at a uranium enrichment plant at an Iranian nuclear facility in Fordow last week. However, the White House believes the reports are not credible and Iran denies that anything is amiss, but a variety of news items coming out of…

In a sharply worded letter to Chuck Hagel, President Obama's nominee to be the next secretary of defense, Senator David Vitter of Louisiana takes issue with Hagel's past statement that “The Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here…. I’m not an Israeli senator. I’m a United States senator.”…

Here's an exchange from MSNBC this morning between Steve Clemons, a close friend and ardent supporter of Chuck Hagel, and Dan Senor:

Last week THE WEEKLY STANDARD published my article, “Smugglers Galore: How Iran Arms its Proxies.” It seems that part of it may have found its way onto the reading list of Hezbollah general secretary Hassan Nasrallah.

NBC’s Middle East correspondent Richard Engel was released yesterday after being held for five days in Syria. When his kidnappers came to a rebel checkpoint, they were engaged in a firefight with a Free Syrian Army unit that allowed Engel and his colleagues to go free. NBC’s statement said he was…

Twenty-nine years ago yesterday, December 12, 1983, Hezbollah and operatives of the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite group Da’wa carried out a series of seven coordinated bombings in Kuwait, killing six people and wounding nearly ninety more. The targets included the American and French embassies, the…

Yesterday, the Treasury Department designated Ali Musa Daqduq, “a senior Hizballah commander responsible for numerous attacks against Coalition Forces in Iraq, including planning an attack on the Karbala Joint Provincial Coordination Center (JPCC) on January 20, 2007, which resulted in the deaths…

After a year and a half of conflict, and despite some 40,000 deaths, the world still stands impotent to end the bloodshed in Syria. With Russia and China reviving their recurring role as United Nations Security Council obstructionists, concerned countries have been forced to seek out meaningful…

To many Lebanese, the massive car bomb attack in Beirut on Friday that killed the Sunni Muslim head of internal security Wissam al Hassan and seven others evoked the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri. Members of the Shiite militia Hezbollah were indicted for the 2005 crime,…

Yesterday a car bomb in Beirut killed a senior Lebanese security chief along with seven others, while wounding hundreds in Ashrafiyeh, a busy neighborhood in Christian-majority East Beirut. The target, Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, was close to former prime minister Saad Hariri and his late father,…

On August 24, 2012, the German daily Tagesspiegel reported a dismaying decision by the German Academic Exchange Service, or Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). The agency decided in favor of continued cooperation between the University of Potsdam’s Institute for Religious Studies (IRS)…

Berlin

Last week the Treasury Department leveled sanctions against Hezbollah for providing support to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in his efforts to put down the 17-month-old rebellion meant to topple his regime. Since Hezbollah has already been designated as a foreign terrorist organization, this…

Earlier this month, 48 Iranian Shiite “pilgrims” were abducted in Damascus. The Free Syrian Army claims they were members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, who have been dispatched to Syria to protect one of Tehran’s vital interests, Bashar al-Assad’s regime. It’s not the first time that…

Last Friday, a Lebanese military tribunal met for the fifth time in the trial of Sheikh Hassan Mchaymech, the Hezbollah dissident. The Shia cleric Mchaymech was first kidnapped in the summer of 2010 by Syrian security forces as he tried to cross the Lebanon-Syria border on his way to make a…

Maarab, Lebanon

New Jersey Republican governor Chris Christie is touring Israel this week, visiting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. But right now he's gone north, visiting the Golan Heights for a security briefing and a tour.

Beirut

Yesterday, a rocket fired from southern Lebanon missed its target in Israel. Instead it wounded a Lebanese woman, hinting at a possible pattern of things to come. While Hezbollah contends that its weapons are to protect Lebanon from Israel, the reality is that the arms used to defend the…

In a little noticed ruling on Monday, November 28, a Washington, D.C. district court found that both Iran and Sudan were culpable for al Qaeda’s 1998 embassy bombings. As is typical in state sponsorship of terrorism cases, neither Iran nor Sudan answered the plaintiffs’ accusations. But in a…

In the aftermath of a reported explosion earlier today in the Iranian city of Isfahan that may have targeted a uranium enrichment plant, at least three katyusha rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel's western Galilee overnight Monday. The Israel Defense Forces returned fire, and said it holds…

