English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For July 28/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith
Matthew 23/23-26: “‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practised without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 27-28/2021
Health Ministry: 1502 new Corona cases, one death
Gantz to Discuss 'Crisis in Lebanon' with French Counterpart
US urges Lebanon’s new PM-designate to form government quickly
EU Calls for Quick Return to 'Stability' in Tunisia
Reports: No disagreements between Aoun-Miqati, Govt. Formula not Discussed Yet
Prime Minister Mikati: President and I maintain the pace of government formation, we went into some details and the opinions are very identical
Mikati from Baabda: We will hold successive meetings and form a government soon
Miqati Says Opinions 'Largely Identical' with Aoun, Govt. to be Formed Soon
Miqati’s New Govt. Priorities ‘Access to Medicine, Fuel, Electricity’
Miqati Begins Bid to Form Long-awaited Cabinet
Hariri Vows to Back Miqati, Suggests Suspending Immunity Articles for All Officials
Bassil Says FPM Won't Join Govt. as Miqati Holds Talks with Blocs
Kanaan Says FPM Not Seeking 'Veiled Share' in New Govt.
British Museum to Restore Objects Damaged in Beirut Blast
Minister of Health discusses with Swedish ambassador support to hospitals affected by port explosion
Army Chief bound for Egypt
The Lebanon-Cyprus East Med deal is a new test for Turkey, one it is likely to fail/Rami Rayess/Al Arabiya/July 27/2021
Hezbollah’s Regional Activities in Support of Iran’s Proxy Networks/Matthew Levitt/MRI@75/July 26, 2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 27-28/2021
Alarm in Jerusalem as Iran races to the bomb amid lull in nuclear talks
'Death to the dictator!': Anti-government protests reach Tehran
Human Rights Watch: Israeli war crimes apparent in Gaza war
Iranians blast Olympics for praising IRGC ‘terrorist’ who won gold medal/Benjamin Weinthal/Jerusalem Post/July 27/2021
Iraq arrests suspected killer of activist’s son: Interior ministry
UAE joins Interpol operation to crack down on human trafficking gangs/Jennifer Bell, Al Arabiya English/27 July ,2021
Top US diplomat for Yemen in Saudi Arabia for talks on ceasefire, Houthi offensive
Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan with his Pakistani counterpart
What is Article 80 and how did Tunisia’s president use it to back his decisions?
Will Tunisia Crisis End Arab Spring's Democratic Success Story?

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 27-28/2021
To Deter Iran, Give Israel a Big Bomb/Dennis Ross/Washington Institute/July 27/2021
Chess great Kasparov urges US to end nuke talks with 'terrorist' Iran/Benjamin Weinthal/Jerusalem Post/July 27/2021
After months of optimism, a return to the Iran nuke deal begins to look unlikely/Lazar Berman/The Times Of Israel/July 27/2021
An Iranian killer won an Olympic gold medal, the IOC is complicit if it stands idle/Abraham Cooper/Johnnie Moore/Al Arabiya/July 27/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 27-28/2021
Health Ministry: 1502 new Corona cases, one death
NNA/July 27/2021
In its daily report, the Ministry of Public Health announced on Tuesday the registration of 1502 new Coronavirus infections, thus raising the cumulative number of confirmed cases to-date to 557,145.
It added that one death was also recorded during the past 24 hours.

Gantz to Discuss 'Crisis in Lebanon' with French Counterpart
Associated Press/July 27/2021
The crisis in Lebanon will be among a host of issues that Israel’s defense minister will discuss with his French counterpart in Paris this week, an Israeli government statement said Tuesday. The Israeli defense ministry said Benny Gantz will travel on Wednesday for the meeting with Florence Parly and that the two will discuss the Israeli spyware company NSO, the crisis in Lebanon and nuclear talks between world powers and Iran. Several Israeli officials have expressed concern over Lebanon's several financial and economic crisis in recent weeks.

US urges Lebanon’s new PM-designate to form government quickly
AFP/27 July ,2021
The US on Tuesday called on Lebanon’s new prime minister-designate Najib Mikati to move quickly to form a government to address the country’s long crisis. “The US renews its calls to quickly form a government that’s empowered and a government that’s also committed to implementing critical reforms,” State Department deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter told reporters. The designation of the 65-year-old Mikati, Lebanon’s richest man and to many a symbol of its corrupt oligarchy, was met with general scepticism. Mikati, the third politician in a year to attempt the job, promised to form a government of experts, in line with a French roadmap conditioning a huge aid package on reform and transparency. In an interview with the An-Nahar newspaper, Mikati vowed his lineup would be “purely technocratic”.Tuesday’s meetings with the parliamentary blocs are the customary official step that follows a new prime minister’s designation but the high-stakes horse-trading has yet to begin. The current caretaker government also describes itself as technocratic but each one of its members was endorsed by the political barons who have run the country for decades.

EU Calls for Quick Return to 'Stability' in Tunisia
Agence France Presse/July 27/2021
The European Union on Tuesday called for a speedy return to political stability in Tunisia after the country plunged into turmoil following the president's ousting of the prime minister. "We call for the restoration of institutional stability as soon as possible, and in particular for the resumption of parliamentary activity, respect for fundamental rights and an abstention from all forms of violence," the bloc's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.

Reports: No disagreements between Aoun-Miqati, Govt. Formula not Discussed Yet
Naharnet/July 27/2021
President Michel Aoun has agreed with Prime Minister-Designate Najib Miqati "to expedite the new government's formation,” media sources said, adding that they have not yet discussed “the details of the government's composition.”Sources close to the Baabda Palace revealed, in remarks published Tuesday in several newspapers, that "Aoun and Miqati have not yet gone into the details of the government's line-up, the distribution of portfolios, or any other issues related to the formation mechanism," but have “agreed on expediting the government formation.”The sources stressed that "all reports about the existence of disagreements over portfolios are baseless, especially since the government composition has not yet been discussed between the president and the Prime Minister."They warned about the intentions behind spreading such rumors that are “harmful to the course of government formation.”“The purpose of these rumors is to cause a deliberate controversy and to fabricate points of disagreement between the president and the new PM,” the sources said, assuring in return that “the cooperation between Aoun and Miqati guarantees reaching the desired goal within the well-known constitutional rules.”

Prime Minister Mikati: President and I maintain the pace of government formation, we went into some details and the opinions are very identical
NNA/July 27/2021
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, received Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati, this afternoon at Baabda Palace. PM Mikati briefed the President on the atmosphere of consultations he conducted today in Parliament, which included various MPs and parliamentary blocs. The focus was on the formation of the up-coming government. President Aoun and PM Mikati also discussed the contacts carried out to form the government, and they agreed on the need to speed-up this process.
Statement: After the meeting, the PM-designate made the following statement: “His Excellency and I reviewed the parliamentary consultations that took place today with the blocs and MPs and I briefed the President on all conclusions .
As I said earlier this morning in Parliament, we need to speed up the requirements to form a government. His Excellency the President and I maintain this pace of speed. I can say that we entered into some details, and our opinions are very similar, God willing, we will meet in successive meetings over the next two days, and we will witness a government soon”. -- Press office

Mikati from Baabda: We will hold successive meetings and form a government soon
NNA/July 27/2021
Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati said, in a statement from Baabda Palace after his meeting with President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, that he briefed the latter on the non-binding parliamentary consultations that took place today, and stressed "the importance of forming a government as soon as possible." He pointed out that "views are identical to a very large extent, and we will hold successive meetings in the coming days, and God willing, we will have a government soon."

Miqati Says Opinions 'Largely Identical' with Aoun, Govt. to be Formed Soon
Naharnet/July 27/2021
Prime Minister-designate Najib Miqati on Tuesday met with President Michel Aoun in Baabda to brief him on the outcome of his nonbinding consultations with the parliamentary blocs regarding the new government. "The opinions were largely identical and, God willing, we will hold successive meetings in the next two days," Miqati said after meeting Aoun. "God willing, we will see the government formed soon," Miqati added. He had pledged earlier in the day to hold continuous meetings with Aoun in order to speed up the formation of the new government. “There was full unanimity on demanding swiftness in the formation of the new government, and after today’s session I will brief President Aoun on the outcome and I’ll always visit the presidential palace in order to achieve the government’s formation as soon as possible,” Miqati announced, after holding protocol, nonbinding consultations with the parliamentary blocs.
“With the formation of the new government we hope to restore the state’s role and presence and this is a thing that reassures citizens,” he added. He also voted to continuously “exchange viewpoints” with Aoun. The billionaire politician, already twice a prime minister, was designated on Monday, days after Saad Hariri threw in the towel. The institutional vacuum is holding up a potential financial rescue plan for Lebanon, which defaulted on its debt last year and has since sunk into what the World Bank has described as one of the world's worst crises since the mid-19th century.
Tuesday's meetings with the parliamentary blocs are the customary official step that follows a new prime minister's designation but the high-stakes horse-trading has yet to begin.

Miqati’s New Govt. Priorities ‘Access to Medicine, Fuel, Electricity’
Naharnet/July 27/2021
Behind closed doors, Prime Minister–designate Najib Miqati has asserted that if he is able to form a government, “its priorities, in the period until the parliamentary elections, will be to ensure the access of the Lebanese to medicine, fuel and electricity." Members of his team told al-Akhbar newspaper, in remarks published Tuesday, that Miqati “is willing to suggest the idea of using the $900 million that Lebanon will receive from the International Monetary Fund to build two power plants in Deir Amar and al-Zahrani, which would cover Lebanon’s entire need for electricity.”Sources added that Miqati is counting on the promised international momentum, in order to ensure the implementation of the Egyptian gas import pact, “which will lower the electricity bills and ensure the continuation of (electricity) production.”

Miqati Begins Bid to Form Long-awaited Cabinet
Agence France Presse/July 27/2021
Lebanon's new prime minister-designate Najib Miqati began consultations with leading political parties Tuesday with a view to forming a long-awaited government. The billionaire politician, already twice a prime minister, was designated on Monday, days after Saad Hariri threw in the towel. The government of Hassan Diab resigned following a deadly port explosion in Beirut last August and efforts to agree on a new lineup have proved fruitless. The institutional vacuum is holding up a potential financial rescue plan for Lebanon, which defaulted on its debt last year and has since sunk into what the World Bank has described as one of the world's worst crises since the mid-19th century. The designation of the 65-year-old Miqati, Lebanon's richest man and to many a symbol of its corrupt oligarchy, was met with general skepticism.A native of Tripoli, Lebanon's second city and one of its poorest, he was accused by a state prosecutor in 2019 of illicit enrichment, a charge he denies.
Skepticism
"How can I trust a thief who stole from me and my children and their future?" asked 57-year-old Beirut resident Mohammed Deeb, after Miqati's designation. "As long as this (political) class is still in power, nothing will change." On Monday evening, dozens of protesters gathered outside Miqati's Beirut home, accusing him of corruption and cronyism. Lebanon's former colonial ruler France and other Western governments stopped short of welcoming Miqati's designation and simply urged him to swiftly deliver a competent lineup. But Lebanon's bickering politicians view Miqati as a consensus candidate, who may be capable of easing a political deadlock that has stymied efforts towards forming a government. Miqati, the third politician in a year to attempt the job, promised his government would work on implementing a French roadmap conditioning a huge aid package on reform and transparency. Tuesday's meetings with the parliamentary blocs are the customary official step that follows a new prime minister's designation but the high-stakes horse-trading has yet to begin. If he succeeds where Hariri failed for 10 months and forms a government, Mikati will be expected to steer the country to parliamentary polls due next year. In an interview with the An-Nahar newspaper, Miqati vowed his lineup would be "purely technical" and tasked with bridging the gap to the elections.
Electricity crisis
In some of his first comments after his designation, Miqati addressed the shortages that have plunged the country into darkness and further crippled its crumbling economy. Lebanon can no longer provide mains electricity to its citizens for more than a handful of hours a day nor can it afford to buy the fuel needed to power generators. Almost none of the international community's demands for a broad program of reforms have so far been met. Further stalling the bankrupt state's recapitalization has been the government's failure to engage the International Monetary Fund and discuss a fully-fledged rescue plan. Until then, the monetary institution is due to send around $900 million as part of its Special Drawing Rights (SDR) aid financing scheme to help Lebanon recover. Experts have warned however that the amount would not be enough and risked being misused by a ruling class that offers no more guarantees of transparency than before. According to the Al-Akhbar newspaper, Miqati wants to use the IMF money to build new plants aimed at stabilizing Lebanon's power supply.

Hariri Vows to Back Miqati, Suggests Suspending Immunity Articles for All Officials
Naharnet/July 27/2021
Ex-PM Saad Hariri on Tuesday pledged to support PM-designate Najib Miqati in the mission of forming a new government, as he defended al-Mustaqbal bloc over the uproar related to the lifting of parliamentary immunities in the port blast case. “Together with al-Mustaqbal bloc, I have tasked myself with securing the requirements of success for PM-designate Najib Miqati and we’ll back him in his steps,” said Hariri at a press conference that followed a meeting for his bloc. “We want to know who brought the ammonium nitrate,” Hariri said. “The port blast reminded us of February 14 (2005),” the ex-PM added, referring to the explosion that killed ex-PM Rafik Hariri – his father. “Al-Mustaqbal bloc paid in blood on the path to truth and justice,” he said. Commenting on the petition signed by several blocs, including Mustaqbal, for referring the issue of immunities to the Council for the Trial of Presidents and Ministers, Hariri said: “When we called for an international probe with the aim of dropping all immunities, they stood against us and accused us of treachery.”He added that his bloc will submit a proposal for “suspending all constitutional articles that grant immunity to all presidents, ministers, MPs, officials, judges and even lawyers.”

Bassil Says FPM Won't Join Govt. as Miqati Holds Talks with Blocs
Naharnet/July 27/2021
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil announced Tuesday that the FPM has decided not to take part in the government that is supposed to be formed by PM-designate Najib Miqati. “PM-designate Miqati has been appointed without our approval or nomination, and this is an additional proof that we are not the majority and that we have never been part of any majority in parliament and the governments,” Bassil told reporters after the FPM-led Strong Lebanon bloc met with Miqati as part of the nonbinding government formation consultations.
“After PM Miqati’s designation it is normal that we have become in the aiding position, seeing as we do not practice political bickering,” Bassil added. “We are with forming a government as soon as possible and we wish him success… and we’ll also help him,” the FPM chief went on to say. He added that it is the FPM’s duty to “offer all the necessary facilitations and support.”Bassil, however, noted that his bloc informed Miqati of its decision not to take part in the government.
“Accordingly, we won’t interfere at all in the formation process and this could be a helpful element,” Bassil added. Asked whether the FPM will be represented as part of President Michel Aoun’s share, Bassil said: “When we were in the (same) government, PM Miqati believed in the idea of the full constitutional partner, and this matter is enough for us.”Miqati’s nonbinding consultations also involved meetings with Speaker Nabih Berri, ex-PMs Saad Hariri and Tammam Salam, Deputy Speaker Elie Ferzli and the blocs of the Amal Movement, al-Mustaqbal Movement, Hizbullah, Marada and the Progressive Socialist Party. “The time is for work, not talking,” said Salam as he left parliament.
Speaking in the name of Amal’s Development and Liberation bloc, MP Anwar al-Khalil called for speeding up the formation process in order to meet “the needs of the people.” “Should formation take place, God willing in a short time, the PM must work on the implementation of all of the constitution’s articles, in addition to the reformation of the electoral law, because it has divided people into sectarian segments and it must be amended,” al-Khalil added. MP Samir al-Jisr meanwhile spoke on behalf of the al-Mustaqbal bloc. “We urged the PM-designate to expedite the formation process as much as possible, because the country can no longer withstand delay and because we believe that the country’s salvation begins with the formation of a capable government,” Jisr said. “Once it reaches an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, this government can put the country on the course of salvation, and we emphasized on what he said about the formation of a government of specialists,” Jisr added. Asked about the interior portfolio, the MP said the bloc did not request it from the PM-designate. “We have not asked for 24 or 12 ministers and this matter is up to him,” Jisr added. The head of Hizbullah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc, MP Mohammed Raad, meanwhile stressed that the bloc will cooperate to “speed up the formation of the government of necessity, in order to rescue the country and reassure the Lebanese about their living, instead of leaving them prey to mafias.”“We did not ask for anything for our bloc and we asked that the government be formed of ministers who have expertise and prudence,” Raad added. The Lebanese Forces bloc meanwhile said that it will not grant the new government confidence in parliament, noting that "this is not related to the government but rather to the ruling structure."The Armenian bloc for its part said that it wants to take part in the new government although it did not name Miqati in the binding consultations. "Our decision is different than that of the Strong Lebanon bloc," the bloc added.

Kanaan Says FPM Not Seeking 'Veiled Share' in New Govt.
Naharnet/July 27/2021
The Secretary of the Strong Lebanon Bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan confirmed, after the non-binding parliamentary consultations, on Tuesday, that "PM-designate Najib Miqati is keen to form the government within few days."He said that his bloc has informed the PM-designate who is "concerned about the ongoing collapse" that they are “ready to help” in order to end the formation matter quickly. According to Kanaan, Miqati will have “successive sessions with President Michel Aoun” to form the government as soon as possible. "There are no quotas in the government of specialists,” Kanaan said, when asked if his bloc demanded a quota in the new government, denying what “the media is reporting” about “a veiled quota.”

British Museum to Restore Objects Damaged in Beirut Blast
Naharnet/July 27/2021
The British Museum will restore eight ancient glass artefacts damaged in last year's Beirut port explosion, the London cultural institution announced on Tuesday. The glass vessels were shattered after 2,750 tones of ammonium nitrate stored in Beirut's port caused a blast that devastated the city on August 4, 2020.
Workers will piece together hundreds of glass fragments at the British Museum's conservation laboratories in London with funding from The European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF). "These objects hold immense historical, artistic and cultural significance. Their return to their rightful form is a powerful symbol of healing and resilience after disaster," said TEFAF chairman Hidde van Seggelen. The artefacts were held in a case displaying 74 Roman, Byzantine and Islamic-era glass vessels in the American University of Beirut's Archaeological Museum, located 3.2 kilometers (two miles) from the blast. The explosion caused them to shatter into hundreds of pieces, which were mixed with broken glass from cabinets and windows. Only 15 vessels were deemed salvageable and eight safe to travel to London for restoration. Sandra Smith, head of collection care at the British Museum, explained that glass reconstruction is a "delicate process" as shards move out of shape and have to be drawn back under tension. The vessels, dating back to the first century BC, document the evolution of glass-production technology in Lebanon, with two thought to have been imported from Syria or Egypt. The works will temporarily go on display at the British Museum before returning to Beirut. Director Hartwig Fischer said the British Museum's "expertise and resources" would allow the artefacts to be saved and "enjoyed in Lebanon for many more years to come". The August 2020 blast killed more than 200 people, caused millions of dollars' worth of damage and forced the Lebanese government to resign, exacerbating the country's health and economic crises.

Minister of Health discusses with Swedish ambassador support to hospitals affected by port explosion
NNA/July 27/2021
Caretaker Minister of Public Health, Hamad Hassan, tackled with Sweden's Ambassador to Lebanon, Anne Desmore, the current health challenges facing Lebanon. Desmore described the meeting as "important, as views were exchanged and research was conducted on the support that Swedish companies can provide to five hospitals in Beirut that were damaged in the port explosion." She said: "Sweden's support for Lebanon features this year ten million dollars for humanitarian support and 50 million dollars for other aid aspects."

Army Chief bound for Egypt
NNA/July 27/2021
The Lebanese Army announced via Twitter that LAF Commander, General Joseph Aoun, has left to the Arab Republic of Egypt, in response to the invitation of his counterpart, Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces, Lieutenant-General Mohamed Farid. Research will focus on cooperation between the two armies and ways to bolster support for the LAF.

