Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon

[Annie]

Eclipsed by Hamas:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060211/ap_on_re_mi_ea/hezbollah_s_weapons

Hezbollah Faces Price of Joining Politics

By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer Sat Feb 11, 1:59 PM ET

BEIRUT, Lebanon - As Hezbollah meshes into Lebanese political life, a serious effort is afoot to push the militant organization into laying down its arms and distancing itself from the policies of Iran and Syria.

It comes at a critical juncture: Iran is under pressure over its nuclear program, Lebanon is out from under the Syrian military thumb and another Islamic movement, Hamas, is set to take a Palestinian governing role.

Hezbollah, branded a terrorist organization by the United States, has been reinventing itself in Lebanon in recent years to ensure its survival. From a shadowy group linked to militants who carried out some of the worst violence of the 1980s, it is evolving into a mainstream political party with 11 legislators in the 128-seat Lebanese Parliament and five ministers in the 24-member Cabinet.

Now, with its Syrian backers in Lebanon having lost power since Syrian troops quit Lebanon last year, Hezbollah may be facing its greatest challenge.

For the first time, open debate has unfolded in Lebanon about Hezbollah's weapons as well as its allegiance to the country. Many among Lebanon's new anti-Syrian majority accuse it of dividing its loyalties among Beirut, Damascus and Tehran.

Critics worry that Hezbollah has become the Lebanese arm of an anti-U.S. regional front for Iran and Syria. Anti-Syrian politician Walid Jumblatt and others have said Lebanon should not be "a barricade for Iran's nuclear facilities."

Referring to Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Jumblatt said Friday: "No matter how strong he is — and he is strong — as a simple Lebanese citizen I say no to Syrian and Iranian tutelage."

Meanwhile, Hezbollah faces a 2004
U.N. Security Council resolution demanding it disarm.

Lebanon's many militias disarmed in 1991 after a 15-year civil war ended, but Hezbollah kept its weapons, saying it needed them to fight
Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese army of about 70,000 troops with a modest arsenal could not move against Hezbollah for fear it would split along sectarian lines as happened in the civil war.

The Israelis left in 2000, but Hezbollah fights on over a disputed piece of land called Chebaa Farms. It maintains that Israel, having twice invaded Lebanon, could do so again, and has been cool to the idea of merging into the Lebanese army, lest its options be curtailed in any future conflict with Israel.

It has mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, rifles and more than 10,000 Katyusha rockets. It is believed able to field thousands of armed supporters, drawn from the Shiite Muslim community who are Lebanon's largest single sect.

Nasrallah says he is open to discussions on the arms, and he disputes the idea that his group does the bidding of Damascus or Tehran.

To burnish his credentials as a Lebanese political figure, Nasrallah joined hands last week with a major anti-Syrian Christian leader, Michel Aoun. The two men called for a national defense strategy that would deal, among other matters, with the weapons issue.

"How do we protect Lebanon and what is the best strategic way to protect the country — when we agree on that, we can discuss the weapons," Nasrallah said.

Hezbollah's evolving stance on weapons and loyalties indicate it is searching for new rules after the Syrian withdrawal, said Ibrahim Bayram, an analyst with Lebanon's leading An-Nahar daily.

"Whether there is a Syrian agenda or not, whether there is an Iranian agenda or not, Hezbollah feels it is being sidelined and oppressed by the (anti-Syrian) majority," he said.

The issue of allegiance came to a head Dec. 12 when the Cabinet put to a vote the request for international court proceedings after a U.N. probe implicated Syria in the assassination a year ago of former Lebanese leader Rafik Hariri.

Hezbollah's ministers walked out, setting off a seven-week crisis. It ended when the government reiterated its recognition of Hezbollah as a "resistance" group. That sidesteps the term "militia," exempting Hezbollah — at least for now — from a U.N. resolution that calls for the disarmament of all militias.

In the 1980s, militants linked to Hezbollah were accused of holding Western hostages and killing hundreds in bomb attacks on U.S. and French military targets. The 2000 Israeli withdrawal, under Hezbollah's military pressure, sharply boosted the group's status, but its position became more tentative when its street demonstrations against the Syrian withdrawal were eclipsed by larger anti-Syrian rallies.

Now it is urgently trying to sharpen its Lebanese colors and distinguish itself from Syria and Iran, analyst Bayram said.

"For them, it's a fight for survival and they are engaged in self-defense," he said.

 

[waltky]

Dey look like a buncha Nazi's salutin' Heil Hitler...

Hezbollah's Global Criminal Empire
29 Dec 2017 - Joseph V. Micallef is a best-selling military history and world affairs author, and keynote speaker.

Over the last several decades, the militant Lebanese organization Hezbollah has morphed from an Iranian-inspired and Iranian-funded Shiite militia into a political and social movement as well. In the process, notwithstanding the $200 to $350 million in financing it allegedly receives from Tehran, it has turned increasingly to criminal activities to fund its operations. Today, Hezbollah sits astride a worldwide criminal syndicate that generates upwards of a billion dollars a year in income for the group. Hezbollah's criminal income is generated from four main areas of activity: narcotics, money laundering and currency counterfeiting, widespread low-level crime centered primarily on financial fraud, and extortion.

Subversive organizations have often turned to criminal activities as a way of funding their operations. At the turn of the 20th century the Bolsheviks robbed banks to finance themselves. During the 1970s and 1980s, European groups like Baader Meinhof, Brigate Rosse, and Direct Action supplemented the funds they received from the Soviet Union by staging kidnappings for ransom or robbing banks. More recently, the FARC in Columbia, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Islamic State have all turned to dealing in narcotics as a source of funds.

Hezbollah fighters parade during a ceremony to honor fallen comrades, in Tefahta village, south Lebanon​

Many current criminal organizations, the Yakuza in Japan, the various criminal organizations in South China, and the Sicilian Mafia and its related brethren, the Camorra in Naples and the Ndràngheta in Calabria, all began or were in part inspired by a political agenda. All of them turned to crime to obtain funds for that agenda. Over time, their political inspiration was watered down and eventually disappeared. The criminal element remained, however, now transformed into a for profit crime syndicate. The FARC in Colombia has shown a similar evolution. What began as a Maoist-inspired insurgency against the Colombian government, which used cocaine trafficking as a source of funds, has evolved into an organization that is not quite a for profit crime syndicate, but neither is it just an insurgency any longer.

The UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that the worldwide narcotics market generates between $400 and $500 billion in turnover every year. Over the last several decades terrorist organizations have increasingly looked to narcotics as a source of funds. The skill set necessary to survive as a militant organization, to smuggle arms and munitions, to move operatives around the globe surreptitiously and to stage attacks, is the same skill set needed to manufacture, transport and distribute narcotics on a world-wide basis.

Hezbollah's Narcotics Trade