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Hezbollah

Hezbollah (aka Ansar Allah; Islamic Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine; Islamic Jihad Organization; Organization of the Oppressed on Earth; Organization of Right Against Wrong; Party of God; Revolutionary Justice Organization) was responsible for some of the most infamous acts of terror during the Lebanese civil war, including the bombing of the U.S. embassy and marine barracks in Beirut, the hijacking of TWA Flight 847, and the kidnapping of Western journalists and academics. After the war's end in 1990, Hezbollah reinvented itself as a force in national politics and social programs, while simultaneously continuing to exist as one of the most active and dangerous terrorist groups in the Middle East.

Hezbollah was formed in June 1982 as a radical offshoot of the main Shiite Muslim party, Amal. At that time, Hezbollah supported the transformation of Lebanon into an Islamic state and collaborated with Palestinian terrorist groups in their fight against Israel. Many Hezbollah leaders had studied theology with Iranian clerics and maintained close ties to Iran during and after its 1979 revolution that brought the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power. The group's first leader and secretary general, Sheikh Sobhi Tufeili, was famous for refusing to consider Lebanon as a nation-state. Tufeili was replaced in May 1991, and Israeli agents assassinated his successor, Abbas Musawi, in 1992. Contemporary Hezbollah leaders include Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, Deputy Secretary-General Naim Kassim, and spiritual advisor Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah.

Hezbollah first put a representative into Lebanon's parliament in 1992. Since that time, the 128-member parliament has consistently included Hezbollah members. The party also owns or funds several hospitals, schools, cultural societies, and charities in Lebanon, and members deliver drinking water to slums, repair roads, and feed the poor. Hezbollah also runs a weekly newspaper, Al Ahid, a television channel, Al Manar, and a radio station, Al Nour.

Western Targets

Early on, Hezbollah targeted Western institutions and individuals. U.S. officials maintain that the former Hezbollah security chief Imad Mughniyah, who was one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists, planned the 1983 suicide truck bombings of the U.S. embassy in Beirut as well as the attacks on the French and American military headquarters in the city later that year. More than 350 people were killed in the suicide attacks, and the U.S. Marines withdrew from Lebanon soon thereafter. Mughniyah was assassinated in a car bomb in Damascus, Syria, in February 2008.

In the mid-1980s, Hezbollah began kidnapping Westerners and holding them hostage, hoping to gain more influence in regional affairs and bargain for the release of Shiites held in Israeli, Kuwaiti, or Western jails. In separate instances, militants kidnapped American, British, Irish, French, Saudi, West German, and South Korean nationals. A group called Islamic Jihad, later revealed to be a front for Hezbollah, publicly claimed responsibility for many of the kidnappings. Ten of the hostages died in captivity, including the Beirut CIA station chief, William Buckley. For nearly a decade, the kidnappers fed dictated communiqués and orchestrated images to the media.

The Associated Press journalist Terry Anderson was one of the first Americans to be kidnapped; he was seized at gunpoint in West Beirut on March 16, 1985. The former marine was held in a windowless cell, often blindfolded or chained to the floor. Brian Keenan, an Irish national, was abducted in April 1986 as he left his apartment to give a lecture at the American University in Beirut. Four armed men threw him into the back of an old Mercedes and took him to a 4-by-6-foot cell, where he was held in solitary confinement.

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