The Lebanon-Cyprus East Med deal is a new test for Turkey, one it is likely to fail
Rami Rayess/Al Arabiya/July 27/2021
Every time two Mediterranean countries meet to discuss oil and gas in the eastern basin of the sea, Turkey feels boxed in. Doubly so if Cyprus, which falls under the patronage of its historical opponent Greece, is involved in the negotiations. Keeping an eye on such activities is simply not enough. Ankara wants to know more and, if necessary, retaliate in one way or another.
Last week, Lebanon’s caretaker Foreign Minister Zeina Akar visited Nicosia and held a meeting with the island’s top officials. The most important announcement was the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the two states regarding oil and gas. Though little has been announced regarding the details of the MOU, the mere fact that the two countries have adopted a rapprochement policy signals their mutual willingness to coordinate in the future. Lebanon had previously commenced maritime demarcation negotiations with Israel under American auspices in an attempt to exploit its hidden treasures that could help it gradually depart from its accumulating economic and social crises. The indirect tripartite negotiations reached a deadlock because of varying explanations of maps by the two countries. The Americans did not exert further pressure as the outgoing Trump administration had reached its final days. Countries and territories in the East Mediterranean include Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Libya. The highest degrees of tension are between Greece and Turkey – Ankara has previously not hesitated to send military vessels and warships into the basin as a signal that it will not tolerate any potential violations of its resources in the Mediterranean.
Though both are NATO members, Turkey and Greece have been at odds for decades. They have their differences on almost everything: From maritime resources to the Cyprus issue, to the European Union membership, to turbulent bilateral relations.
Therefore, when Cyprus signs a MOU with Lebanon, or any other country in the Mediterranean, Ankara simply cannot turn a blind eye. The failing two-state solution in Cyprus has now gained an additional problem, from the Turkish point of view, which is the MOU of oil and gas. Turkey considers the northern part of the island, which it has occupied since 1974, as also having rights in the basin via its territorial waters. Of course, the fact that not a single country in the whole world has recognized the northern “Republic” in the past 30 years fails to discourage Ankara from this interpretation.
Turkey’s antagonism with Greece, and consequently Cyprus, has witnessed its ups and downs. Rarely has Turkey cared for the position of European countries – which normally have sided with Greece as a member state of the European Union (EU). The continued calls by the EU to resolve the accumulating disputes through dialog have actually been to Turkey’s benefit. Now Ankara knows that its European opponent is not to be feared. Differences among European states on how to tackle relations with Ankara have been varying for a long period of time. They still are. This is a point Turkey knows exactly how to exploit. Turkey has felt excluded from all the rapprochement policies in the oil and gas sector that the Eastern Mediterranean area had witnessed. In September 2020, Greece, Italy, Israel, Cyprus, Jordan, and Egypt all signed onto a joint organization to promote regional cooperation in the development of natural gas. With Syria undergoing bloody civil strife for more than 10 years, and Lebanon falling apart amid an unprecedented economic crisis, only Turkey was left out in the cold.
Ankara needs to revisit its regional policies, not only from the perspective of oil and gas, but also from other policies that have placed it in confrontation with several regional and international players. Its relations with Europe have been traditionally complicated as Ankara considers Europe’s continued refusal to allow Turkey entry into the EU as a personal affront to the country’s national pride. Its relations with Washington have also seen a remarkable deterioration which has affected, in one way or another, its local currency. On the other front, relations with Russia and China are also failing to flourish – although Ankara has been using the threat of upping relations with Moscow as a thinly veiled attempt to court the US. The Lebanese-Cypriot MOU is a new test for Ankara. It will fail it unless a drastic policy revision takes place. Recent history suggests that this is unlikely.

Hezbollah’s Regional Activities in Support of Iran’s Proxy Networks
Matthew Levitt/MRI@75/July 26, 2021
ماثيو ليفيت/الأنشطة الإقليمية لحزب الله لدعم شبكات الوكلاء والأذرع الإيرانية
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/100955/matthew-levitt-mri75-hezbollahs-regional-activities-in-support-of-irans-proxy-networks-%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%ab%d9%8a%d9%88-%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%aamri-75-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a3/