In today’s New York Times, Avi Jorisch argues that the U.S. should seize the Iranian embassy and other assets belonging to the Islamic Republic. The purpose isn’t retaliation for the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran more than 31 years ago, but rather to pressure Iran for funding terrorist…

If Sir James Wolfensohn, the cofounder of Edward Said’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, doesn’t deserve to be honored at the American University of Beirut (AUB), then who does? Recently, the former World Bank chief found himself in the midst of controversy after AUB had announced that he would…

At the end of a Washington Post op-ed criticizing John McCain for labeling Republicans who oppose intervention in the Libyan war “isolationists,” George Will writes (emphasis added):

Last Friday, protesters in Syria burned Russian and Iranian flags as they took to the streets to speak out against the regime. Today's Friday, so protesters again took to the streets.  This time, some were spotted burning pictures of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Haartez reports:  

This Nakba Day was different because it fell amidst the many recent developments in what we call the Arab Spring. It is probably correct that Palestinians have been feeling left out, as the attention of the world and of their Arab brothers turns to reform, politics, revolts, elections,…

Michael J. Totten has just published The Road to Fatima Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hezbollah, and the Iranian War Against Israel. From Lee Smith's blurb, on the back of the book:

The Brazilian magazine Veja is reporting that al Qaeda members have established an active presence in South America’s largest country, as have militants associated with Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist groups. They are apparently engaged in fundraising, recruitment, and strategic…

Beirut

Nir Rosen, as it turns out, had pro-Taliban inclinations for quite some time. And so it should not really come as a surprise that a person who’d be willing to defend the terrorist organization might mock a woman—in this case, CBS’s Lara Logan—for being sexually assaulted in Cairo.

As the remnants of Lebanon's March 14 pro-democracy has taken to the streets of Beirut and other Lebanese cities to protest against what has now become a government led by Hezbollah and its allies, it's worth remembering why the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) matters. Hezbollah wants to cashier…

Last week Tunisians deposed their president for life, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. So now we have the week of tear gas in the Middle East, with Arab security services and militaries pitted against their countrymen. In Egypt, riot police are firing tear gas at protesters, and the same is so in Algeria,…

The perennial Middle East crisis known as Lebanon has entered a new phase with the fall of Sunni prime minister Saad Hariri’s government. The proximate cause of the government’s collapse was the withdrawal from Lebanon’s coalition Shiite and opposition ministers aligned with Hezbollah. They object…

As Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri was in Washington to meet with President Obama this morning, Hezbollah and its allies withdrew from the Lebanese cabinet, setting the table for what many fear is an inevitable escalation of violence in the eastern Mediterranean. The Obama administration…

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The first time Jonathan Spyer went to Lebanon was in the summer of 2006 war when he drove a tank in Israel’s war with Hezbollah. He and I met in Jerusalem in July shortly before he was called up for reserve duty. The riveting and tragic story of his unit’s travails in a war that neither Israel’s…

Last week Lebanese security forces arrested Omar Bakri and several associates on terrorism charges. Bakri, as you’ll recall, is the Lebanese national who was once leader of the London-based Islamist outfit Al-Muhajiroun and returned to Lebanon in 2005 after he was thrown out of England following…

If you’re looking for evidence that a nuclear Iran would be very difficult (if not impossible) to “contain,” visit Buenos Aires. Between 1992 and 1994, the Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah launched not one but two murderous attacks in the Argentine capital, bombing both the Israeli embassy and…

With the 5-hour miniseries “Carlos” premiering this week on the Sundance channel and opening in art theatres in selected U.S. cities, there’s renewed interest in the Venezuelan-born Ilich Ramírez Sánchez’s career of terror. Undoubtedly his best-known operation, and the movie’s dramatic core, is the…

Back in April reports surfaced that Syria was shipping long-range Scud missiles to Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.Lebanon’s prime minister, Sa’ad Hariri, denied the presence of the weapons on Lebanese territory. Israel issued warnings. UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, denied…

Since last year, Hezbollah has been rounding up Lebanese who are believed to be spying for the state of Israel. Just yesterday, a senior official at a Lebanese telecommunications firm was arrested, making it the fourth this year. The arrest is part of broader campaign that has led to some 50…

In the aftermath of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, the UN inserted a peacekeeping force of 11,000 troops from 31 nations. According to the UN resolution authorizing the mission, its purpose was to block the flow of weapons to Hezbollah and keep Hezbollah from operating south of the Litani River, near…