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July 25, 2006

World: Islamists Of Hizbollah Ready To Launch International Terror

The current conflict in Lebanon may soon spread to affect unrelated countries if the fighting continues, and Hizbollah gets its way, state German intelligence sources. AKI reports that the unnamed German sources have claimed that there are more than 20 "sleeper" cells in Western Europe, Latin America and southeast Asia. and these have been warned to be ready to carry out terror attacks, should the situation in Lebanon continue.

Currently, Israeli ground forces claim to have taken control of Bint Jbeil, a military stronghold of Hizbollah in southern Lebanon, though Hizbollah has denied this.

Two days ago, Shin Bet, the Israeli secret service warned that Hizbollah could strike at other targets, leading Israeli embassies and institutions to be placed on high alert.

Hizbollah is thought to have mounted the 1994 attack on the AMIA building (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Here, on July 18, a car bomb killed 85 mostly Jewish people, and injured more than 30.

The AMIA attack followed on from an earlier attack on the Israeli embassy in the same city on March 17, 1992, where a suicide-bomber's truck bomb killed 29 and wounded 242. Islamic Jihad claimed the attack had happened in retaliation for the assassination of Hizbollah's leader, Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi a month earlier. A US State Department report claims that the attack was actually mounted by Hizbollah.

Eight days after the AMIA attack, a car bomb went off at the Israeli embassy in London on July 26, 1994. Twenty people were injured. Two Palestinians, Jawad Botmeh and Samar Alami, linked to Hizbollah, were sentenced to 20 years' jail for this incident.

The US and some other nations' intelligence services believe that Hizbollah had kidnapped more than 30 Westerners between 1982 and 1992. These included journalists Terry Anderson and John McCarthy, and also Terry Waite, Brian Keenan and CIA man William Buckley. Buckley died in captivity.

The Americans claim that Hizbollah mounted the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut on April 18, 1983, which killed 63 people, including 18 Americans. The US claims that Hizbollah was behind the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings, where on October 23, two truck bombs driven by suicide bombers detonated in what is thought to be the first instance of a "suicide attack". 241 US Marines were killed while most of them slept. At the same time, Hizbollah mounted an attack which killed 58 French soldiers.

In 1984 on 20 September, Hizbollah carried out a truck bombing of the replacement US embassy in Aukar, north of Beirut, killing 24 people, including two American soldiers.

Hizbollah was implicated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 on June 14, 1985 which saw an Athens to Rome flight diverted to Lebanon where it remained for 17 days with hostages on board. Robert Dean Stethem, a U.S. Navy diver, was shot and his body dumped on the airport tarmac when the hostage-takers' demand were not met.

Following the death of Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi and his family on February 16, 1992 in an Israeli helicopter assault, Hizbollah came under the leadership of Hasan Nasrallah, its current leader (pictured).

Nasrallah was born in east Beirut in 1960, the eldest of nine children. As a 16-year old youth, he had been a student of al-Musawi in Najaf in Iraq. He had gone to Iraq following contact with the Amal Shi'ite movement of Musa al-Sadr in southern Lebanon. In 1978, the Lebanese clerics and their supporters had to return to Lebanon.

Unlike Musa al-Sadr, who believed in Lebanon's legitimacy as a state, Nasrallah's mentor, al-Musawi did not think in terms of borders or national sovereignty. On his return to Lebanon, Nasrallah studied and taught at a religious institute established by Musawi in Baalbak.

Sadr had disappeared on a trip to Lebanon following the migration from Iraq, and his Amal movement became more secular. For this reason Nasrallah abandoned the movement. Antecedents of Hizbollah came into being in 1982, after Israel invaded Lebanon in June. The Israelis invaded to flush out the PLO from the region.

But it was not until 1985 that the organisation announced to the Lebanese press that it was a new group. Its name Hizbollah means "Party of God".

Hizbollah had received influence from the Iranians, who had sent a crack team of Revolutionary Guards to the Bekaa valley in eastern Lebanon following the Israeli invasion. The Iranians had tried to set up a force which would not only attack Israel, but which would also turn Lebanon into an Islamist state.

Lebanon had been in a state of civil war from 1975, and this did not officially end until 1990 after the Tail Agreement of October 1989. Israel retained occupation of the southern part of Lebanon until 2000. When they moved out, Hizbollah with Syrian and Iranian support took over many of the villages in the region, and continued its campaign of firing Katyusha rockets at Israel.

France and the US worked together in the recent past to oust Syria from Lebanon. Currently, according to Reuters AlertNet France and the United States have renewed their alliances, following the chilling that happened after France did not support the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. France is involved in diplomatic efforts to resolve the situation against Hizbollah, while preserving Lebanon's integrity as a nation.

This afternoon, Condoleezza Rice was in Ramallah, where she met with Mahmoud Abbas, and later stood with Ehud Olmert pledging US support to Israel. Later in the week she will be in Rome to discuss peace talks.

She has spoken of a "New Middle East". Certainly that would be a great thing to achieve, but history over the past 25 years has shown that many powers, such as Syria, Iran and others, have used the internal weaknesses in countries in the region to promote their agenda.

The first and most important start to any future "New Middle East" would be to neuter Hizbollah. Both Hamas and Hizbollah have conspired to create the current crisis - Hizbollah by crossing into Israel on 12 July and kidnapping two Israeli soldiers, and Hamas by earlier kidnapping Gilad Shalit.

Hamas could not run its government by usual means and could not accept the terms of the "prisoners' document" that was on offer before it, so it resorted to creating a crisis. Now it talks of peace deals. Hizbollah has subverted the government of Lebanon by its presence therein while continuing its terrorist actions. It has obliged Hamas by trying to weaken Israel through copycat actions. Hizbollah is the only group responsible for what is happening in southern Lebanon. And it must pay.

Unfortunately for innocent citizens who have been caught up in this current crisis, their deaths are serving the cause of the Islamists, who thrive on chaos and political uncertainty. When nations are crushed into despair, then the Islamists will offer "peaceful" solutions, in which their agenda is taken seriously and given political credibility. That should never happen.

If it is true that Hizbollah has at least 20 "sleeper cells" outside Israel, then Nasrallah will almost certainly command extra-national attacks to happen soon. It is the way of the Islamists. The process must be nipped in the bud.

Keywords: Hizbollah, Hezbollah

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 25, 2006 8:45 PM

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