Click Here to Read The Study In PDF Formate
https://www.mei.edu/publications/hezbollahs-regional-activities-support-irans-proxy-networks
Summary
As a Lebanese actor ideologically tied to Iran, Hezbollah has multiple allegiances and objectives that do not always align symmetrically. Hezbollah’s regional activities are a reflection of the group’s increasingly close alignment with Iran, rather than the interests of the Lebanese state or citizenry. Today, Hezbollah’s regional adventurism is most pronounced in its expeditionary forces deployed in Syria and elsewhere in the region, but no less important are the group’s advanced training regimen for other Shi’a militias aligned with Iran, its expansive illicit financing activities across the region, and its procurement, intelligence, cyber, and disinformation activities. Together, these underscore the scale and scope of the group’s all-in approach to transforming from one of several Lebanese militias into a regional player acting at Iran’s behest.
I. Introduction: Hezbollah’s Shifting Center
of Gravity
II. Iran’s Role in the Formation of Hezbollah
III. Hezbollah Development as an Iranian Proxy
IV. Hezbollah’s Multiple Allegiances and Objectives
V. Personnel Decisions Underscore Regional Commitments
VI. Hezbollah Operational Activities Across the Region
Deploying Troops to Foreign Battlefields
Training Regional Shi’a Militants
Regional Illicit Financial Activities
Procurement, Intelligence, Cyber, and
Disinformation Operations
VII. Hezbollah Management of Iran’s Regional Proxies
VIII. Conclusion: “We are not a party now,we’re international”
I. Introduction: Hezbollah’s Shifting Center of Gravity
From its inception, Hezbollah has always been closely allied with Iran. Iran played a key, hands-on role in its formation, and Hezbollah’s commitment to Iran is a primary reason for the inherent and often uncomfortable conflict between its competing goals in Lebanon and across the Middle East. Hezbollah has deep interests in Lebanon, where it engages in political, economic, social, and military activities. But the group is also engaged in a wide array of militant, terrorist, and criminal activities outside Lebanon that are equally fundamental to understanding the group in its totality. This includes Hezbollah training other Iranian proxy groups and even deploying key personnel and military units far beyond Lebanon’s borders. These activities abroad, even more than its militia activity at home and its wars with Israel, have led countries around the world to task their law enforcement and intelligence agencies with countering Hezbollah’s activities.
But Hezbollah’s roles in the wars in Iraq and Syria significantly changed the nature of how the group’s alliance with Iran plays out in practice throughout the region, including significant deployments of Hezbollah personnel beyond Lebanon’s borders and a well-organized training program to help Iran develop networks of Shi’a militant fighters. Recognizing this growing regional threat, in 2016 the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) branded Hezbollah a terrorist group and Gulf states have cracked down on Hezbollah supporters and financiers within their borders.1 The Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have issued statements condemning Hezbollah as well,2 leading to a war of words between the group and Gulf officials. In 2018, Morocco broke diplomatic ties with Iran over reported Hezbollah ties to the Polisario Front.3
The first signs of Hezbollah’s shift to a regional posture in support of Iranian interests were structural and involved moving key personnel from positions focused on Israel to those involving Iraq, Yemen, and Syria. As Hezbollah trained more Shi’a fighters from around the region, and then led them in battles across Syria, the group emerged as the leader and coalescing force for a broad range of Shi’a militants tied to Iran and the Quds Force (QF), the branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) primarily responsible for foreign operations. Over time, IRGC-QF commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani personally assumed more of a command leadership position over Hezbollah’s fighting forces, at times at the expense of the group’s own commanders.
Then, following the January 2020 assassination of Soleimani alongside Iraqi Shi’a militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Hezbollah assumed more of a leadership role coordinating the activities of a broad network of Shi’a militant proxies — the “Resistance Axis”4 — on behalf of Iran’s IRGC-QF. Taken together, these events shifted Hezbollah’s center of gravity in the region from being a Lebanese militia primarily focused on activities in Lebanon and opposition to Israel to a regional actor playing a leadership role for Iran’s regional network of militant proxies on behalf of the IRGC-QF.
II. Iran’s Role in the Formation of Hezbollah5
Founded in 1982 by a group of young Shi’a militants, Lebanese Hezbollah (the “Party of God”) was the product of an Iranian effort to aggregate under one roof a variety of militant Shi’a groups in Lebanon, themselves the products of the domestic and regional instability of the time. Hezbollah was the outgrowth of the country’s complex and bloody civil war. For the first time, Lebanon’s historically marginalized Shi’a Muslims attempted to assert economic and political power. A 1984 CIA report notes that “Iran began to develop close links with Lebanese Shias soon after the Israeli invasion in June 1982. Some 800 Revolutionary Guards were sent to Lebanon through Syria to help recruit Hezbollahi, provide political and religious indoctrination and military training, including instruction in terrorist tactics.”6 In 1987, the CIA assessed that “an Islamic fundamentalist movement probably would have developed in Lebanon without outside support, but Iranian aid has been a major stimulant.”7 Shortly after the Israeli invasion, hundreds of IRGC advisors and trainers set up a base in the Bekaa Valley with the goal of exporting the Islamic revolution to the Arab world.8 Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem recalls how training camps supervised by the IRGC were set up in the Bekaa Valley as early as 1982 and how all members were required to attend these camps and learn how to confront the “enemy.”9
In its early years, Hezbollah functioned as a “network of radical Shia paramilitary groups that agree[d] on major strategic goals such as the establishment of an Islamic republic but often differ[ed] on tactical or operational matters.”10 These militant networks were typically organized around specific family clans, such as the Musawi and Hamadi families.11 In 1985, Hezbollah identified the organization’s ideological platform: “We view the Iranian regime as the vanguard and new nucleus of the leading Islamic State in the world. We abide by the orders of one single wise and just leadership, represented by ‘waliyat el faqih’ [guardianship of the jurist] and personified by [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini.”12 Hezbollah has been Iran’s proxy ever since, and it is estimated that Iran provides Hezbollah with as much as $700 million-1 billion per year.13
III. Hezbollah Development as an Iranian Proxy14
Despite its foundation as a Lebanese political party, Hezbollah has always profited from Iran’s material and ideological support. The close alignment between Iran and Hezbollah was exemplified early on by the latter’s “name game.” Hezbollah adopted the alias of the Islamic Jihad Organization to give it “a modicum of plausible deniability,” muddling its relationship with Iran.15 As early as 1983, the CIA observed that Islamic Jihad “more likely is a cover used by Iran for its terrorist operations, whether employing local Shias in Lebanon or locally recruited agents of other nationalities” and that “[s]urrogates provide Iran with an excellent means for creating the illusion that an independent, international organization is at work against U.S. interests.”16
Soon, the U.S. intelligence community would collect information, later declassified, underscoring the close relationship between Hezbollah, its Islamic Jihad terrorist wing, and Iran. For example, instructions from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence to Lebanese terrorists in 1985 urged them to conduct a propaganda campaign in the name of Islamic Jihad, an event the National Intelligence Council found to be “the first definite link” between the Iranians and Islamic Jihad.17 Throughout the 1980s, Iran and Hezbollah continued to seek a degree of public separation by means of using the alias Islamic Jihad, but CIA reports definitively established Islamic Jihad was Hezbollah, not some rogue militant group.
Islamic Jihad started off as a loosely organized group, but Iran helped it coalesce into the organized group we now know as Hezbollah. In March 1984, the CIA assessed that “Tehran could change the present character of ‘Islamic Jihad’ from a loose association of largely independent, irregularly organized Shiite factions into a more formalized, international organization.”18 Indeed, this predicted formalization and professionalization of Hezbollah into a full-fledged arm of Iran’s terrorist apparatus occurred through an influx of money, weaponry, personnel, military and explosives training, and tactical guidance. Iranian embassy officials were responsible for coordinating radical Shi’a activities within Lebanon at the behest of the Iranian senior leadership.19 The Iranian ambassador in Damascus and the IRGC commander in the Bekaa Valley worked closely with the Council of Lebanon, an Iranian-created committee of radical Lebanese Shi’a leaders, to coordinate all fundamentalist activities in Lebanon.20 Some Iranian “auxiliaries” were even embedded in Hezbollah units in the Bekaa Valley, with the IRGC sharing Hezbollah’s communications and support network.21
Nor was the symbiotic relationship between Iran and Hezbollah premised purely along the military and terrorism dimension. Hezbollah also adheres the ideological, cultural, and religious tenets of the Iranian Revolution and the guardianship of the jurist, waliyat al-faqih. Hezbollah extremists “responded with zeal to Khomeini’s revolutionary message.”22 The group shared a desire to establish a fundamentalist state and export it worldwide. In fact, early expansion in Hezbollah’s base was likely due to the popular preachings of Iranian-trained clerics and a “fanatical devotion to Ayatollah Khomeini and the cause of sparking an Islamic revolution in Lebanon,” the CIA concluded.23 Shi’a religious hierarchy in Lebanon was tightly bound to Iran, “historically in both a religious and kinship sense.”24 Lebanese clerics received training in Iran, married into Iranian clerical families, and acted as mouthpieces and amplifiers of Iranian theological discourse, with the revolution “providing a well-formulated extremist ideology and a model for Shia fundamentalist activism.”25
Beyond the educational and familial pathways, Iranian ideology permeated Lebanon by means of official channels. In addition to providing paramilitary and terrorist skills, the IRGC in Lebanon provided political and religious indoctrination.26 Thus, the CIA concluded in 1987, although “an Islamic fundamentalist movement probably would have developed in Lebanon without outside support […] Iranian aid has been a major stimulant.”27
Over the years, U.S. government sources have variously referred to Hezbollah and its leaders as a “surrogate,”28 “puppet,”29 “the vanguard of an Iranian-influenced revolutionary movement,”30 and “Iran’s most important and longest-standing non-state partner and a core member of Tehran’s ‘Axis of Resistance.’”31 Nonetheless, Hezbollah developed even from its earliest days along two often overlapping but sometimes competing tracks. For all of their pro-Iranian spirit, Hezbollah’s leaders also sought to create an independent, domestic movement aligned with Iran but independent to make its own decisions. While considering itself “a part of the Islamic nation in the world,” the organization’s founding statement said it intended “to determine our fate by our own hands.”32
U.S. government sources were well aware of Hezbollah’s chimeric attitude: “The Hizballah movement does not depend on Iran for its existence. Shia fundamentalism, whetted by decades of Shia deprivation and a brutal Israeli occupation, has firmly taken root in Lebanon and has achieved a momentum of its own,” the CIA observed in a 1985 report.33 Although a ceasing of Iranian support to Hezbollah would slow the latter’s growth, Hezbollah could satisfy its material needs on its own, if the need arose.34 Hezbollah was also asserting independence of action, carrying out operations without Iranian foreknowledge.35 In an assessment of Iranian sponsorship of terrorism, the CIA found “mounting evidence that the Lebanese Shias—although respectful of Khomeini and the Iranian revolution—will no longer tolerate Iranian attempts to dictate their policies.”36 Case in point was the release of hostages. Tehran would be unlikely to be able to force Hezbollah to free all its hostages in Lebanon, particularly when the proxy’s goals did not coincide with Tehran’s.37 Hezbollah, it seemed, had “become an autonomous terrorist problem in its own right.”38
Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Hezbollah’s foremost cleric in the group’s early years, was particularly adamant about maintaining autonomy from Iran. Fadlallah maintained that the “revolutionary circumstances” in Iran were fundamentally different than those in Lebanon, and that Hezbollah would consult with — but not pander to — Iran.39 Following Syria’s occupation of West Beirut in February 1986, Fadlallah went so far as to block Hezbollah from executing Tehran’s order to attack the Syrians.40 As a result, Iranian leaders “circumvent[ed] Fadlallah’s authority by dealing directly with Hizballah officials through the Iranian embassies in Beirut and Damascus and through the Iranian Revolutionary Guard contingent in the Bekaa Valley.”41 Over time, Fadlallah fell out of favor with Tehran, and within Hezbollah leadership circles, over his refusal to subscribe to the Iranian concept of waliyat al-faqih.
But one of Fadlallah’s proteges, Imad Mughniyeh, who founded the group’s Islamic Jihad terrorist unit, frequently consulted with Iranian intelligence and IRGC officials, according to U.S. intelligence sources. An Iranian official sat on the Hezbollah Shura Council in 1992, and around the same time two Iranian officials were members of Hezbollah’s military committee. The IRGC ran Hezbollah’s intelligence planning section until 1989, when a Lebanese candidate was finally deemed capable of doing the job. Over the years, senior IRGC-QF and Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) officials would periodically visit Lebanon to work with Hezbollah and assess the group’s security.42 And when Mughniyeh wanted to target U.S. interests, he would seek Iranian consent. For example, in December 1991 the CIA worried over intelligence suggesting that Hezbollah planned to attack U.S. interests in Beirut in the ensuing weeks. Iran would likely oppose more Hezbollah kidnappings, the CIA assessed, since Tehran wanted to preserve its political capital from the recent release of some hostages. However, the agency warned, “It is possible that Tehran has approved low-level terrorist operations against US interests—such as sniper attacks—to allow Hezbollah elements to vent their animosity toward the United States. These Hezbollah elements may include former hostage holder Imad Mughniyeh.”
Two decades after the U.S. Marines barracks bombing, testimony in U.S. federal court established that Hezbollah carried out the bombings with Syrian and Iranian oversight. According to the testimony of former U.S. military officials, two days after the bombing — on October 25, 1983 — the chief of naval intelligence notified the deputy chief of naval operations of an intercepted message from September 26, 1983, just a few weeks before the barracks bombing. Sent from MOIS in Tehran, the message instructed the Iranian ambassador in Damascus, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi, to contact Hussein al-Musawi and to direct him to “take spectacular action against the United States Marines” and the multinational coalition in Lebanon.43 In the words of Col. Timothy Geraghty, commander of the Marine unit in Beirut at the time of the bombing, “If there was ever a 24-karat gold document, this was it. This is not something from the third cousin of the fourth wife of Muhammad the taxicab driver.”44 U.S. signals intelligence had caught Iranian officials instructing a Hezbollah leader to carry out an attack targeting U.S. Marines in Lebanon, but the military bureaucracy prevented that information from getting where it needed to be in time to prevent the attack.45
Years later, a former Hezbollah member would testify in a U.S. federal court case that Ambassador Mohtashemi followed orders and contacted an IRGC member named Kanani, who commanded its Lebanon headquarters.46 Mughniyeh and his brother-in-law, Mustafa Badreddine, were named operation leaders after a meeting that included Kanani, Musawi, and then-Hezbollah security official Hassan Nasrallah. Planning meetings were held at the Iranian embassy in Damascus, often chaired by Ambassador Mohtashemi, who helped establish Hezbollah in the first instance.47
IV. Hezbollah’s Multiple Allegiances and Objectives
Hezbollah is one of the dominant political parties in Lebanon, even as the group also maintains its own militia and a stockpile of advanced weapons systems — including precision-guided missiles — that it controls and deploys independent of the Lebanese government or Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). Hezbollah also runs social, educational, health, and religious institutions in the country, which provide a wide range of services to its constituents beyond the often-meager services provided by the Lebanese government. Hezbollah members have held cabinet posts in the government and several group officials are members of parliament, even as the group makes life-or-death decisions for the Lebanese people in service of its own interests, often at Iran’s behest, independent of the LAF and the central government.
Hezbollah is both part of and above the sectarian political party system in Lebanon, participating in the system from within and functioning as a non-state actor pursuing its own goals, independent of and often at loggerheads with those of the central government.
At the same time, Hezbollah is also a pan-Shi’a movement and an Iranian proxy group, rounding out the foundation and context for the group’s radical Shi’a ideology. In 1985, Hezbollah’s original political platform included the establishment of an Islamic republic in Lebanon as a central pillar, although this emphasis has since been downplayed.48 Also prominent in this document is the fight against “Western imperialism” and the continued conflict with Israel.
By virtue of its ideological commitment to Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolutionary doctrine of waliyat al-faqih, Hezbollah is committed simultaneously to the decrees of Iranian clerics, the Lebanese state, its sectarian Shi’a community, and fellow Shi’a abroad. Hezbollah’s other (often competing) goals have included resisting Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory and contesting, and ultimately seeking to eliminate, Israel’s very existence; promoting the standing of Shi’a communities worldwide; undermining Arab states with Shi’a minorities in an effort to export the Iranian Shi’a revolution; and serving as the long arm of Iran in coordination with the IRGC-QF. The consequences of these competing ideological drivers was clear after Hezbollah dragged both Israel and Lebanon into a war neither state wanted by crossing the U.N.-demarcated “Blue Line” border between the two countries in July 2006, killing three Israeli soldiers while kidnapping two more. Hezbollah’s multiple and sometimes mutually exclusive goals came to light again when the group sent forces to defend the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, a decision which itself gave rise to several more such situations when the group’s fighting in Syria boomeranged back into Lebanon.
To be sure, Hezbollah cannot be truly understood without an appreciation for its political, social, and military activities in Lebanon. But its activities outside the country are equally fundamental, including its criminal enterprises, terrorist networks, and military units deployed beyond Lebanon’s borders.
V. Personnel Decisions Underscore Regional Commitments
Hezbollah’s transformation into a regional actor is underscored by the assignment of key personnel from the group’s Southern Command along the border with Israel to new fronts around the region, including Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
Hezbollah has long supported other Shi’a militant groups in the region, trained their operatives, and periodically participated in terrorist attacks with members of other Shi’a militant groups at the behest of Iran. As early as 1985, the CIA reported two years later, Hezbollah ran a training camp near Janta, Lebanon, for over 2,000 Shi’a militants, including about 60 from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain who were trained at the facility before being sent back to the Gulf states to conduct operations there.49 And as early as December 1983, Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi Dawa operatives together attacked a series of targets in Kuwait.50 Later, a couple of years into the Iraq war and with Iran deeply concerned about U.S forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran called on Hezbollah to take on more regional responsibilities separate from the group’s core interests and activities in Lebanon and targeting Israel. The commitment with which Hezbollah responded to the call was most evident from key personnel assignments as Hezbollah dedicated top commanders to the group’s new, regional missions.
Even before Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel, the group acceded to Iranian requests to step up its role training Iraqi Shi’a militants. According to information revealed by the U.S. Treasury Department, sometime in 2005 “Iran asked Hezbollah to form a group to train Iraqis to fight Coalition Forces in Iraq. In response, Hassan Nasrallah established a covert Hezbollah unit to train and advise Iraqi militants” from Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM), and JAM Special Groups including Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq.51 In May 2006, Hezbollah sent a master trainer — Ali Musa Daqduq al-Musawi — to Iran to coordinate the training program and make periodic visits to Iraq.52 Daqduq was a Hezbollah special operations commander who had been a senior operative since 1983 and at one point headed Nasrallah’s protective detail.53 In Iraq, Daqduq served under Yusuf Hashim, the Hezbollah official in charge of Unit 3800, the designation for Hezbollah’s unit operating in Iraq.54
In Yemen, too, the State Department explained, Hezbollah dispatched trusted and proven commanders “to provide training, materiel, and personnel” — alongside Iranian IRGC-QF officers — in support of Houthi rebels.55 According to the U.S. government, Khalil Harb, a former special operations commander and a close adviser to Nasrallah, oversaw Hezbollah’s activities in Yemen — managing the transfer of funds to the organization within the country — and travels to Tehran to coordinate them with Iranian officials.56 Hezbollah also sent battle-hardened commanders like Abu Ali Tabtabai, a senior Hezbollah commander first sent from southern Lebanon where he faced off with Israeli forces in Syria, but was then quickly redeployed from there to Yemen to upgrade the Houthis’ guerilla tactics training program.57
Hezbollah even dispatched operatives stationed in southern Lebanon to Egypt, where a Hezbollah cell first focused on smuggling Iranian weapons through Egypt to Hamas in the Gaza Strip and later shifted to target tourist and other destinations in the country. Muhammad Qabalan, a former Hezbollah infantry platoon commander, headed the unit in Egypt, working together with another Hezbollah operative formerly stationed in south Lebanon, Muhammad Mansour.58
Then there is the startling case of Syria. Around 2013, Hezbollah went so far as to make significant structural changes to its military command to oversee its massive commitment in Syria. The group added two new military commands — the first on the Lebanese-Syrian border and the second within Syria itself — to its existing ones in southern and eastern Lebanon.59 Hezbollah then transferred key personnel from its traditionally paramount Southern Command, along Lebanon’s border with Israel. Chief among these was Mustafa Badreddine, who took over the leadership of Hezbollah’s foreign terrorist operations from his cousin, Imad Mughniyeh, after the latter was killed in 2008. Around 2012, Badreddine began coordinating Hezbollah military activities in Syria and quickly assumed the dual-hatted position of overseeing Hezbollah foreign operations as well as the group’s Syrian command. Badreddine was a veteran and senior Hezbollah operative implicated in the 1983 bombing of U.S. barracks in Beirut, the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and terrorist bombings in Kuwait in the 1980s, among other attacks. His appointment was the strongest sign Hezbollah could give of its commitment to Syria’s civil war. Indeed, according to U.S. intelligence officials, Nasrallah hesitated when IRGC-QF leaders first asked him to deploy Hezbollah forces to Syria to defend the Assad regime. According to a Wall Street Journal account, “Nasrallah only agreed to the deployments after he received a personal appeal from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who made clear that Tehran expected Hezbollah to act decisively.”60 Once Nasrallah made the decision to engage in the Syrian civil war — first in 2011 and then in a bigger, more organized fashion in mid-2012 — he personally assumed responsibility for overseeing the activities.61 Indeed, Nasrallah has directed the group’s activities in Syria since at least September 2011, when he and Badreddine began holding weekly strategic coordination meetings with Assad in Damascus.62 The organization’s intense focus on the Syrian conflict was the main reason for its blacklisting by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2012.63
VI. Hezbollah Operational Activities Across the Region
Deploying key commanders to priority conflict zones facilitated the group’s ability to commit significant added value to its and Iran’s allies in these conflicts. Hezbollah’s contributions vary from large and small military deployments, training local militias, capacity building efforts focused on weapons or technology transfers, propaganda and disinformation, cyber training and campaigns, illicit financial activities, intelligence collection efforts, and even terrorist plots and preoperational surveillance in the region.
Deploying Troops to Foreign Battlefields
Hezbollah’s most significant military commitment, by far, has been to Syria in defense of the Assad regime. This has involved thousands of Hezbollah boots on the ground and the training and commanding of other Shi’a militants from Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, among others.
Cognizant of the domestic challenges its fighting in Syria would create, Hezbollah first tried to hide its deployment to defend the Assad regime. But in August 2012, the U.S. Treasury Department re-designated Hezbollah, this time exposing the group’s support for Assad. At the time, the department noted how Hezbollah’s “extensive support to the Syrian government’s violent suppression of the Syrian people” underscored the group’s involvement in a conflict beyond Lebanon’s borders and “exposes the true nature of this terrorist organization and its destabilizing presence in the region.” Beyond stressing the group’s status as a regional actor, Treasury also pointed to the fact that Nasrallah himself “has overseen Hezbollah’s efforts to help the Syrian regime’s violent crackdown on the Syrian civilian population.”64 After an August 2013 speech in which Nasrallah defended the group’s activities in Syria as part of its “resistance” against Israel, one Shiite Lebanese satirist commented: “Either the fighters have lost Palestine on the map and think it is in Syria (or) they were informed that the road to Jerusalem runs through Qusayr and Homs,” locations in Syria where Hezbollah has fought with Assad loyalists against Sunni rebels.65
Up to 10,000 Hezbollah fighters have been deployed to Syria at a time, though the number of fighters in the country was typically lower than that as fighters rotated in and out on months-long tours of duty. Hezbollah trained other Shi’a militants to fight in Syria (see below), but the group’s deployment to Syria stands out not only for the number of personnel deployed but also for their direct involvement in fighting across the country, from areas near the Lebanese border up north to Aleppo and down south near the border with Jordan and the Golan Heights. At Iran’s behest, Hezbollah fighters played a decisive role turning the tide of the civil war in favor of the Assad regime. Naturally, given the extent of its battlefield deployments, Hezbollah suffered significant losses — more, in fact, than the group lost in all its battles and skirmishes with Israeli forces. An estimated 1,600-2,000 Hezbollah troops were killed in action in Syria, which, based on typical military estimates, suggests 4,800-6,000 wounded.66 Senior Hezbollah commanders oversee the group’s military activities in Syria. For example, the U.S. Treasury Department reported that Ibrahim Aqil and Fuad Shukr, both of whom sit on Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, the group’s highest military body, have “played a vital role in Hizballah’s military campaign in Syria by aiding Hizballah fighters and pro-Syrian regime troops against Syrian opposition forces in battles inside Syria.”67 In return for Hezbollah and Iran’s contributions to the preservation of the Assad regime, Syria has allowed Hezbollah and Iranian operatives to establish a network of mostly Syrian operatives along the Syrian Golan in an effort to open a new front with Israel.68
Even prior to the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah fighters began deploying around the region — albeit in much smaller numbers — to support Iranian objectives in places like Iraq, and later, Yemen. A 2009 Australian report on Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad Organization (also known as the External Services Organization, or ESO) concluded that Hezbollah’s activities in Iraq went much further than simply training Iraqi Shi’a militants tied to Iran: “Hizballah has established an insurgent capability in Iraq, engaging in assassinations, kidnappings and bombings. The Hizballah units have been set up with the encouragement and resources of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards al Qods Brigades.”69
The U.S. military also uncovered evidence suggesting Hezbollah may have run operations of its own in Iraq. A U.S. intelligence report includes the assessment of an Iraqi militant who believed one of his Hezbollah trainers in Iran seemed to have previously been involved in covert activities in Iraq.70 But the clearest evidence came from the capture in southern Iraq of Ali Musa Daqduq al-Musawi, the senior Hezbollah operative sent to Iraq, together with Asa’ib al-Ahl-Haq leader Qais al-Khazali, in March 2007. One document seized in the raid in particular caught the attention of U.S. analysts: a 22-page memorandum that “detailed the planning, preparation, approval process and conduct of the [January 2007 Karbala Provisional Joint Coordination Center] operation,” among others.71
Daqduq, the documents revealed, was personally involved in violent operations in Iraq. For example, in his personal diary Daqduq recorded his involvement in a plot to kidnap a British soldier. “The operation is to infiltrate two brothers to the base to detain a British soldier in the first brigade from the bathrooms by drugging him,” Daqduq wrote.72 Daqduq noted meeting with Special Groups operatives who described the attack, which failed when Iraqi soldiers intervened. This was not the only attack targeting British forces in which he was involved — other documents refer to attacks on British bases at the Basra Palace and the Shatt al-Arab Hotel.73
In one entry, Daqduq recorded meeting with Special Groups operatives who were involved in attacks targeting fellow Iraqis as well as coalition forces in Diyala Province with improvised explosive device (IED) bombings and small arms fire. He wrote about IED bombings in the first person, suggesting he was either personally involved in the attacks on the ground or, at a minimum, saw himself as integral to the plot: “Met with the brothers[,] the observers of Diyalah province and I listened regarding the operations. … We conducted eight explosive charge operations on both sides.”74
Hezbollah continued to aid Shi’a militias in Iraq, sending small numbers of skilled trainers to help fight the Islamic State and defend Shi’a shrines. In June 2014, Nasrallah pledged, “We are ready to sacrifice martyrs in Iraq five times more than what we sacrificed in Syria in order to protect shrines,” noting that Iraqi holy sites “are much more important” than Shiite shrines in Syria.75 Nasrallah was surely exaggerating, but to ensure the group was able to follow through on the spirit of his commitment, key Hezbollah operatives and supporters have invested in commercial front organizations in Iraq that provide the group both financial support and organizational infrastructure. For example, Husayn Ali Faour, described by the U.S. government as “a member of Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad” overseas terrorism unit, has also worked with Hezbollah financier Adnan Tabaja “to secure and manage construction, oil, and other projects in Iraq for Al-Inmaa Engineering and Contracting.”76
Hezbollah also deployed senior operatives to Yemen. Some, like Abu Ali Tabtabai, would be deployed to Syria first, only to be redeployed to Yemen.77 While Tabtabai oversaw training and provision of materiel to the Houthis, his assignment also included overseeing provision of Hezbollah “personnel in support of its destabilizing regional activities,” according to the State Department.78 According to Saudi officials, Hezbollah operatives fired a ballistic missile toward Riyadh international airport in November 2017. “It was an Iranian missile, launched by Hezbollah, from territory occupied by the Houthis in Yemen,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told CNN.79
Others, like Khalil Harb, a former Hezbollah special operations commander and a close adviser to Nasrallah, oversaw Hezbollah’s activities in Yemen — managing the transfer of funds to the organization within the country — and traveled frequently to Tehran to coordinate Hezbollah activities with Iranian officials.80 Harb already had experience overseeing Hezbollah’s regional activities, serving for several years around 2003-06 as head of the group’s activities in Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Egypt.81 Some would not only advise but actually operate rocket systems firing salvos at Saudi Arabia, while others were deployed to critical battlefields. As the Houthis closed in on Marib in May 2021, for example, a Saudi airstrike reportedly killed Hezbollah commander Mustafa al-Gharawi.82 In 2019, Nasrallah conceded that Hezbollah operatives were on the ground in Yemen, adding: “We are not ashamed that we have martyrs from Hezbollah in Yemen.”83
At least some Hezbollah commanders are open about the group’s intent to expand its regional adventurism once it can begin to draw down forces in Syria. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Alexander Corbeil and Amarnath Amarasingam recall interviewing a Hezbollah commander who boasted: “After we are done with Syria, we will start with Yemen; Hezbollah is already there,” he said. “Who do you think fires Tochka missiles into Saudi Arabia? It’s not the Houthis in their sandals, it’s us.”84
Training Regional Shi’a MilitantsHezbollah’s hard turn toward a more activist regional posture first came in the context of the Iraq war. “Generally,” U.S. military intelligence assessed in 2010, the IRGC-QF “directs and supports groups actually executing attacks, thereby maintaining plausible deniability within the international community.”85 Much as it did for Hezbollah in Lebanon in the 1980s, the IRGC-QF set out to build up an array of Shi’a militias in Iraq. The IRGC-QF did some training itself, but it often used Hezbollah to provide training and operational supervision on its behalf. The outsourcing of training to Hezbollah spoke volumes about Iran’s regard for the group’s professionalism as terrorist trainers. The use of Hezbollah also averted Iraqi militants’ complaints about the religious indoctrination included in the Iranian training programs, which were generally uninspiring and taught by sheikhs who did not speak Arabic well.86
Hezbollah’s activities in Iraq following the 2003 U.S. invasion were a function of the group’s close alliance with Iran in general and the IRGC-QF in particular. Tehran’s strategy in Iraq — and Hezbollah’s role in that strategy as Iran’s primary militant proxy group — was a logical extension of Iran’s covert activities in Iraq and the region throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including proxies such as Hezbollah, the Dawa Party, and the Badr Organization.87
Mirroring the creation of Unit 1800, a unit dedicated to supporting Palestinian terrorist groups and targeting Israel, Hezbollah created Unit 3800, a unit dedicated to supporting Iraqi Shi’a terrorist groups targeting multinational forces in Iraq. The unit, established by Hezbollah leader Nasrallah88 at Iran’s request, trained and advised Iraqi militant groups. Almost immediately following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, reports emerged indicating Hezbollah operatives were reaching out to re-establish ties to Iraqi Shi’a groups. A July 29, 2003, U.S. intelligence report citing Israeli military intelligence stated that Hezbollah “military activists” were trying to make contact with Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army. By late August they had succeeded, according to a report prepared by a U.S. military analyst. Based on information from a source with “direct access to the reported information,” the report claimed Hezbollah had assembled a team of 30 to 40 operatives in Najaf “in support of Moqtada Sadr’s Shia paramilitary group.” Hezbollah was both recruiting and training new members of the Mahdi Army, the report added.89
In Tehran, Daqduq and Hashim met with the commander and deputy commander of IRGC-QF special external operations. In the year before British Special Forces captured him in Basra in late 2007, Daqduq made four trips to Iraq. He reported back to the IRGC-QF on the Special Groups’ use of mortars and rockets, their manufacture and use of IEDs, and kidnapping operations. His overall instructions were simple: “He was tasked to organize the Special Groups in ways that mirrored how Hezbollah was organized in Lebanon.”90
Hezbollah’s training mission in Yemen has been much smaller, but no less effective. According to detained Houthi fighters, Hezbollah trained dozens of Houthi recruits at a time in two-month basic training courses in Yemen before the recruits were dispatched to the battlefield.91 A video that gained media attention in early 2016 purported to show a Hezbollah trainer addressing a group of Houthi forces in Yemen about training for assassination operations targeting Saudi Arabia.92 Around late 2014, when Iran instituted twice-weekly flights to Yemen on Mahan Air — an Iranian airline the IRGC-QF uses to move personnel and materiel to conflict zones93 — Yemeni officials noted that “Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian trainers entered on these flights and up to 300 Yemenis were sent to Iran for training.”94 A U.N. Panel of Experts similarly documented Houthi recruits being sent to Iran for training, as well.95 In interviews with military analyst Michael Knights, Yemeni political and military leaders reported that “Hezbollah provided mentoring and training in infantry tactics, ATGM [anti-tank guided missile] operations, offensive mine warfare, and anti-shipping attacks.”96 Indeed, Hezbollah’s training relationship with the Houthis appears to go back several years. Speaking to the Financial Times in 2015, a Hezbollah commander said the training relationship dates back to 2005. “They trained with us in Iran, then we trained them here [in Lebanon] and in Yemen.”97
At the same time, Hezbollah continued training Shi’a militants from elsewhere in the Gulf, including Bahrain and Kuwait. For example, in 2018 Bahraini authorities arrested over 100 Shi’a militants who reportedly received militant training from Iranian proxy groups like Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In a statement, the authorities noted that “This is done through recruiting terrorist elements in Bahrain, arranging and coordinating training for them in terrorist camps, and providing them with funds, firearms, and explosive devices.”98 In Iraq and Lebanon, authorities charged, the militants received weapons and explosives training “at the behest of Iranian regime leaders who ordered the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps elements to unify the Bahrain-based terrorist elements to carry out their plots and acts of terrorism against Bahrain.99 Similarly, in 2016 a Kuwaiti court convicted 23 militants on charges of spying for Iran and Hezbollah, buying and storing weapons and explosives, and undergoing Hezbollah militant training in Lebanon.100
Meanwhile, in Syria Hezbollah has been training and overseeing Shi’a militants from around the region. Together with the IRGC, Hezbollah forces in Syria took on a leading role not only overseeing the deployment of other Shi’a militias but also forming local Shi’a militias allied with Iran. In May 2014, IRGC Gen. Hossein Hamedani declared the formation of “a second Hezbollah in Syria.” In early 2014, several Shiite militias in Syria began to call themselves, Hezbollah fi Suriya, or “Hezbollah in Syria.” Inspired by the success of Lebanese Hezbollah, the objective was to build a Syrian wing of the movement, to “carry out ideological as well as other regional power-projection goals.”101 While most of their actions so far have been limited to Syria, Hezbollah fi Suriya has made calls to unify with others in Iraq as well. The Hezbollahzation of these groups, in name, structure, and allegiance, signifies a major accomplishment for Tehran, allowing Iran to preserve harder-core influence and more effectively project power within Syria.102
Regional Illicit Financial Activities
Hezbollah’s regional activities expanded just as sanctions began to truly affect Iran’s ability to finance its own and its proxies’ illicit activities at will, which also coincided with other events that cut into Tehran’s budget, like drops in the price of oil. This led Hezbollah to double down on its own transnational criminal moneymaking enterprises to fund its activities,103 some of which, like Hezbollah’s sharply increased regional trade in Captagon, specifically undermine security and public health in the Middle East.104
But as Hezbollah and IRGC-QF operations become more and more interconnected around the region, Hezbollah took on additional roles running illicit financial schemes intended to evade sanctions, fund the IRGC-QF, and through it finance key Iranian allies and proxies like the Assad regime, Hamas, the Houthis, Iraqi militias, and Hezbollah itself.
“Over the past year,” the Treasury Department reported in September 2019,105 “the IRGC-QF has moved oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars or more through [an illicit shipping] network for the benefit of the brutal Assad regime, Hezbollah, and other illicit actors.” The IRGC-QF and Hezbollah directed this shipping network, which benefits both financially, Treasury noted.106
In fact, the precipitant event for this “oil-for-terror”107 network was the May 2018 Treasury designation of Valiollah Seif,108 Iran’s Central Bank governor, and Ali Tarzali, assistant director of the Central Bank’s International Department. As the Iraq war ended and Shi’a fighters shifted to Syria, Hezbollah developed extensive illicit financial networks in Iraq. Among the entities targeted in this 2018 action were Al-Bilad Islamic Bank in Iraq and the bank’s chief executive, along with senior Hezbollah official Mohammad Qasir. “Iran’s Central Bank Governor covertly funneled millions of dollars on behalf of the IRGC-QF through Iraq-based al-Bilad Islamic Bank to enrich and support the violent and radical agenda of Hezbollah,” the Treasury secretary explained.109 Qasir served as “a critical conduit”110 for the IRGC-QF payments to Hezbollah, and with this illicit financing scheme exposed, Qasir and his IRGC-QF counterparts shifted toward a trade-based financing scheme involving smuggled Iranian oil.
Six months later, in November 2018, the Treasury Department exposed111 a convoluted112 Iranian illicit financing scheme in which Qasir and other Hezbollah officials, working together with Iranian operatives, Russian113 companies, and the Central Bank of Syria, facilitated the shipment of millions of barrels of Iranian oil to the Assad regime in Syria. The Assad regime would then facilitate the movement of hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars to the IRGC-QF, which would transfer114 the funds to Hamas and Hezbollah. In a letter115 to a senior official at the Central Bank of Iran, Qasir (aka Mr. Fadi) and a Syrian associate confirmed receipt of $63 million as part of a scheme to benefit Hezbollah.
The Treasury Department revealed116 that Qasir heads Unit 108, “the Hezbollah unit responsible for facilitating the transfer of weapons, technology, and other support from Syria to Lebanon.” Leading Unit 108 made Qasir the perfect person to coordinate Iran’s oil-for-terror scheme. He was also a logical choice because he came from a dedicated Hezbollah family: one brother was the group’s first suicide bomber, while another is the son-in-law of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah.117 Lineage aside, Qasir’s close relationship with then-IRGC-QF commander Qassem Soleimani, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and a long list of other key Iranian operatives made him the man for the job. In February 2019, Qasir appeared as a notetaker118 in photographs and video clips of President Assad’s secret visit to Tehran for meetings with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. For operational security, Assad’s visit reportedly dispensed with traditional protocols. But Soleimani selected119 Qasir, the head of Hezbollah’s most sophisticated smuggling operations, to accompany him to these meetings.
Qasir was able to rely on a coterie of Hezbollah operatives to help him manage Iran’s trade-based terror finance scheme. One of Qasir’s associates is Hezbollah operative Mohammad Qasim al-Bazzal,120 a “key financier for Hezbollah and the IRGC-QF.”121 Al-Bazzal uses a network of companies “to finance, coordinate, and obscure various illicit IRGC-QF-linked oil shipments.”122 Among the companies he employs, according to the U.S. government, are Syria-based Talaqi Group,123 which he co-founded with his wife,124 and other “terrorist financing enterprises” he controls such as Hokoul S.A.L Offshore,125 Nagham Al Hayat,126 Tawafuk,127 and ALUMIX.128 Al-Bazzal oversaw Talaqi Group and ALUMIX’s business shipping aluminum to Iran, and in early 2019 attempted129 to evade U.S. sanctions by removing his name as owner and shareholder from Talaqi Group documents.
In September 2019, the Treasury Department took action130 targeting multiple components of Iran’s illicit oil shipping network, noting that it was “directed by and financially supports the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and its terrorist proxy Hezbollah.” More specifically, it exposed the fact that Hezbollah officials oversaw and ran131 this network of IRGC-QF front companies for the express purpose of concealing Iran’s role in selling crude oil, condensate, and gas oil132 for the benefit of the Assad regime, Hezbollah, and other Iranian proxies.
Qasir, al-Bazzal, and their companies featured prominently in the exposed network, along with Ali Qasir, Mohammad Qasir’s nephew. Based in Tehran, Ali Qasir was serving as both a Hezbollah representative133 to Iran and as Talaqi Group’s managing director. In these capacities, he “assigned maritime vessels to deliver shipments for the terrorist network based on the IRGC-QF’s guidance.”134 For example, Ali Qasir played135 central roles in the Adrian Darya 1 episode, including working with others to cover expenses and facilitate Iranian oil shipments to Syria for the benefit of the IRGC-QF. From his perch in Tehran, Ali Qasir has also represented136 Lebanon-based Hokoul S.A.L. Offshore in negotiations over its supply of Iranian crude oil to Syria.
While relying heavily on these and other Hezbollah officials and front companies to broker the contracts, the sprawling oil smuggling network is overseen by IRGC-QF official and former Iranian Minister of Petroleum Rostam Qasemi.137 Qasemi, who also heads the Iranian-Syrian Economic Relations Development Committee, relies on trusted associates like Mohammad Qasir’s Hezbollah network and his son, Morteza Qasemi,138 to finalize the illicit Iranian oil smuggling contracts, including some they attempted to pass off139 as Iraqi-origin. In October 2020, the U.S. Rewards for Justice140 program posted a $10 million reward141 for information on the Hezbollah illicit financial network run by Mohammad Qasir, Ali Qasir, and Mohammad al-Bazzal.
Hezbollah continues to play central roles in IRGC-QF financing schemes to support its proxies. In June 2021, for example, the U.S. Treasury designated Iran-based Houthi financial logistician Sai’d al-Jamal, along with a group of facilitators from Turkey, the UAE, and Somalia, for running a network of front companies that together provided financing for the Houthis, the IRGC-QF, and others, including Hezbollah. Al-Jamal, Treasury added, “maintains connections to Hizballah and has worked with the group to send millions of dollars to support the Houthis.”142
Procurement, Intelligence, Cyber, and Disinformation Operations
Given Hezbollah’s long history of weapons smuggling, it should not come as a surprise that Hezbollah plays a hands-on role in procuring weapons for itself and other Iranian proxy groups. Hezbollah procurement efforts in partnership with Iran significantly expanded in the context of the Syrian civil war.143 By early 2015, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigations into Hezbollah operations exposed some of the group’s extensive drug trafficking and money laundering activities, some of the proceeds of which, the DEA revealed, “are used to purchase weapons for Hizballah for its activities in Syria.”144 Meanwhile, an FBI undercover operation targeting Iman al-Kobeisi revealed that Hezbollah procurement networks had matured to the point that Iran was seeking to leverage Hezbollah’s ability to gain access to weapons and sanctioned goods for its own direct needs.145 In turn, Iran also took the opportunity to use Hezbollah networks to benefit some of its other proxies as well, including Houthi rebels in Yemen.
In 2013, Yemeni security forces interdicted the Iranian vessel Jihan 1 off the coast of Yemen and arrested eight Yemenis and two Lebanese Hezbollah operatives. Believed to be heading for Houthi territory, the ship carried several tons of Iranian weapons and explosives.146 In another case, U.S. authorities determined a Hezbollah weapons procurement officer sourcing IED components in China planned for the weapons to be sent to the Houthis in Yemen.147
Similarly, Bahraini authorities disrupted two Hezbollah attempts to smuggle explosives into the country from Iran in August 2020. According to Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior, the suspects confessed Hezbollah was behind the operation.148 Further west, Morocco broke off diplomatic relations with Iran over charges that Hezbollah operatives and Iranian agents, some of the latter under diplomatic cover, smuggled weapons to the Polisario Front in Western Sahara.149 Morocco reportedly provided Iran names of Hezbollah operatives who visited Polisario-controlled refugee camps “in order to supervise training courses, set up facilities and meet with Polisario officials.”150
But Hezbollah has also engaged in other, still more covert regional exploits in close partnership with Iran, including intelligence collection and cyber and disinformation operations across the region. Consider, for example, the case of Iraq-based Hezbollah operative Muhammad Farhat. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, “as of 2017, Farhat was tasked with collecting security and intelligence information in Iraq and subsequently providing reports to senior Hezbollah and Iranian leadership.” He also helped a Hezbollah and IRGC-QF effort “to analyze and report on the Iraqi security situation.”151
In 2015, Kuwaiti authorities arrested a cell of several Kuwaiti and one Iranian Shi’a operatives on charges of spying for Iran and Hezbollah.152 That same year, an Israeli airstrike in the Golan Heights targeted a joint Hezbollah and IRGC-QF intelligence collection effort, killing Hezbollah’s Jihad Mughniyeh (son of the late Imad Mughniyeh) along with several other Hezbollah operatives and Iranian IRGC-QF Gen. Mohammad Ali Allahdadi.153 Within a few short years, Israeli officials would reveal the new head of this Golan operation was none other than Ali Musa Daqduq al-Mousawi, the operative previously detained in Iraq.154 In 2018, Bahraini authorities arrested a group of Shi’a suspected militants on charges of setting up a terrorist network in coordination with Iranian intelligence services.155
But perhaps the most glaring example of Hezbollah’s regional intelligence operations is the case of U.S. military contract linguist Mariam Taha Thompson who, while stationed in Iraq, provided a Hezbollah contact intelligence about human sources involved in the January 2020 assassination of IRGC-QF commander Soleimani. According to her plea, Thompson admitted accessing and sharing dozens of intelligence files, including names of human assets, to provide to her Hezbollah contact.156 Tellingly, what Hezbollah intelligence officers sought from Thompson was not information specific to Israel or Lebanon, but information of particular interest to Iran and its proxy network.
Hezbollah has long helped other Shi’a militant groups establish media and propaganda outlets, including television, radio, and online outlets. For example, both Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen operate satellite television stations based out of Beirut, with support from Lebanese Hezbollah.157 Now, Hezbollah also supports the disinformation and cyber activities of Iranian proxy Shi’a militant groups across the region.
Separate from the cyber espionage and sophisticated malware operations Hezbollah has been implicated in, typically in concert with Iran,158 the group also runs disinformation boot camps in Lebanon for the purpose of building up the “electronic armies” of Iran’s proxy groups around the region. “Since at least 2012,” The Telegraph reported in August 2020, “Hizbollah has been flying individuals into Lebanon for courses teaching participants how to digitally manipulate photographs, manage large numbers of fake social media accounts, make videos, avoid Facebook’s censorship, and effectively spread disinformation online.”159 Students from Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Syria were among the thousands of “Iran-backed social media activists” who attended the 10-day courses, which were taught by Hezbollah specialists. In the words of an Iraqi politician who was involved in sending students to these courses, “The people we sent developed their skills in Beirut and when the returned they started training activists inside Iraq.”160 One of the groups to benefit from this Hezbollah training course was Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq, which now runs its own “online façade” group, Unit 10,000, which has developed its own “electronic armies capable of hacking, information operations and open source intelligence gathering.”161
Iran and Hezbollah work together in the disinformation space in several other ways, as well, including Iran’s creation of “the International Union of Virtual Media,” established to promote Iranian and Hezbollah propaganda while obscuring the source of such information.162 The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned cyber threat actors backed by Iran’s MOIS,163 and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that Iran engaged in a “multi-pronged covert influence campaign” targeting the 2020 U.S. presidential election while Hezbollah “took some steps to attempt to influence the election.”164
VII. Hezbollah Management of Iran’s Regional Proxies
The central theme running through the steady increase in Hezbollah’s regional activism — be it in the form of fielding fighters to battlefields of strategic importance to Iran, training other Iranian proxies, collecting intelligence, engaging in illicit financial schemes, or promoting disinformation campaigns — is that it has been done at Iran’s behest. Hezbollah’s regional escalation coincided with a period of time during which Iranian operatives began to play increasingly important decision-making roles for Hezbollah. As Lebanon analyst Hanin Ghaddar has noted, Hezbollah’s role as a regional actor did not start with its deployment to Syria, it was present in Iraq even earlier, “but it became more obvious and more structured in Syria — especially under IRGC [QF] commander Qassem Soleimani.” Over time, Ghaddar explains, Soleimani became the one leading Hezbollah deployments and activities across the region.165 Indeed, it was because of his dual-hatted role as head of the IRGC-QF and director of Iran’s sub-state proxies that U.S. government lawyers concluded Soleimani was a legitimate target for a targeted assassination in January 2020. The extent of his personal leadership of these proxies became clear as U.S. analysts tracked his movements and mapped out his “pattern of life.”166
The IRGC-QF began to take on this more pronounced day-to-day role directing Hezbollah operations after the 2008 assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, who held a unique position of confidence with Iranian leaders and IRGC-QF commanders. In fact, senior IRGC-QF and MOIS officials regularly visited Lebanon to work with Mughniyeh and assess the group’s security practices. IRGC officials were familiar with Mughniyeh since his teen years, and decision-makers in Iran were known to consult with him when determining regional policy.167 As Mughniyeh’s relationship with the IRGC deepened, Hezbollah was able to achieve a measure of independence from Tehran and instead rely more heavily on his personal relationships. But Mughniyeh’s assassination put a halt to this trend. Hezbollah leaders promised to avenge his death, but the group’s plan, dubbed “Operation Radwan,” experienced a series of setbacks. Hezbollah not only lacked the resources and capability to carry out such operations abroad, it no longer had Mughniyeh to guide its operations. The failure of the group’s initial attempts to carry out vengeance for its terrorist chief forced Hezbollah closer to Iran as it suffered a series of thwarted attacks and failed to deliver the revenge it had promised.168
Hezbollah divided up Mughniyeh’s responsibilities among several senior leaders, including his cousin and brother-in-law, Mustafa Badreddine. But Badreddine never enjoyed the kind of relationship with the IRGC-QF that Mughniyeh had cultivated, and he even clashed with Soleimani over Hezbollah’s mission in Syria, fueling tensions between the two leaders.169 In fact, media reports from just before Badreddine’s assassination in 2016 suggested that Iran was so displeased with its new Hezbollah counterpart that it wanted him removed from the battlefield.170 Following Badreddine’s death, Hezbollah’s military operations became even more subservient to Tehran. While high-ranking Hezbollah commanders like Ibrahim Aqil, Fuad Shukr, and Talal Hamiyah went on to serve as Soleimani’s link to Hezbollah’s military apparatus, these men have never enjoyed the trust or sense of mutual respect once held by Mughniyeh.
As a result, the nature of the relationship between the IRGC-QF and Hezbollah shifted. In February 2012, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper characterized the relationship between Hezbollah and Iran as “a partnership arrangement, with the Iranians as the senior partner.”171 This “strategic partnership,” as National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen put it, is the product of a long evolution from the 1980s, when Hezbollah was just a proxy of Iran. Together, Olsen added, these strategic partners pursue their shared “aims against Israel and the United States.”172
Within this partnership, one of Hezbollah’s key roles was to serve as the managing partner for Iran’s proxy network. As Hezbollah dispatched expeditionary forces beyond Lebanon’s borders, its fighters typically commanded units including militants from other Shi’a groups. And through its training programs, Hezbollah established intimate working relationships with Shi’a militants across the region. Hezbollah managed these groups in close cooperation with Soleimani, who in the years before his death emerged from the shadows and became the public face of Iran’s “fighters without borders,” as some Iranians described Tehran’s regional proxy network.173
In the wake of the Arab Spring, the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Syrian civil war, and the rise of the Islamic State, Tehran tapped Soleimani to build up Iran’s regional proxy alliances. Soleimani built a devoted following among Iranian proxy groups, including both their leaders and foot soldiers. A hands-on commander, Soleimani established personal bonds with key militia commanders and mediated disputes over funding or prestige — until he was killed, alongside one of his key deputies, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in January 2020.
Soleimani’s force of personality and longtime connections made him uniquely qualified to oversee the management of Iran’s growing proxy network. But since no one commander could replace him, the IRGC-QF is drawing on a brain trust of several of its more senior and experienced managers to collectively fill Soleimani’s shoes. And as Iran’s “strategic partner,” Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and some of his key lieutenants are sure to play major roles. Indeed, the IRGC-QF officers stepping in to fill Soleimani’s shoes are all longtime Hezbollah partners.
In August 2013, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned a group of Hezbollah operatives responsible for the group’s regional activities beyond Lebanon’s borders in places like Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Syria, and Yemen. At the time, the Treasury Department revealed that Mohammad Kawtharani had long served as “the individual in charge of Hizballah’s Iraq activities.”174 Within weeks of Soleimani’s death, the State Department issued a reward for information about Kawtharani and other members of Hezbollah’s illicit financial networks, noting that he “has taken over some of the political coordination of Iran-aligned paramilitary groups formerly organized by Qassim Sulemani after Sulemani’s death in January. In this capacity, he facilitates the actions of groups operating outside the control of the Government of Iraq that have violently suppressed protests, attacked foreign diplomatic missions, and engaged in wide-spread organized criminal activity.” He also “assisted extremists transiting to Syria to support the Assad regime,” according to the State Department.175 A senior Iraqi Shi’a leader noted that Kawtharani “was trusted by Soleimani, who used to depend and call on him to help him in crises and in meetings in Baghdad.”176 Kawtharani’s “right-hand man” is another Hezbollah official, his brother Adnan Hussein Kawtharani, who was also designated by Treasury in 2018. Adnan also “attended meetings in Iraq with sectarian armed groups and Hizballah officials.”177 Naturally, Kawtharani chaired urgent meetings of Iraqi militia leaders in Iraq after Soleimani’s death.178
When the Treasury Department designated Adnan Kawtharani for his Hezbollah activities, it also listed Shibl Muhsin Ubayd al-Zaydi, a senior leader of the Kata’ib al-Imam Ali militia and an IRGC-QF operative. A close confidant of Soleimani’s, al-Zaydi worked closely with Hezbollah and IRGC-QF officers to establish financial support networks in Iraq for Iran’s proxy groups and fund Hezbollah’s participation in the Syrian civil war.179
Consider also the man tapped to serve as the IRGC-QF deputy commander after Soleimani’s death, Gen. Muhammad Hussein-Zada Hejazi. As Iran’s regional strategy took on a decidedly more aggressive regional posture, Soleimani tapped Hejazi to command Department 2000, overseeing all IRGC-QF operations in the Levant. In 2013, when Iran began shipping precision-guided missiles to Hezbollah through Syria, Hejazi oversaw the program.180 Iran announced Hejazi’s sudden death under strange circumstances in April 2021.181
Similarly, as the IRGC-QF looked to increase its support to Houthi rebels on the ground in Yemen, it assigned IRGC-QF officials with established track records working with other elements of Iran’s proxy network, often in cooperation with Hezbollah. When Iran dispatched an official diplomatic envoy to the Houthis, the man they tapped for the job was Hasan Irlu, an IRGC-QF official who had years of experience overseeing weapons transfers and training for Houthi fighters as well as supporting IRGC-QF operations elsewhere on the Arabian Peninsula. Irlu was close to Soleimani, but he also provided training to Hezbollah operatives in Iran.182 In fact, on the day Soleimani was killed, one of his deputy commanders, Abdul Reza Shahlai, was also targeted in Yemen.183 Shahlai survived, but the presence of an IRGC-QF deputy commander in Yemen with ties to previous attack plots in the United States, Iraq, and elsewhere was telling. No less important was Shahlai’s extensive experience training Shi’a militias tied to Iran in Iraq and helping to plan their attacks, typically in concert with Hezbollah. At one point, Shahlai served as the final approving authority for all Iran-based training that Hezbollah provided for members of JAM Special Groups. In 2006, he instructed a senior Hezbollah official to coordinate anti-aircraft rocket training for JAM Special Groups. Shahlai partnered with Hezbollah’s Ali Mousa Daqduq al-Musawi to plan the 2007 attack on U.S. forces at the Karbala Provincial Join Coordination Center.184
From Iran’s perspective, it has built an extensive network of proxy organizations — some more tightly connected to Iran than others — which follow the Hezbollah model. In the words of IRGC Gen. Mazaher Majidi, “There was a time when we used to boast that we had Hezbollah of Lebanon in the region. Today, we have dozens of cohesive forces that are ready to carry out military operations and are acting like Hezbollah: in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen, in Afghanistan, and even in Pakistan.”185
VIII. Conclusion: “We are not a party now, we’re international”
Hezbollah is a distinctly Lebanese actor, but its ideological alliance with Iran goes back to the group’s original founding and periodically dictates the prioritization of its sometimes-competing goals. Hezbollah’s current quandary revolves around the push and pull of two different sets of frequently competing priorities: first, serving as a regional militant player as part of what Iran sometimes calls its “fighters without borders” under the IRGC-QF; and second, its self-portrayal as a distinctly Lebanese party at a time when the crony-sectarian political system of which it is a key part has come under such tremendous pressure.186 Hezbollah has long played a dominant role in Lebanon, extending its influence through political and social activism as well as terrorism, political violence, and military strength. But it has long insisted that it acts only with Lebanon’s best interests at heart. Today, with its extensive militant commitments across the region, Hezbollah can no longer maintain that fiction.
Speaking in 2015, a Hezbollah commander explained: “We shouldn’t be called Party of God. We’re not a party now, we’re international. We’re in Syria, we’re in Palestine, we’re in Iraq and we’re in Yemen. We are wherever the oppressed need us. … Hezbollah is the school where every freedom-seeking man wants to learn.”187 Today, Hezbollah acts as the managing partner for Iran’s network of militant proxies. And in the wake of Soleimani’s death, the group has taken on still more leadership responsibilities. Speaking after Soleimani’s death, it was Hezbollah leader Nasrallah who called on Iran’s proxies — the “Axis of Resistance,” as he called them — to step up operations to force the U.S. military out of the region.188 Looking ahead, Iranian proxies may operate in an even more coordinated fashion, with Houthi rockets targeting southern Israel and foreign terrorist operations carried out by Shi’a militants of varying nationalities operating at Iran’s behest and Hezbollah’s direction.189 To counter the growing regional threat posed by Iran’s proxy militant network, Western powers will have to work closely with regional allies to contain and disrupt the destabilizing activities of the IRGC-QF, Hezbollah, and other Shi’a militant groups active across the region.
**Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of its Jeanette and Eli Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. Levitt is the author of Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God (Georgetown Univ. Press, 2013). The opinions expressed in this paper are his own.

Endnotes

1. “GCC Designates Hezbollah as a Terrorist Organization,” entry in Washington Institute Hezbollah Worldwide Activities map, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap/#id=602.
2. “Arab League Designates Hezbollah as a Terrorist Organization,” entry in Washington Institute Hezbollah Worldwide Activities map, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap/#id=603; “Islamic Summit Slams Hezbollah for ‘Terrorism’,” Al Arabiya News, April 15, 2016, https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2016/04/15/Islamic-summi….
3. “Why has Morocco Severed its Diplomatic Relations with Iran?” Al Arabiya, May 2, 2018 https://english.alarabiya.net/features/2018/05/02/Why-did-the-Kingdom-o…-.
4. Timour Azhari, “Hezbollah vows retaliation against US for Soleimani killing,” Al Jazeera, January 5, 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/5/hezbollah-vows-retaliation-agai….
5. This section originally appeared, in French, in Matthew Levitt, “Le Hezbollah au Liban: Concilier Allegeance a L’Iran, Militantisme Pan-Chiite et Politique Interieure,” Revue Politique et Parlementaire, No 1098, Jan-Mars 2021, p. 145-164.
6. “Iranian Terrorist Activities in 1984,” CIA report included in “Iran Recruits and Trains Hizballahi” entry in Washington Institute Hezbollah Worldwide Activities map, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap/#year=1982&….
7. “Lebanon: Prospects for Islamic Fundamentalism [redacted],” A Research Paper.
8. Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 82.
9. Naim Qassem, Hizbullah: The Story from Within, (London: Saqi Press, 2005), p. 66.
10. “Lebanon: Prospects for Islamic Fundamentalism [redacted],” A Research Paper, Directorate of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, July 1987, Approved for Release October 1997, http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0000138966/DOC_0000138966.pdf.
11. Magnus Ranstrop, “Hezbollah Training Camps in Lebanon,” in James Forest, Ed, The Making of a Terrorist vol. 2, Training, Westport: Praeger, 2005, p. 252.
12. As cited in Center for Special Studies, Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center special information bulletin, “Hezbollah,” June 2003, http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/he….
13. Dan Williams, “Top Israeli general sees increased Iran spending on foreign wars,” Reuters, January 2, 2018, https://www.reuters_.com/article/us-iran-rallies-israel/top-israeli-general-sees-increased-iran-spending-on-foreign-wars-idUSKBN1ER0Q9.
14. This section originally appeared, in French, in Matthew Levitt, “Le Hezbollah au Liban: Concilier Allegeance a L’Iran, Militantisme Pan-Chiite et Politique Interieure,” Revue Politique et Parlementaire, No 1098, Jan-Mars 2021, p. 145-164.
15. “April 1985 Terrorism Review,” Central Intelligence Agency, April 8, 1985, 9, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Notes Hezbollah Harassment in Beirut,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=94.
16. “December 1983 Terrorism Review,” Central Intelligence Agency, December 1983, 6, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Assesses Islamic Jihad Is a Cover for Iran,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=874.
17. “February 1985 National Intelligence Council Threat Outlook,” National Intelligence Council, February 1985, 5, available at Matthew Levitt, “National Intelligence Council Report Warns of Islamic Jihad Propaganda Campaign,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=85.
18. “March 1984 Terrorism Review,” Central Intelligence Agency, March 1984, 18, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Assesses Islamic Jihad Is Iranian Cover Name,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=877.
19. “Iranian Terrorist Activities in 1984,” Central Intelligence Agency, 1984, 4, available at Matthew Levitt, “Iran Recruits and Trains ‘Hizballahi’ Fighters,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=802.
20. “Iranian Involvement with Terrorism in Lebanon,” Central Intelligence Agency, June 26, 1985, 2, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Outlines Hezbollah-Iran Relationship,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=105.
21. “Directory of Lebanese Militias: A Reference Aid,” Central Intelligence Agency, June 1984, 11, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Predicts Continued Violence by Radical Shia Militias,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=70; “Lebanon’s Hizballah: The Rising Tide of Shia Radicalism,” Central Intelligence Agency, October 1985, 4, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Details Hezbollah Use of Media Outlets to Cultivate Fundamentalism,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=120.
22. “Iranian Terrorist Activities in 1984,” Central Intelligence Agency, 1984, 2, available at Matthew Levitt, “Iran Recruits and Trains ‘Hizballahi’ Fighters,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=802.
23. “Amal and Hizballah: The Line Between Politics and Terrorism,” Central Intelligence Agency, August 16, 1985, 3-5, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Observes Many Hezbollah Sympathizers Within Amal Camp,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=109.
24. “Amal and Hizballah: The Line Between Politics and Terrorism,” Central Intelligence Agency, August 16, 1985, 5-6, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Observes Many Hezbollah Sympathizers Within Amal Camp,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=109.
25. “Lebanon’s Hizballah: The Rising Tide of Shia Radicalism,” Central Intelligence Agency, October 1985, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Details Hezbollah Use of Media Outlets to Cultivate Fundamentalism,” 1, Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=120.
26. “Iranian Terrorist Activities in 1984,” Central Intelligence Agency, 1984, 3, available at Matthew Levitt, “Iran Recruits and Trains ‘Hizballahi’ Fighters,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=802.
27. “Lebanon: The Prospects for Islamic Fundamentalism,” Central Intelligence Agency, July 1987, iii, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Memo Notes Sheikh Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah’s Attempt to Maintain Hezbollah’s Independence from Iran,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=1032.
28. Iran Enhanced Terrorist Capabilities and Expanding Target Selection,” Central Intelligence Agency, April 1992, 11, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Memo Notes Iran’s Support for Hezbollah Plans to Attack U.S. Interests,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=1029.
29. “Directory of Lebanese Militias: A Reference Aid,” Central Intelligence Agency, June 1984, 11, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Predicts Continued Violence by Radical Shia Militias,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=70.
30. “November 1983 Terrorism Review,” Central Intelligence Agency, November 10, 1983, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Confirms Link between Amal of Islam and Hezbollah,” 9, Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=58.
31. “Iran Military Power: Ensuring Regime Survival and Securing Regional Dominance,” Defense Intelligence Agency, August 2019, available at Matthew Levitt, “DIA Report Notes Hezbollah’s Strong Ties to Iran and Autonomy on Lebanese Affairs,” 59, Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=718.
32. “Lebanon’s Hizballah: The Rising Tide of Shia Radicalism,” Central Intelligence Agency, October 1985, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Details Hezbollah Use of Media Outlets to Cultivate Fundamentalism,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=120.
33. “Iranian Involvement with Terrorism in Lebanon,” Central Intelligence Agency, June 26, 1985, 2, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Outlines Hezbollah-Iran Relationship,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=105.
34. “Iranian Involvement with Terrorism in Lebanon,” Central Intelligence Agency, June 26, 1985,19, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Outlines Hezbollah-Iran Relationship,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=105.
35. “Iranian Involvement with Terrorism in Lebanon,” Central Intelligence Agency, June 26, 1985, 2, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Outlines Hezbollah-Iran Relationship,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=105.
36. “Iranian Involvement with Terrorism in Lebanon,” Central Intelligence Agency, June 26, 1985, 3, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Outlines Hezbollah-Iran Relationship,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=105.
37. “December 1987 Terrorism Review,” Central Intelligence Agency, December 21, 1987, 7, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Notes Potential Areas of Hezbollah Independence from Iran,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=889.
38. “Iranian Involvement with Terrorism in Lebanon,” Central Intelligence Agency, June 26, 1985, 3, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Report Outlines Hezbollah-Iran Relationship,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=105.
39. “Lebanon: The Prospects for Islamic Fundamentalism,” Central Intelligence Agency, July 1987, 15, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Memo Notes Sheikh Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah’s Attempt to Maintain Hezbollah’s Independence from Iran,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=1032.
40. “Lebanon: The Prospects for Islamic Fundamentalism,” Central Intelligence Agency, July 1987, 2, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Memo Notes Sheikh Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah’s Attempt to Maintain Hezbollah’s Independence from Iran,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=1032.
41. “Lebanon: The Prospects for Islamic Fundamentalism,” Central Intelligence Agency, July 1987, 6, available at Matthew Levitt, “CIA Memo Notes Sheikh Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah’s Attempt to Maintain Hezbollah’s Independence from Iran,” Hezbollah Worldwide Activities Interactive Map and Timeline, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 19, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap//#id=1032.
42. James Risen, “U.S. Traces Iran’s Ties to Terror through a Lebanese,” New York Times, January 17, 2002.
43. D. Peterson, et al., v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Information and Security, United States District Court, District of Columbia, Docket No. CA 01-2684, March 17, 2003, p. 53.
44. D. Peterson, et al., v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Information and Security, United States District Court, District of Columbia, Docket No. CA 01-2684, March 17, 2003, 55.
45. “Hizballah Terrorist Plans against U.S. Interests,” Central Intelligence Agency, December 6, 1991, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000258811.pdf.
46. D. Peterson, et al., v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Information and Security, United States District Court, District of Columbia, Docket No. CA 01-2684, March 17, 2003, Memorandum Opinion, pp. 6–7.
47. D. Peterson, et al., v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Information and Security, United States District Court, District of Columbia, Docket No. CA 01-2684, March 17, 2003, Memorandum Opinion, pp. 6–7, 6–7; Hala Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, (New York: Columbia University Press, May 1997), 82.
48. Fadhil Ali, “New Hezbollah Manifesto.”
49. “Lebanon: Hezbollah Spreading the Word,” Central Intelligence Agency, December 21, 1987, available at Matthew Levitt, “Hezbollah Acts as Tutor to the Gulf States,” Lebanese Hezbollah Select Worldwide Activity Interactive Map and Timeline, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap/#id=884.
50. Matthew Levitt, “Six Kuwait Sites Bombed,” Lebanese Hezbollah Select Worldwide Activity Interactive Map and Timeline, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap/#id=59.
51. “Treasury Designated Hizballah Commander Responsible for American Deaths in Iraq,” November 19, 2012, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1775.aspx
52. Iraqi Shia resented and distrusted their Iranian sponsors and trainers. Hezbollah compensated for Iran’s shortcomings. See Harmony document IR 012, cited in Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq.”
53. See Multinational Force Iraq Situational Update by Brig Gen Keven J Gergner, July 2, 2007, available at Matthew Levitt, “Karbala Provincial Center Targeted in Attack,” Lebanese Hezbollah Select Worldwide Activity Interactive Map and Timeline, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap/#id=367; “Treasury Designated Hizballah Commander Responsible for American Deaths in Iraq,” November 19, 2012, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1775.aspx.
54. Matthew Levitt, Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God (Georgetown University Press, 2013), Pp 300-301; “Treasury Sanctions Key Hizballah, IRGC-QF Networks in Iraq,” U.S. Treasury Department, November 13, 2018, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm546.
55. “State Department Terrorist Designation for Haytham ‘Ali Tabataba’I,” U.S. Department of State, October 20, 2016, https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2016/10/263346.htm.
56. “Treasury Sanctions Hizballah Leadership,” US Department of Treasury, August 22, 2013, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2147.aspx.
57. Matthew Levitt, “Waking Up the Neighbors: How Regional Intervention Is Transforming Hezbollah,” Foreign Affairs, July 23, 2015, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2015-07-23/waking-neighb…; https://static.rewardsforjustice.net/uploads/LebanesePoster8_5x11ENG_50….
58. Matthew Levitt, “Hezbollah’s Man in Egypt,” Perspectives on Terrorism, vol 8, Issue2, April 2014, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/hezbollahs-man-egypt; See also https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2147.aspx.
59. Matthew Levitt, “Waking Up the Neighbors: How Regional Intervention Is Transforming Hezbollah,” Foreign Affairs, July 23, 2015, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2015-07-23/waking-neighb….
60. Adam Entous and Siobhan Gorman, “Behind Assad’s Comeback, a Mismatch in Commitments,” Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2013 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303453004579292543464208138.
61. “Treasury Designates Hizballah Leadership,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, September 13, 2012, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1709.aspx.
62. “Treasury Sanctions Hizballah Leaders, Military Officials, and an Associate in Lebanon,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, July 21, 2015, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl0121.aspx.
63. “Treasury Designates Hizballah Leadership,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, September 13, 2012, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1709.aspx.
64. “Treasury Targets Hizballah for Supporting the Assad Regime,” US Department of Treasury, August 10, 2012, http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1676.aspx.
65. Sarah Birke, “Hezbollah’s Choice,” Latitude (blog), New York Times, August 6, 2013, http://latitude. blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/hezbollahs-choice.
66. “Mapping Militants: Hezbollah,” Stanford, 2018, https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/mappingmilitants/profiles/hezbollah; Wounded in action estimate based on 1:3 ration of KIA to wounded.
67. “Treasury Sanctions Hizballah Leaders, Military Officials, and an Associate in Lebanon,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, July 21, 2015, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl0121.aspx.
68. Judah Ari Gross, “IDF says it has exposed new Hezbollah cell in Syrian Golan Heights,” Times of Israel, March 13, 2019, https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-says-it-has-exposed-new-hezbollah-cel….
69. Australian Government, Attorney General’s Department, “Hizballah External Security Organisation,” May 16, 2009.
70. Harmony document IR005, cited in Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq: Politics and ‘Other Means,’” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, October 13, 2008, p. 17. https://ctc.usma.edu/app/uploads/2010/06/Iranian-Strategy-in-Iraq.pdf.
71. U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, “News Briefing with Gen. Petraeus from the Pentagon,” April 26, 2007. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2007/04/mil-070426….
72. “Ali Musa Daqduq: Translated Excerpt from Personal Journal,” slides accompanying press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
73. Mark Urban, Task Force Black, p. 225; “Attacks on “Palace” in Basrah,” slides accompanying press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
74. “Ali Musa Daqduq: Translated Excerpt from Personal Journal,” slides accompanying press briefing with Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner.
75. Maria Abi-Habib, “Shiite Militias Decamping From Syria to Fight in Iraq,” Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2014. https://www.wsj.com/articles/shiite-militias-decamping-from-syria-to-fi….
76. “Treasury Sanctions Hizballah Front Companies and Facilitators in Lebanon And Iraq,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, June 10, 2015. http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl0069.aspx.
77. “Haytham ‘Ali Tabataba’i,” Rewards for Justice, https://rewardsforjustice.net/english/haytham_tabatabai.html.
78. “Haytham ‘Ali Tabataba’i,” Rewards for Justice, https://rewardsforjustice.net/english/haytham_tabatabai.html.
79. Becky Anderson and Hilary Clarke, “Missile attack ‘an act of war’ by Iran, Saudi Foreign Minister says,” CNN, November 6, 2017. https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/06/middleeast/saudi-foreign-minister-interv….
80. “Treasury Sanctions Hizballah Leadership: Action Targets Hizballah’s Leadership Resonsible for Operations Outside of Lebanon,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, August 22, 2013, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2147.aspx.
81. “Treasury Sanctions Hizballah Leadership: Action Targets Hizballah’s Leadership Resonsible for Operations Outside of Lebanon,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, August 22, 2013, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2147.aspx.
82. Ali Mahmoud, “Saudi Arabia-led coalition air strike kills high-ranking Hezbollah commander, says Yemeni official,” The National, May 25, 2021. https://www.thenationalnews.com/gulf-news/saudi-arabia-led-coalition-ai….
83. “Hassan Nasrallah admits the presence of members of Hezbollah in Yemen and the killing of a number of them,” Mareb Press, February 16, 2019. https://marebpress.net/news_details.php?lng=arabic&sid=147754.
84. Alexander Corbeil and Amarnath Amarasingam, “The Houthi Hezbollah,” Foreign Affairs, March 31, 2016, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-03-31/houthi-hezbollah.
85. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Armed Services, Iran’s Military Power: Hearing before the Committee on Armed Services, 111th Cong., 2d sess., April 14, 2010, Statement of Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr.
86. Harmony document IR 011, cited in Felter and Fishman, “Iranian Strategy in Iraq.”
87. Matthew Levitt, Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013), Pp 286-291.
88. The United States designated Nasrallah a Specially Designated Terrorist on January 23, 1995, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1995-01-25/pdf/95-2035.pdf; and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist on May 16, 2018, https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pag…
89. Edward Pound, “Special Report: The Iran Connection,” U.S. News & World Report, November 14, 2004.
90. Jim Garamone, “Iran Arming, Training, Directing Terror Groups in Iraq, U.S. Official Says,” American Forces Press Service, July 2, 2007. http://archive.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=46606.
91. Islam Seif, “Houthi prisoners reveal they were trained by Hezbollah experts,” Al Arabiya, February 28, 2018. https://english.alarabiya.net/News/gulf/2018/02/28/Houthi-prisoners-rev….
92. “Fears of sanctions on Lebanon after new video ‘shows Hezbollah in Yemen’,” Al Arabiya, February 25, 2016. https://english.alarabiya.net/webtv/reports/2016/02/25/Fears-of-sanctio…-.
93. “FACT SHEET: Mahan Air’s Support for Terrorism,” U.S. Embassy in Austria, December 7, 2018. https://at.usembassy.gov/fact-sheet-mahan-airs-support-for-terrorism/.
94. Michael Knights, “The Houthi War Machine: From Guerrilla War to State Capture,” CTC Sentinel, September 2018, https://ctc.usma.edu/houthi-war-machine-guerrilla-war-state-capture/.
95. “Letter dated 22 January 2021 from the Panel of Experts on Yemen addressed to the President of the Security Council,” UN Security Council, January 22, 2021, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/S_2021_79_E.p….
96. Michael Knights, “The Houthi War Machine: From Guerrilla War to State Capture,” CTC Sentinel, September 2018, https://ctc.usma.edu/houthi-war-machine-guerrilla-war-state-capture/-st….
97. Erika Soloman, “Lebanon’s Hizbollah and Yemen’s Houthis open up on links,” Financial Times, May 8, 2015. https://www.ft.com/content/e1e6f750-f49b-11e4-9a58-00144feab7de.
98. Ahmad Majidyar, “Bahrain says arrested 116 members of IRGC-established ‘terror cell,’” Middle East Institute, March 5, 2018, https://www.mei.edu/publications/bahrain-says-arrested-116-members-irgc….
99. Matthew Levitt, “169 Bahraini Hezbollah Members Indicted,” Lebanese Hezbollah Select Worldwide Activity Map, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap/#id=666.
100. Matthew Levitt, “Hezbollah Operatives Storing Explosives Arrested in Kuwait,” Lebanese Hezbollah Select Worldwide Activity Map, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap/#id=577.
101. Philip Smyth, “How Iran Is Building Its Syrian Hezbollah,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, March 8, 2016, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/how-iran-is-bu….
102. Philip Smyth, “How Iran Is Building Its Syrian Hezbollah,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy¸ March 8, 2016, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/how-iran-is-bu….
103. Matthew Levitt, “Hezbollah: Party of Fraud,” Foreign Affairs, July 27, 2011, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2011-07-27/hezbollah-party-fraud.
104. Joby Warrick and Souad Mekhennet, “Hezbollah operatives seen behind spike in drug trafficking, analysts say,” Washington Post, August 4, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/hezbollah-operatives-s….
105. “Treasury Designates Vast Iranian Petroleum Shipping Network That Supports IRGC-QF and Terror Proxies,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, September 4, 2019, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm767.
106. Ibid.
107. Ibid.
108. “Treasury Targets Iran’s Central Bank Governor and an Iraqi Bank Moving Millions of Dollars for IRGC-Qods Force,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, May 15, 2018, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0385.
109. Ibid.
110. Ibid.
111. “Treasury Designates Illicit Russia-Iran Oil Network Supporting the Assad Regime, Hizballah, and HAMAS,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, November 20, 2018, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm553.
112. Visual Depiction of the Alchwiki Network, U.S. Department of the Treasury, November 20, 2018, https://home.treasury.gov/sites/default/files/136/alchwiki-network.png.
113. Photo of Mohammad Amer Alchwiki and Andrey Dogaev, U.S. Department of the Treasury, November 20, 2018, https://home.treasury.gov/sites/default/files/136/amer-alchwiki-andrey-….
114. “Treasury Designates Illicit Russia-Iran Oil Network Supporting the Assad Regime, Hizballah, and HAMAS,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, November 20, 2018, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm553.
115. A letter from Alchwiki and Muhammad Qasir, a.k.a. Mr. Fadi, to Rasoul Sajjad of CBI confirming receipt of U.S. $63 million, U.S. Department of the Treasury, November 20, 2018, https://home.treasury.gov/sites/default/files/136/alchwiki-letter.png.
116. “Treasury Designates Illicit Russia-Iran Oil Network Supporting the Assad Regime, Hizballah, and HAMAS,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, November 20, 2018, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm553.
117. Matthew Levitt, “Hezbollah’s Procurement Channels: Leveraging Criminal Networks and Partnering with Iran,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, March 21, 2019. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/hezbollahs-procurem…- channels-leveraging-criminal-networks-and-partnering-iran.
118. Syrian Presidency (@Presidency_sy), “From the president’s working visit,” Twitter, February 25, 2019, 12:23 p.m., https://ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Levitt-March-image-3.png.
119. Matthew Levitt, “Hezbollah’s Procurement Channels: Leveraging Criminal Networks and Partnering with Iran,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, March 21, 2019. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/hezbollahs-procurem…- channels-leveraging-criminal-networks-and-partnering-iran.
120. “Treasury Designates Illicit Russia-Iran Oil Network Supporting the Assad Regime, Hizballah, and HAMAS,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, November 20, 2018, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm553.
121. “Rewards for Justice – Up to $10 Million Reward Offer for Information on Hizballah’s Financial Networks: Muhammad Qasir, Muhammad Qasim al-Bazzal, and Ali Qasir,” U.S. Department of State, October 23, 2020, https://2017-2021.state.gov/rewards-for-justice-up-to-10-million-reward….
122. Ibid.
123. “Lebanese Hizballah’s Financial Network,” Rewards for Justice, https://rewardsforjustice.net/english/lebanese_hizballah_financial_netw….
124. “Treasury Designates Vast Iranian Petroleum Shipping Network That Supports IRGC-QF and Terror Proxies,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, September 4, 2019, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm767.
125. “Lebanese Hizballah’s Financial Network,” Rewards for Justice, https://rewardsforjustice.net/english/lebanese_hizballah_financial_netw….
126. Ibid.
127. “Treasury Designates Vast Iranian Petroleum Shipping Network That Supports IRGC-QF and Terror Proxies,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, September 4, 2019, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm767.
128. Ibid.
129. “Lebanese Hizballah’s Financial Network,” Rewards for Justice, https://rewardsforjustice.net/english/lebanese_hizballah_financial_netw….
130. “Treasury Designates Vast Iranian Petroleum Shipping Network That Supports IRGC-QF and Terror Proxies,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, September 4, 2019, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm767.
131. Ibid.
132. Ibid.
133. “Lebanese Hizballah’s Financial Network,” Rewards for Justice, https://rewardsforjustice.net/english/lebanese_hizballah_financial_netw….
134. “This Week in Iran Policy,” The U.S. Embassy in Georgia, October 2020, https://ge.usembassy.gov/this-week-in-iran-policy-5/.
135. Ibid.
136. “Treasury Designates Vast Iranian Petroleum Shipping Network That Supports IRGC-QF and Terror Proxies,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, September 4, 2019, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm767.
137. Ibid.
138. Ibid.
139. Ibid.
140. “Lebanese Hizballah’s Financial Network,” Rewards for Justice, https://rewardsforjustice.net/english/lebanese_hizballah_financial_netw….
141. “Rewards for Justice – Up to $10 Million Reward Offer for Information on Hizballah’s Financial Networks: Muhammad Qasir, Muhammad Qasim al-Bazzal, and Ali Qasir,” U.S. Department of State, October 23, 2020, https://2017-2021.state.gov/rewards-for-justice-up-to-10-million-reward….
142. “Treasury Sanctions Network Financing Houthi Aggression and Instability in Yemen,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, June 10, 2021. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0221.
143. Matthew Levitt, “Hezbollah’s Procurement Channels: Leveraging Criminal Networks and Partnering with Iran,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, March 21, 2019. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/hezbollahs-procurem….
144. “DEA and European Authorities Uncover Massive Hizballah Drug and Money Laundering Scheme,” U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Press Release, February 1, 2016, https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2016/02/01/dea-and-european-authorit….
145. “Two Hezbollah Associates Arrested On Charges Of Conspiring To Launder Narcotics Proceeds And International Arms Trafficking,” U.S. Department of Justice Press Release, October 9, 2015, https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/two-hezbollah-associates-arrested-….
146. “Yemen: Extremism and Terrorism,” Counter Extremism Project, February 2018, https://www.counterextremism.com/countries/yemen.
147. “Treasury Sanctions Hizballah Procurement Agents and Their Companies,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, November 5, 2015, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl0255.aspx.
148. Matthew Levitt, “Bahraini Authorities Disrupt Explosives Smuggling,” Lebanese Hezbollah Select Worldwide Activity Map, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, August 6, 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap/#id=1037.
149. Mariam Elatouabi, “Diplomatic relations between Morocco and Iran sour over Western Sahara dispute,” Atlantic Council, July 16, 2018, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/diplomatic-relations-b….
150. Haytham Mouzahem, “Morocco-Algeria tensions flare over claims of Hezbollah support to Polisario,” Al-Monitor, May 22, 2018, https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/05/lebanon-hezbollah-su….
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152. Matthew Levitt, “Hezbollah Operatives Storing Explosives Arrested in Kuwait,” Lebanese Hezbollah Select Worldwide Activity Map, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinteractivemap/#id=577.
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157. Michael Knights, “Back into the Shadows? The Future of Kata’ib Hezbollah and Iran’s Other Proxies in Iraq,” CTC Sentinel, October 2020, https://ctc.usma.edu/back-into-the-shadows-the-future-of-kataib-hezboll…; Michael Knights, “The Houthi War Machine: From Guerrilla War to State Capture,” CTC Sentinel, September 2018, https://ctc.usma.edu/houthi-war-machine-guerrilla-war-state-capture/.
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159. Wil Crisp and Suadad al-Salhy, “Inside Hizbollah’s Fake News Training Camps Sowing Instability Across the Middle East,” The Telegraph, August 2, 2020, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/02/exclusive-inside-hezbollahs….
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161. Crispin Smith and Hamdi Malik, “Profile: Unite 10,000,” Militia Spotlight Profiles, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, April 25, 2021, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/profile-unit-10000.
162. Jack Stubbs and Christopher Bing, “Iran-Based Political Influence Operation, Bigger, Persistent, Global,” Reuters, August 28, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-facebook-exclusive-idINKCN1….
163. “Treasury Sanctions Cyber Actors Backed by Iranian Intelligence Ministry,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, September 17, 2020, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1127.
164. “Foreign Threats to the 2020 Federal Elections,” Intelligence Community Assessment, National Intelligence Council, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, March 10, 2021, https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ICA-declass-16MAR2….
165. Hanin Ghaddar (Guest), “Hezbollah’s Regional Challenge,” Middle East Focus, Middle East Institute, May 20, 2021, https://middleeastinst.libsyn.com/hezbollahs-regional-challenge.
166. Adam Entous and Evan Osnos, “Qassem Suleimani and How Nations Decide to Kill,” The New Yorker, February 10, 2020, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/02/10/qassem-suleimani-and-how-….
167. Hanin Ghaddar and Nader Uskowi, “Iran Will Spare Hezbollah in Its Conflict with Israel, for Now,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, June 5, 2018, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/iran-will-spare-hez….
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169. Hanin Ghaddar and Nader Uskowi, “Iran Will Spare Hezbollah in Its Conflict with Israel, for Now,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, June 5, 2018, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/iran-will-spare-hez….
170. Yuval Ben-David, “Israel says 2016 killing of top Hezbollah commander was inside job,” Reuters, March 21, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-israel-badreddine/isr….
171. James R. Clapper, “Unclassified Statement for the Record on the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,” January 31, 2012, http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2012_ hr/013112clapper.pdf.
172. Matthew G. Olsen, “The Homeland Threat Landscape and U.S. Response,” testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, September 19, 2012.
173. Maryam Sinaiee, “New Vice-Commander of Iran’s Qods Force Signifies Khamenei’s Message of ‘Fighters without Borders,’” Radio Farda, January 20, 2020. https://en.radiofarda.com/a/new-vice-commander-of-iran-s-qods-signifies….
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176. “Tehran-backed Hezbollah steps in to guide Iraqi militias in Soleimani’s wake,” Reuters, February 11, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-iraq-hezbollah-insight/tehran-b….
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181. “Top Iranian General Hejazi Dies At 65,” Radio Free Europe, April 19, 2021, https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-general-hejazi-dies-/31210721.html.
182. “Treasury Sanctions Iran’s Envoy in Yemen and University Facilitating Recruitment for Qods Force,” U.S. Treasury Department, December 8, 2020, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1205.
183. John Hudson, Missy Ryan, and Josh Dawsey, “On the Day U.S. Forces Killed Soleimani, they Targeted a Senior Iranian Official in Yemen,” Washington Post, January 10, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/on-the-day-us-fo….
184. “Treasury Sanctions Five Individuals Tied to Iranian Plot to Assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, October 11, 2011, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/pages/tg1320.aspx; “Treasury Designates Individuals and Entities Fueling Violence in Iraq,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, September 16, 2008, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/hp1141.aspx.
185. “IRGC General Mazaher Majidi: Iran Carried Out Retaliatory Attacks Against Israeli Weapon Factory, Atomic Facilities, Oil Refineries; We Have Dozens Of Hizbullah-Like Forces In Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, And Pakistan,” Hamedan TVI (Iran), MEMRI, May 7, 2021, https://www.memri.org/tv/irgc-general-mazaher-majidi-iran-retaliated-ag….
186. Matthew Levitt, “’Fighters Without Borders’: Forecasting New Trends in Iran Threat Network Foreign Operations Tradecraft,” CTC Sentinel, February 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/fighters-without-bo….
187. Erika Soloman, “Lebanon’s Hizbollah and Yemen’s Houthis open up on links,” Financial Times, May 8, 2015. https://www.ft.com/content/e1e6f750-f49b-11e4-9a58-00144feab7de.
188. “Sayyed Nasreallah: Suleimani Revenge Is Long Track, Trump Biggest Liar in History of U.S. Presidency,” al-Manar, January 12, 2020, https://english.almanar.com.lb/913904.
189. Matthew Levitt, “Fighters without Borders—Forecasting New Trends in Iran Threat Network Foreign Operations Tradecraft,” CTC Sentinel, February 2020, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/fighters-without-bo….

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 27-28/2021
Alarm in Jerusalem as Iran races to the bomb amid lull in nuclear talks
Jerusalem Post/July 27/2021
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett blamed opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu for the advances in Iran's nuclear program, soon after the news of Iran’s uranium metal enrichment was published.
Iran is taking advantage of the lull in nuclear talks with the US to get dangerously close to a nuclear weapon, and there must be a deadline to return to negotiations, Israeli officials have warned their American counterparts.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar have brought the matter up with their American counterparts, as well as in the European states party to the Iran deal, the UK, France and Germany, a senior source in Jerusalem said. The ministers have asked what the Western states plan to do to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon now that it is closer to one than ever before.
Tehran has said it will not return to talks at least until after President-elect Ebrahim Raisi is inaugurated on August 5, nearly two months after the end of the sixth round of indirect negotiations between the US and Iran in Vienna, which are intended to restore the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Israel is concerned that Iran is using the “state of limbo,” as a senior diplomatic source called it, to reduce its breakout time for a nuclear weapon from about seven to two or three months while the International Atomic Energy Agency is not able to inspect the situation.
Then Iran could return to the negotiating table, having already achieved what it wanted on the nuclear front, while still demanding that the US lift sanctions, the source said. Iran was endangering the chance of concluding an accord with world powers over reviving its 2015 nuclear deal if it did not return to the negotiating table soon, the French Foreign Ministry said Monday.“If it continues on this path, not only will it continue to delay when an agreement to lift sanctions can be reached, but it risks jeopardizing the very possibility of concluding the Vienna talks and restoring the JCPOA,” or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll told reporters in a daily briefing.
Last week, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said Iran’s announcement that talks will be on hold until Raisi enters office “leaves us in a rather uncomfortable position.”“We still have a number of questions, issues that we are trying to clarify with Iran, and we will have to wait and start anew with the new team when they are in office,” he told AFP. Earlier this month, Iran told the IAEA it has taken steps to produce uranium metal enriched to 20% for use as reactor fuel. This brings Iran’s nuclear project to a more advanced stage than any country without nuclear weapons is known to have reached. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett blamed opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu for the advances in Iran’s nuclear program soon after news of its uranium enrichment was published. Netanyahu was “prime minister for 12 years, up until a month ago, and his neglect was what allowed Iran to reach the most advanced point ever in its nuclear program… This is the inheritance Bennett received, and from here, he will navigate and fix it with all the tools he has,” a source in the Prime Minister’s Office said.
Rob Malley, the lead US negotiator with Iran, on Sunday confirmed Iranian statements that the Biden administration is prepared to lift all sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Asked if the US should lift sanctions first, he told MSNBC: “That deal has been more or less on the table,” and he cited statements by senior Iranian officials on the matter.
“If Iran wanted to see the sanctions lifted, it could have had them lifted in March, in April, May, June or July,” Malley said. “At all of those stages, the US offered [to do so]... in exchange for Iran coming into compliance” with the JCPOA.
US President Joe Biden “said very clearly that we’re prepared to come back to the deal if they’re prepared to do their part,” he said. “In other words, we’ll lift the sanctions if they’re prepared to come back into compliance with the nuclear constraints and obligations they signed up to in 2015.”
Malley criticized former US president Donald Trump for leaving the nuclear deal in 2018 and applying heavy sanctions on Iran. “Three years on, I think the verdict is clear that America is less safe because Iran has a more expansive, clear program and because it has accelerated and intensified its regional activities – the very steps the Trump administration said it would tackle through its maximum pressure,” he said.
Iran is not only demanding the removal of sanctions; it seeks to include a clause in the new nuclear deal that would require the US to get UN approval before leaving the agreement again, The Wall Street Journal reported. That likely would be unconstitutional in the US, where a president cannot bind a future president or the Congress to a policy. Jordan’s King Abdullah II gave a vague answer when asked by CNN on Sunday if he supported the Biden administration’s push to rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “There are legitimate concerns in our part of the world on a lot of portfolios that the Americans are hopefully going to be able to discuss with the Iranians,” Abdullah said, including issues of specific concern for Jordan. “The nuclear program affects Israel as it does the Gulf,” he said, adding that the American and Iranian positions in the Vienna talks are “somewhat far apart.”Abdullah cited efforts by the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to engage with Iran to lower tensions. “Let’s hope that those talks get us to a better position where we can calm the region, because we have so many challenges,” he added.
*Reuters and Tzvi Joffre contributed to this report.

'Death to the dictator!': Anti-government protests reach Tehran
Jerusalem Post/July 27/2021
Social media showed protesters marching down the streets of Tehran chanting "Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I will sacrifice my life for Iran." Protests in Iran are entering their third week, with widespread arrests of protesters and deadly use of force. Demonstrations began on July 15 in response to the severe drought and water crisis suffered by Iran’s Arab Ahwazi citizens in Khuzestan. Protesters say that water is only a trigger for the movement, in addition to a long history of repression by the Iranian government. Since then, protests against the regime and countrywide drought have spread across the country, including to the capital Tehran. Protesters also object to Iran’s foreign policy agenda, especially given the lack of necessities domestically. A video shared on social media showed protesters marching down the streets shouting slogans such as “Death to the dictator” and “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon: I will sacrifice my life for Iran.”According to Amnesty International on Friday, in response to the protests, security forces have killed at least eight protesters, including a teenage boy, in seven different cities. The Iranian Mehr News Agency reported on Monday that shopkeepers began protesting after an hours-long power outage in parts of Tehran. A spokesman for the electricity provider stated that the power outage was caused by excessive power consumption in a local building.
“Iran’s security forces have deployed unlawful force, including by firing live ammunition and birdshot, to crush mostly peaceful protests taking place across the southern province of Khuzestan,” Amnesty International said in a statement. “Video footage from the past week, coupled with consistent accounts from the ground, indicate security forces used deadly automatic weapons, shotguns with inherently indiscriminate ammunition, and tear gas to disperse protesters.” In addition to lethal response, there have also been reports of Internet outages across the country, including in the Ahwazi region of Khuzestan as well as populated areas in Tehran, specifically near the University of Tehran, Sadeghieh and Tehranpars. According to Netblocks, a web-outage monitor, parts of the country that were experiencing protests saw a “near-total Internet shutdown that is likely to limit the public’s ability to express political discontent or communicate with each other and the outside world.”IN SPITE of the limits on speech on social media, hashtags about the protests were still . Maryam Rajavi, leader of the opposition group National Council of Resistance of Iran, expressed support for the protests on Twitter Monday, writing that “The young protesters in #Tehran display the Iranian people’s firm resolve to establish democracy and national sovereignty. #IranProtests” In response to crackdowns, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet spoke out on Friday against the Iranian government’s response.
“The impact of the devastating water crisis on life, health and prosperity of the people of Khuzestan should be the focus of the government’s attention, not the protests carried out by people driven to desperation by years of neglect,” Bachelet said. “I am extremely concerned about the deaths and injuries that have occurred over the past week, as well as the widespread arrests and detention.”In the US State Department’s press briefing the same day, principal deputy spokesperson Jalina Porter echoed Bachelet’s sentiments, saying: “The Iranian people have a right to freely voice their frustrations and hold their government accountable. And, plainly, we support the rights of Iranians. We support their rights to peacefully assemble, as well as their rights to express themselves freely. And they should be able to do so without fear of violence or arbitrary detention by security forces.”
Outgoing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani promised to open dams to help alleviate the water shortage, according to Asharq Al-Awsat. Ahvaz has been the site of anti-government protests in the past, including large protests in November 2019 after a local poet who was known for his criticisms of the Iranian government died and rumors spread that he was poisoned by security forces. The 2019 protests spread throughout Iran, with hundreds killed and thousands arrested as Iranian security forces violently cracked down on protesters. Internet access was shut off in many areas.Ahvaz is the regional capital of the ethnically diverse southwestern Khuzestan province, home to most of Iran’s Arabs.

Human Rights Watch: Israeli war crimes apparent in Gaza war
AP/July 27/2021
Human Rights Watch on Tuesday accused the Israeli military of carrying out attacks that “apparently amount to war crimes” during an 11-day war in May against the Hamas militant group.
The international human rights organization issued its conclusions after investigating three Israeli airstrikes that it said killed 62 Palestinian civilians. It said “there were no evident military targets in the vicinity” of the attacks.
The report also accused Palestinian militants of apparent war crimes by launching over 4,000 unguided rockets and mortars at Israeli population centers. Such attacks, it said, violate “the prohibition against deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians.”
The report, however, focused on Israeli actions during the fighting, and the group said it would issue a separate report on the actions of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in August.
“Israeli forces carried out attacks in Gaza in May that devastated entire families without any apparent military target nearby,” said Gerry Simpson, associate crisis and conflict director at HRW. He said Israel’s “consistent unwillingness to seriously investigate alleged war crimes,” coupled with Palestinian rocket fire at Israeli civilian areas, underscored the importance of an ongoing investigation into both sides by the International Criminal Court, or ICC.
The Israeli military has repeatedly said its attacks were aimed at military targets in Gaza. It says it takes numerous precautions to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for civilian casualties by launching rocket attacks and other military operations inside residential areas.
The war erupted on May 10 after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets toward Jerusalem in support of Palestinian protests against Israel’s heavy-handed policing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, built on a contested site sacred to Jews and Muslims, and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers in a nearby neighborhood. During the fighting, Hamas fired over 4,000 rockets and mortars toward Israel, while Israel has said it struck over 1,000 targets it says were linked to Gaza militants. In all, some 254 people were killed in Gaza, including at least 67 children and 39 women, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Hamas has acknowledged the deaths of 80 militants, while Israel has claimed the number is much higher. Twelve civilians, including two children, were killed in Israel, along with one soldier.
The HRW report looked into Israeli airstrikes. The most serious, on May 16, involved a series of strikes on Al-Wahda Street, a central thoroughfare in downtown Gaza City. The airstrikes destroyed three apartment buildings and killed a total of 44 civilians, HRW said, including 18 children and 14 women. Twenty-two of the dead were members of a single family, the al-Kawlaks.
Israel has said the attacks were aimed at tunnels used by Hamas militants in the area and that the damage to the homes was unintentional.
In its investigation, HRW concluded that Israel had used U.S.-made GBU-31 precision-guided bombs, and that Israel had not warned any of the residents to evacuate the area ahead of time. It also found no evidence of military targets in the area. “An attack that is not directed at a specific military objective is unlawful,” it wrote.The investigation also looked at a May 10 explosion that killed eight people, including six children, near the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. It said the two adults were civilians. In a statement Tuesday, the Israeli military said the casualties were caused by errant rocket fire launched by militant groups, not Israeli airstrikes. It released aerial photos of what it said was the launch site, some 7.5 kilometers (4 miles) away, and the landing area. “This incident demonstrates the blatant disregard for civilian life on the part of terror organizations in the Gaza Strip,” it said.
But based on an analysis of munition remnants and witness accounts, HRW said evidence indicated the weapon had been “a type of guided missile.”
“Human Rights Watch found no evidence of a military target at or near the site of the strike,” it said.
The New York-based group said that Israel refused to allow its investigators to enter Gaza. Instead, it said it relied on a field researcher based in Gaza, along with satellite images, expert reviews of photos of munitions fragments and interviews conducted by video and telephone.
The third attack HRW investigated occurred on May 15, in which an Israeli airstrike destroyed a three-story building in Gaza’s Shati refugee camp. The strike killed 10 people, including two women and eight children.
HRW investigators determined the building was hit by a U.S.-made guided missile. It said Israel has said that senior Hamas officials were hiding in the building. But the group said no evidence of a military target at or near the site and called for an investigation into whether there was a legitimate military objective and “all feasible precautions” were taken to avoid civilian casualties.
The May conflict was the fourth war between Israel and Hamas since the Islamic militant group, which opposes Israel’s existence, seized control of Gaza in 2007. Human Rights Watch, other rights groups and U.N. officials have accused both sides of committing war crimes in all of the conflicts.
Early this year, HRW accused Israel of being guilty of international crimes of apartheid and persecution because of discriminatory polices toward Palestinians, both inside Israel as well as in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel rejected the accusations.
In Tuesday’s report, it called on the United States to condition security assistance to Israel on it taking “concrete and verifiable actions” to comply with international human rights law and to investigate past abuses.
It also called on the ICC to include the recent Gaza war in its ongoing investigation into possible war crimes by Israel and Palestinian militant groups. Israel does not recognize the court's jurisdiction and says it is capable of investigating any potential wrongdoing by its army and that the ICC probe is unfair and politically motivated.

Iranians blast Olympics for praising IRGC ‘terrorist’ who won gold medal
Benjamin Weinthal/Jerusalem Post/July 27/2021
United for Navid said the IRGC "has a history of violence and killing not only of Iranian people and protesters there, but also innocent people in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. The IRGC is a designated foreign terrorist organization by the United States."
The Iranian human rights athletic organization United for Navid on Saturday slammed the International Olympics Committee for posting a tweet in praise of an Iranian marksman Javad Foroughi, who won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics because he is a member of a US sanctioned terrorist organization.
In a statement sent to The Jerusalem Post, United For Navid wrote that it “considers the awarding of an Olympic Gold Medal to Iran marksman Javad Foroughi not only a catastrophe for Iranian sports but also for the international community, and especially the reputation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The 41-year old Foroughi is a current and longtime member of a terrorist organization [IRGC].”
The Olympics sent a congratulatory tweet to its more than six million followers with a picture of Foroughi, writing “Golden debut! First place medal. Javad Foroughi wins gold in the air pistol men’s final, breaking the Olympic Record on his first Olympic appearance. Well done! @ISSF_Shooting #Shooting.”
United for Navid is named after the executed champion Greco-Roman wrestler Navid Afkari, who was imprisoned and tortured by the Islamic Republic of Iran for his participation against the theocratic regime in 2018. The regime executed Afkari in September. Masih Alinejad ,the Iranian-American journalist and women’s rights activist, along with the Iranian-American former Greco-Roman wrestler Sardar Pashaei, spearhead the campaign. Pashaei coached Iran’s Greco-Roman national team and was a decorated international wrestler.
United for Navid said the IRGC “has a history of violence and killing not only of Iranian people and protesters there, but also innocent people in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. The IRGC is a designated foreign terrorist organization by the United States.”
Iran’s regime has a played a critical role in advancing Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s war against his population, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 500,000 people in the fragmented country.
United For Navid noted that it wrote “to the IOC earlier this year and warned them about the possible presence of the military and even politicians serving as athletic representatives of Iran. Officials of the IOC never took any action. Awarding an Olympic gold medal to a member of a terrorist organization is an insult to other athletes and a black mark on the IOC. United for Navid calls for an immediate investigation by the IOC, and until an investigation is completed the suspension of any medal award.”
Ellie Cohanim, the Iranian-born former US deputy special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism at the US State Department, tweeted: “What a disgrace for the Olympics. This guy has been outed as a member of the IRGC a designated terrorist organization.” Twitter, the micro-blog platform, was ablaze with criticism of the IOC from Iranians for the praise. The Iranian-American human rights activist Lawdan Bazargan tweeted: “Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corp is the equivalent of SS or ‘political soldiers’ of the Nazi Party of Hitler. I was arrested in June 1985 by IRGC members when I was 16 & spent 2 weeks in their jails before transfer to Evin prison. Why @Olympics allows a member of IRGC to compete?” The radical pro-Iranian regime paper Javan showed a picture of Foroughi delivering a military salute on the podium.“An unexpected medal… won by a Guards nurse who is at the same time a defender of health and of the shrine,” the paper reported.

Iraq arrests suspected killer of activist’s son: Interior ministry
AFP/27 July ,2021
Iraq has arrested the suspected killer of a prominent rights activist’s son, whose bullet-riddled body was found in the southern city of Basra at the weekend, authorities said Tuesday. “The killer of Ali Karim, son of the activist Fatima al-Bahadly, has been arrested” in the northern region of Kurdistan, the interior ministry said. The autonomous region’s security services said the man from Basra had “confessed to the crime,” and was handed over to the federal authorities. Karim, 26, had disappeared in Basra on Friday before his body was found the next day with gunshot wounds to the head and chest. His mother, Bahadly, founded an organization that works to protect and educate women and campaign against the recruitment of youths by armed groups. Activists say she often receives threats. The murder of her son “appears to be yet another in a growing list of attacks and killings” targeting Iraqi human rights defenders and their families, the Dublin-based rights group Frontline Defenders tweeted Monday. The European Union’s ambassador to Iraq, Martin Huth, has called for a prompt investigation into the killing. Dozens of activists have been killed or abducted, sometimes briefly, since a popular uprising in late 2019 demanding political change and a curb to Iran-backed factions in Iraq.

UAE joins Interpol operation to crack down on human trafficking gangs
Jennifer Bell, Al Arabiya English/27 July ,2021
The United Arab Emirates has joined forces with 47 countries under Interpol in Operation Liberterra, a global crackdown on migrant smuggling and human trafficking gangs. The international joint operation, launched earlier this month, resulted in the arrest of 286 individuals all around the world, including 12 in the UAE, state news agency WAM reported on Monday. According to the UAE’s Ministry of Interior, 430 victims of human trafficking and 4000 victims of illegal immigration were saved in the global operation. Law enforcement officials from different countries participated in Operation Liberterra between July 5 and 9, carrying out about 500,000 inspections at checkpoints and airports as well as at hotspots identified through intelligence and investigations, according to Interpol. UAE agencies launched a parallel awareness campaign targeting tourism staff, public transport drivers, workers in industrial areas, domestic workers recruitment offices in an attempt to raise awareness about the various forms, means and ways of human trafficking. The UAE, which was the first country in the region to pass a comprehensive law to fight human trafficking in line with all international laws and treaties in 2006, led a national team through the MOI.
“Human trafficking is one of the major security threats being faced by countries across the world. It has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry led by organized criminal groups,” Lt Colonel Dana Humaid from the UAE’s Ministry of Interior said.
“While it is challenging to determine the scale of the problem, experts agree that millions of victims are trafficked every year, either for forced labor, sexual exploitation, removal of organs, or people smuggling.”Humaid also said, “The human cost beyond those immediately effected on families, on friends, and communities is incalculable.”Four international operations rooms were established in Lyon, Panama, Khartoum and Abu Dhabi, to coordinate international police efforts and information sharing. The operation was in collaboration with United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), EUROPOL, the International Organization for Migration and the Regional Operational center Khartoum (ROCK). Humaid added: “We are proud that the UAE has been able to support Interpol, and this important and successful operation. As many of you will know, the UAE has been an active player in the campaign against human trafficking, and firmly believes in the importance of strong national as well as international efforts to combat human trafficking. Interpol, and the international cooperation which underpins it, is one of the key ways we – and the international community – will beat these transnational criminal threats.”“The UAE currently maintains a network of shelters to protect and rehabilitate victims. We also have a dedicated hotline to facilitate the reporting of cases of human trafficking and to enable victims to request protection.”“However, given the transnational nature of human trafficking, no country can combat human trafficking by itself. It is critical that there is cross-border cooperation. This is where the Interpol plays a critical role. It facilitates the sharing of information and operational collaboration between member countries. INTERPOL also assists member countries in developing long-term capabilities through trainings, events and access to resources.”Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock praised the countries involved: “Operation Liberterra is a five -day snapshot of the global trafficking and smuggling situation and how multinational highly organized criminals networks only focus on one thing : Profit," he said. “With 22 criminals groups dismantled, it also shows what coordinated ,global law enforcement action can achieve” he added.

Top US diplomat for Yemen in Saudi Arabia for talks on ceasefire, Houthi offensive
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/27 July ,2021
The top US diplomat for Yemen arrived in Saudi Arabia Tuesday to discuss the ongoing war in Yemen and the “growing consequences of the Houthi offensive on Marib,” the State Department said.Tim Lenderking is set to meet with senior officials from the Saudi and Yemeni governments as well as UN officials on what is believed to be his eighth trip to the region since being tapped for the role by US President Joe Biden in February. “Special Envoy Lenderking will discuss the growing consequences of the Houthi offensive on Marib, which is exacerbating the humanitarian crisis and triggering instability elsewhere in the country. The Special Envoy will address the urgent need for efforts by the Republic of Yemen Government and Saudi Arabia to stabilize Yemen’s economy and to facilitate the timely import of fuel to northern Yemen, and the need for the Houthis to end their manipulation of fuel imports and prices inside of Yemen,” the State Department said. Lenderking is will also meet with “representatives from the international community,” the statement read without elaborating. The US diplomat has previously met with Houthi officials in Oman and elsewhere, although US officials use ambiguous language when asked about these meetings. Since becoming US president, Biden has increased diplomatic efforts to try to reach a ceasefire in Yemen. Part of Biden’s strategy was to remove the Iran-backed Houthis from the terror blacklist and lift the Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) label off senior Houthis leaders. After failing to garner any concessions or positive outcomes from the Houthis, the Biden administration slapped sanctions on Houthi officials shortly after. The Yemeni government, backed by Saudi Arabia, has repeatedly expressed its willingness to see an end to the yearslong war, which has resulted in one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world. But the Houthis have refused to engage in ceasefire talks. The Houthis have rejected a meeting with the UN special envoy for Yemen, escalated an offensive on one of the final government strongholds in the north of Yemen and continuously attack Saudi Arabia with bomb-laden drones and missiles. Over the weekend, Saudi air defenses intercepted four Houthi militia drones and a ballistic missile targeting the country’s southern region, according to Al Arabiya sources in the Arab coalition.
The US condemned the latest attack. Sources familiar with Lenderking’s trips to the region have said the Houthis want a ceasefire before discussing any steps or concessions to be made. “Now is the time to stop the fighting and enable Yemenis to shape a more peaceful, prosperous future for their country,” the State Department said on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan with his Pakistani counterpart
Joanne Serrieh, Al Arabiya English/27 July ,2021
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan met with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi in Islamabad on Tuesday to discuss bilateral relations.“Good meeting with my friend @SMQureshiPTI this morning. We discussed ways to enhance our bilateral cooperation and to build on the strong bond between our two countries,” Prince Faisal said in a tweet following a joint press conference. The two officials also discussed environmental issues, the situation in Afghanistan and ways to further develop the relations between the Kingdom and Pakistan. Qureshi also thanked Saudi Arabia for its “unlimited” support for Pakistan.

What is Article 80 and how did Tunisia’s president use it to back his decisions?
Tala Michel Issa, Al Arabiya English/27 July ,2021
Tunisian President Kais Saied on Sunday announced the suspension of the country’s Parliament and immunity of all deputies and sacked Prime Minister Hicham Mechichi following a series of mass protests across Tunisia. Saied said, in a speech broadcast after calling on military and security officers for an emergency meeting at Carthage Palace, that he planned to take over the executive authority with the help of a new prime minister to replace the deposed Mechichi. The President then based his actions on Article 80 of the country’s constitution, stating that it allowed him to take such measures in specific situations, the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported.“We took these decisions so that social peace returns to Tunisia and that we save the country,” Saied said.
What is Article 80?
Article 80 of the Tunisian constitution states that “The President of the Republic, in a state of imminent danger threatening the integrity of the country and the country’s security and independence, is entitled to take the measures necessitated by this exceptional situation, after consulting the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Cabinet.”However, the article does not explicitly authorize the president to dissolve the country’s Parliament. It stipulated that measures imposed based on the article should be aimed at restoring stability and normalcy within the country, ensuring that it functions normally, safely and properly as quickly as possible.“The measures shall guarantee, as soon as possible, a return to the normal functioning of state institutions and services,” the article read. “The Assembly of the Representatives of the People shall be deemed to be in a state of continuous session throughout such a period. In this situation, the President of the Republic cannot dissolve the Assembly of the Representatives of the People and a motion of censure against the government cannot be presented.” It also stipulated that “Thirty days after the entry into force of these measures, and at any time thereafter, the Speaker of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People or thirty of the members thereof shall be entitled to apply to the Constitutional Court with a view to verifying whether or not the circumstances remain exceptional. The Court shall rule upon and publicly issue its decision within a period not exceeding fifteen days.”
“These measures cease to be in force as soon as the circumstances justifying their implementation no longer apply. The President of the Republic shall address a message to the people to this effect.” Many political figures in Tunisia have opposed Saied’s move and have accused him of staging a coup. The country’s Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi accused the president of launching “a coup against the revolution and constitution” on Sunday following his decision. “We consider the institutions to be still standing and supporters of Ennahda and the Tunisian people will defend the revolution,” Ghannouchi, who heads the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, told Reuters by phone. Saied has since rejected coup accusations. “I call on the Tunisian people to remain calm and not to respond to any provocations. I also call upon the Tunisian people not to take to streets as the most danger a nation can face is internal explosion,” Saied said in a video released on Monday.

Will Tunisia Crisis End Arab Spring's Democratic Success Story?
Agence France Presse/July 27/2021
Tunisia, the cradle of the 2011 Arab Spring revolts and long seen as its sole democratic success story, has been plunged into crisis with the threat of more turmoil ahead.
President Kais Saied on Sunday dismissed the prime minister, suspended the elected parliament for 30 days and warned that any armed opposition would be met with "a rain of bullets". The power grab sparked international concern and charges by the ruling political party of a "coup d'etat"."Tunisia must not squander its democratic gains," warned the US State Department. Here are some key questions about the political turmoil in the economically battered and pandemic-hit North African country of 12 million, and on what may happen next.
What sparked the crisis? -
The small Mediterranean country has had nine governments since the 2011 popular revolution that toppled dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Its rocky transition has been plagued by an economic malaise that has been deepened by the Covid pandemic, which in recent weeks has seen deaths surge to one of the world's highest official per-capita rates. The heavily indebted country has been hit hard by a fall in tourism and is seeking its fourth aid program in 10 years from the International Monetary Fund.
Saied, a jurist elected in 2019 with no previous governing experience, has been at loggerheads for the past six months with the main party in parliament, the moderate Islamist Ennahdha. Street protests broke out Sunday against the government of Ennahdha-backed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, with people venting their anger over its poor Covid response. Many Tunisians were furious after seeing photos of Mechichi gathering his ministers in a luxury seaside resort, in defiance of Covid restrictions, as health workers battled to save lives. The president, who also commands the army, declared he had sacked the premier, sparking celebrations by tens of thousands of jubilant supporters, but also charges of an orchestrated power grab by his opponents. On Monday, street clashes broke out outside the army-barricaded parliament. The same day police shuttered the Al Jazeera TV bureau in Tunis, and Saied also fired the defense and justice ministers.
Is it a coup d'etat? -
Ennahdha called the shock events "a coup against Tunisian democracy and its constitution". Western and regional powers, while voicing alarm, have so far generally avoided that term, with an EU spokesperson urging "all Tunisian actors to respect the constitution, its institutions and the rule of law".
Saied argued he acted under Article 80 of the country's 2014 constitution, which allows the head of state to take unspecified exceptional measures in the event of an "imminent threat". The president later said the legislature's suspension was declared for 30 days.
Whether to renew it after that would in theory be up to Tunisia's Constitutional Court -- an institution which parliaments have however failed to establish over the past seven years. Political scientist Selim Kharrat argued that "Saied's decisions are not constitutional", pointing out that "Article 80 states that parliament should be in open session," which it was not. Fadil Aliriza, editor of news website Meshkal, said it was too "early to say whether it is a coup. "There is a concentration of power" in Saied's hands, Aliriza argued, adding that now all depends on "whether it is permanent or temporary".
What happens next? -
Saied said he would assume executive powers and name a new prime minister, but has so far failed to present a roadmap out of the crisis. He has the backing of the army and the implicit support of the powerful Tunisian General Labor Union. Kharrat said "it remains to be seen whether Mr Saied will enter into negotiations, or whether he will continue to take unilateral decisions. "It is too early to say whether this can be a positive shock, and there is a real risk of drifting towards a form of autocratic rule."
Saied's supporters ransacked Ennahdha offices on Sunday, and there was street violence Monday, raising fears of further escalation. Aliriza said that "Ennahdha has been trying to mobilize support, but they know it's not in their interests to instigate violence. It has often worked against them."International Crisis Group analyst Michael Ayari said "there is an objective of restoring the efficiency of the state, but it will be necessary to ensure the involvement of a large number of actors." "We are in the unknown, with a risk of excesses, including bloody ones." Amnesty International voiced alarm about Saied's actions and his threats, as well as the raid on Al Jazeera's bureau, which it labelled "an outrageous assault on the right to freedom of expression.""The hard-won freedoms and human rights gains of Tunisia's 2011 uprising are at risk," the rights group warned.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials published on July 27-28/2021
To Deter Iran, Give Israel a Big Bomb
Dennis Ross/Washington Institute/July 27/2021
In addition to renegotiating key parts of the JCPOA, expanding Israel’s arsenal is the best way to keep Tehran off the nuclear weapons threshold.
With negotiations paused until a new hardline administration takes office in Tehran, the chances of reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal anytime soon are not bright. Moreover, even successful talks might not stop Iran’s leaders from pursuing nuclear weapons. The Biden administration needs to find a better way to deter them.
It’s still possible, perhaps even likely, that the desire for sanctions relief will prompt the Iranians to rejoin the deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, once they conclude the U.S. will make no further concessions. That would roll back some of Iran’s recent advances, including its enrichment of uranium to 60% purity and its production of uranium metal, used in nuclear warheads.
Returning to the status quo ante, though, will also highlight the original deal’s fundamental shortcomings—its fast-approaching sunset clauses, most notably. When the JCPOA’s key provisions lapse in 2030, there will be no limits on the size of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, the number or types of centrifuges it can run, or even the amount of weapons-grade fissile material it may possess or produce. By 2023, just two years from now, there will be no limits on Iran’s ballistic missiles, very effective delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons.
The fact that the Biden administration hopes to reach a “longer and stronger” follow-on agreement reflects its recognition that the JCPOA is not sufficient. The trouble is, incoming Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has made it clear that Iran has no interest in such a deal. Inducements rarely, if ever, alter Iran’s behavior and are unlikely to change the minds of either Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or the new president.
Nor is Iran’s insistence that it doesn’t intend to develop nuclear weapons credible. If that were true, the regime could have pursued far less costly alternatives to building its own extensive enrichment capability. Establishing a civil nuclear industry to generate electricity, using fuel furnished from outside the country, was always an option—one that Iran consistently rejected. Evidence of its work on designing nuclear warheads, revealed in the nuclear archive Israel ferreted out of Tehran, only confirms its interest in a weapons program.
If the U.S. cannot persuade Iran to temper such ambitions using carrots, which seems unlikely given Iran’s determined pursuit of a large nuclear infrastructure, it must find more effective sticks. To start, the Biden administration should reframe its stated objective and be clear the U.S. is determined to stop Iran not just from acquiring a nuclear weapon, but from being able to produce a bomb quickly. It’s very likely Iran hopes to become a threshold nuclear weapons state similar to Japan, which does not have a nuclear weapon but has all the means to produce one very quickly. Unlike Japan, Iran is a threat to its neighbors and must not be in a position where it could effectively present the world with a nuclear weapons fait accompli at a time of its choosing.
The Biden administration should thus tighten its declaratory policy to say Iran will not be allowed to become a nuclear weapons threshold state. In theory, negotiations could defer such an outcome. One way to do so would be to extend the JCPOA’s sunset clauses for another 10 to 20 years. A better alternative would be to impose strict limits on Iran’s production capabilities and the numbers and types of centrifuges it can run, in perpetuity.
If Raisi’s government continues to reject follow-on talks, however, the U.S. must make the costs of pursuing a threshold capability far clearer. To do so, the Biden administration should consider providing Israel the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000-pound mountain-buster, as some in Congress have advocated. Such a weapon could be used to destroy Fordow, the underground Iranian enrichment facility, as well as other hardened nuclear sites.
Of course, the White House would need to reach a firm understanding with the Israelis about triggers for the bomb’s use. But being prepared to provide Israel with such a fearsome weapon and leasing the B-2 bomber to deliver it would send a powerful message. The Iranians may doubt whether the U.S. would follow through on its threats; they won’t have any trouble believing the Israelis will.
In fact, providing the GBU-57 to Israel may be the best inducement for Iran to negotiate a “longer and stronger” deal. Only then might the regime accept that the U.S. is serious about preventing Iran from acquiring a threshold status—and that Iran risks its entire nuclear infrastructure in the absence of an agreement limiting it. Under such circumstances, Iran’s leaders will have an incentive to get something now for accepting an outcome that the U.S. and Israel might otherwise impose.
*Dennis Ross is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute. This article was originally published on the Bloomberg website.

Chess great Kasparov urges US to end nuke talks with 'terrorist' Iran
Benjamin Weinthal/Jerusalem Post/July 27/2021
Legendary chess player Garry Kasparov, one of the greats of the game, has urged the US government to pull the plug on nuclear negotiations with Iran’s hardline Islamist regime because it is a dictatorship.
“Terror regimes should be isolated and their leaders should be treated like the criminals they are,” Kasparov said. “That is how can you support the people and the victims of these regimes. Instead, the United States is repeating a terrible mistake by negotiating with Iran’s leaders in Vienna. These negotiations are a waste of time except for Iran’s leaders.”The former chess world champion said the talks in Vienna “only benefit Iran. They [Iranian leaders] are also buying time to pursue the world’s deadliest weapons.”
Israel and some Western countries have accused Iran’s regime of seeking to build, as well as secure technology for, a nuclear weapon.
The US and other world powers are negotiating with Islamic Republic to bring it back to the 2015 nuclear deal. The atomic pact, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), offers Iran’s regime sanctions relief in exchange for it abiding by temporary restrictions on is nuclear program.
Kasparov, who is the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, an organization devoted to democracy promotion and combating totalitarian regimes such as Vladimir Putin’s Russian administration, called Iran an “illegitimate regime” that has no “authority from the people.”He added that the it causes “terror and war” and “no one suffers more than citizens of the regime.”
The chess grandmaster, one of the greatest players in the history of the game, said Iran’s regime is a “dictatorship, it fears its people. It oppresses and tortures them. Iran is its people.”
He also took the regime to task for its 1988 massacre of Iranian dissidents in prisons, noting there “has been no justice for victims and their families and no accountability.”
Kasparov advocated a maximum pressure campaign against the clerical regime.
The Jerusalem Post reported on the alleged role of Ohio-based Oberlin College professor Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, who Amnesty International said carried out crimes against humanity while serving as the Iranian regime’s ambassador to the UN. Amnesty accused him of covering up the mass murder of 1988.
After the Post revealed that Mahallati urged, during his tenure at the UN, the destruction of the Jewish state and launched tirades against the persecuted Baháí religious minority, Oberlin College’s David Hertz said the institution had launched an investigation into the allegations against Mahallati. Hertz announced the investigation in April but the college has not disclosed what emerged from its inquiry.
The Iranian regime’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, was involved in the 1988 massacre, according to the US and Amnesty International. Kasparov said “Raisi was not really elected. The word election is a joke in dictatorships like in Iran and Russia. He was chosen to play a role.”

After months of optimism, a return to the Iran nuke deal begins to look unlikely
Lazar Berman/The Times Of Israel/July 27/2021
The Islamic Republic’s demands, along with progress in its program, make a return to the JCPOA seem much more difficult than when Biden came into office
After months of expectations that a breakthrough in the Vienna talks on Iran’s nuclear program was only a matter of time, the chances of success are now looking increasingly remote.
Earlier this month, Iran’s deputy foreign minister said negotiations on restoring the nuclear deal will not resume until the hardliner Ebrahim Raisi takes office as president on August 5.
Though both sides have significant incentives to return to the deal, Iran’s aggressive negotiating demands and steady progress in its nuclear program have created a gap between the sides that looks increasingly difficult to bridge.
Furthermore, it is not entirely clear now that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei still wants to return to a deal, despite the Biden administration’s clear desire to finalize one.
Back in the box
Iran and the US have been holding indirect talks in Vienna since April over a return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which granted Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for significant curbs on its nuclear program. Former US president Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions against Iran, which led the Islamic Republic to step up uranium enrichment to its highest-ever levels in violation of the accord. The new US administration, in contrast, has been open about its eagerness to restore the nuclear deal.
“Biden had from the start been explicit that he wants to get back into the JCPOA and put the Iran nuclear program in a box so that Biden can deal with a million other problems facing him on day one when he took office, both foreign and domestic policy,” said Jonathan Ruhe, director of foreign policy at The Jewish Institute for National Security of America.
The Biden administration has even shown itself willing to allow Iran access to frozen assets abroad, which Iran has dismissed as empty gestures.
“Clearly the regime is not feeling the economic noose as tightly as they were,” said Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The sixth round of talks adjourned in late June, and while the Biden administration has expressed interest in returning to the negotiating table, US officials have voiced increasing pessimism regarding the chances for an agreement.
The equation for a deal seems straightforward: Iran rolls back its nuclear program to the terms laid out in great detail by the JCPOA, while the US rolls back most Trump-era sanctions.
But Iran — or at least the hardline elements around Ali Khamenei — is demanding more. Tehran wants all the sanctions removed, including those dealing with terrorism and other non-nuclear issues.
Iranian negotiators are also demanding guarantees that the US cannot withdraw from a deal again without UN approval. The demand is an obvious non-starter, as an agreement by a US administration is not binding on any future ones, and it is utterly unthinkable — not to mention unconstitutional — that the US would give countries like Russia and China veto power over its foreign policy at the UN.
The blunt — some would also say unsophisticated — approach taken by the Iranian negotiating team is a stark contrast to its skillful maneuvering from 2013 to 2015 that led to a deal.
“Iran did a great job building up leverage in the previous talks leading to the 2015 deal,” said Ruhe.
Tehran is looking to build leverage this time around as well, including through its proxy militias in Iraq, which are believed to be behind a series of recent drone attacks on US bases in the country.
Iranian intelligence agents even plotted to kidnap an Iranian-American journalist in Brooklyn and spirit her off to Iran.
Most significantly, the Iranians have been openly escalating its nuclear program beyond the agreement’s limits: in the numbers and types of centrifuges they are running, in the quantities and levels of uranium they are enriching — up to 60 percent — and in their production of uranium metal.
“Even the Biden administration, which wants a deal badly, is having a hard time saying, ‘We’ll give in to the pressure,'” said Ruhe.
Iran began to openly abrogate its responsibilities under the JCPOA in July 2019, and has been accelerating its program and limiting access to its nuclear sites after the Guardian Council passed a law in December 2020 requiring the government to do so if sanctions were not lifted.
Facts on the ground
The Iranian advances might render a return to the original JCPOA impossible, even if Iran were willing to remove its unrealistic demands.
“There is a series of new facts on the ground that Iran has been creating in its nuclear program,” said Goldberg.
The JCPOA was crafted before Iran had developed new advanced centrifuges, which enable them to advance far more quickly to a bomb. Moreover, Iran been building out its nuclear facilities, including the underground Fordo nuclear facility and a new underground centrifuge production site at Natanz.
Since the facilities did not exist in 2015, it is not at all clear that a return to the JCPOA would necessitate their dismantlement. In any event, the Iranian program is going to be far more advanced than the deal ever imagined, and the Iranians will still possess all the knowledge they have gained over the past two years.To make matters more complicated, Iran’s program is much more opaque now than it was in 2015.
In late February, Iran limited the IAEA’s access to nuclear sites it had been monitoring as part of the 2015 deal.
A three-month agreement reached on February 21 allowing some inspections to continue was extended by another month in May. Under that deal Iran pledged to keep recordings “of some activities and monitoring equipment” and hand them over to the IAEA as and when US sanctions are lifted.
In June, Iran said it would not hand over the footage.
“We have some idea of how advanced Iran’s nuclear program is. But there’s much more ambiguity now around it than there was before talks started,” Ruhe explained.
That ambiguity makes a new deal difficult as well. Without knowing how advanced Iran’s program is — how significant its enriched uranium stockpiles are and how many centrifuges are running — the Americans cannot be sure of what they are trying to get the Iranians to concede.
What does Khamenei want?
Iran’s negotiating posture raises questions about what Khamenei’s endgame is.
One possibility is that the supreme leader’s strategic direction has not changed, and he ultimately wants to get to back to the agreement. That would mean his negotiators have been playing for time as a negotiating tactic, seeing how far they can push the Biden administration.
“They may be saying, we’ve already pocketed all of these sanctions from the Americans, we still want more,” Goldberg said.
“In my opinion, it’s not only Biden who wants to put the nuclear issues ‘back into the box’ but also Khamenei,” said Raz Zimmt, Iran scholar at the Institute for National Security Studies.
A deal will help Iran deal with its economic woes, grant it increased legitimacy on the world stage, and indicate to the West that Raisi is more moderate than he seems right now.
Still, this does not guarantee that the Iranians will ultimately agree to a deal.
“Even though the Iranians have incentives to get the sanctions relief secured, the hardliners in Iran always seem to have a hard time bringing themselves to say yes to anything with the Americans,” said Ruhe.
It is also conceivable, however, that Khamenei has decided not to reenter the agreement.
“They would prefer to bypass sanctions through countries like China, and create a ‘resistance economy,'” said Zimmt.
In this telling, the Iranians understand that there will never be any guarantees that US will not reimpose sanctions in the future, and the Biden administration itself will push for “longer and stronger” sanctions in a follow-on deal.
Khamenei would thus be continuing to negotiate in order to give the Iranian program as much time as possible to advance while the West is focused on the talks, and so Tehran can blame the US when the talks fail.
Domestic blame game
Within Iran, a blame game has broken out between the outgoing Hassan Rouhani administration and the incoming Raisi team.
“The situation now is that the main argument is not between Iran and the world powers, but within Iran,” explained Zimmt.
Rouhani and Mohammad Javad Zarif’s foreign ministry are trying to write their political wills, said Zimmt.
Zarif wrote a letter to the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee on July 11, laying out his view on the JCPOA and on the ongoing negotiations with the US.
The letter defended the deal, and put blame on the Iranian deep state for failing to take advantage of the deal’s potential and for not reciprocating American attempts to find common ground this year.
The hardliners, including the Revolutionary Guards and their allies, blame Rouhani and Zarif for failing to defend Iranian interests and red lines, and for not adhering to the December 2020 law on accelerating Iran’s nuclear program.
Ultimately, however, the decision lies with Khamenei and Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

An Iranian killer won an Olympic gold medal, the IOC is complicit if it stands idle
Abraham Cooper/Johnnie Moore/Al Arabiya/July 27/2021
It took the International Olympic Committee (IOC) 49 years to finally remember 11 Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. It took just one day for the IOC to tarnish the 2020 Games in Tokyo.
Remembering those Israelis killed a half century ago with a moment of silence provided a rare moment of moral clarity for an International Olympic Committee that has been playing catchup since they handed Adolph Hitler global legitimacy in 1936. And they are about to provide Chinese President Xi such a coveted prize in 2022, despite the genocide of the Uyghurs. IOC’s defenders could claim that they act based on discussions, international deliberations and consensus and that sometimes they just get it wrong. But an event took place on the gold medal stand this weekend is so outrageous, so despicable that the IOC must reverse it.
The IOC must immediately revoke a gold medal awarded to the Iranian Olympian Javad Foroughi. Then, they should ask Japanese authorities to immediately demand Interpol issue a warrant for his arrest.
When Javad Foroughi knocked off his competitors to win the gold in shooting he caught the attention of activists, including us.
It was a dystopian moment. What most viewers missed is how Foroughi refined his exquisite and unmatched skills. Like other members of the Basij militia – a foreign terrorist group affiliated with Iran’s International Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – Foroughi likely honed his craft during Syria’s civil war – where Syrian civilians, including women and children, were often, and intentionally, put in the crosshairs of live bullets.Foroughi isn’t ashamed of his service to the Iranian regime, nor is anyone even trying to hide it. Iran boasted of his service on state TV where Foroughi actually confessed his greatest honor in life was to fight on behalf of the Iran’s genocidal, Holocaust-denying leader, Ayatollah Khomeini.
Treating Foroughi like any other athlete is an Olympic-sized affront to the families and friends of all the innocent victims – dead and maimed – of the Iranian regime and its terrorist lackeys.
This includes Tehran’s latest targets: The Iranian citizens protesting this week on the streets of its cities. Those protestors have been threatened, arrested, and even murdered as Iran’s citizens spoke with one courageous voice from the oil-rich Khuzestan region to Azerbaijani Iranians in Tabriz and now, during the Tokyo Olympic Games, in Tehran itself.
One particular athlete can’t protest any longer and won’t be competing in Tokyo either. He’s the famous Iranian wrestler Navid Afkari.
Afkari was executed last year for daring to protest the regime’s crimes against the Iranian people, including the Mullahs’ suppression of all human rights, including the rights of minorities, women and girls.
Iran’s moment of infamy in Tokyo is but the latest, almost daily example of the kid glove treatment bestowed on the thuggish regime by diplomats in the United States and Europe and the suddenly silent human rights NGOs.
The cognitive dissonance is breathtaking and presages more and more assaults on human dignity by the Tehran regime.
Do we even remember that earlier this month Iranian intelligence officials were indicted by the US for an alleged plot to kidnap the famed women’s rights activist and journalist Masih Alinejan on American soil? Had the audacious plan succeeded, they would have smuggled the American citizen via boat to Venezuela before flying her to Iran for a “trial” (read execution).
It’s difficult to stay focused on the IOC’s errors, when on the same day the kidnapping plot was exposed, US Iran envoy Rob Malley convinced the Biden Administration to lift additional sanctions on Iran for the second time in weeks. It appears that there is little the US won’t forgive to get Tehran to allow Washington to re-enter the ill-fated 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal – which Tehran has cheated on from almost day one.
People across the globe are right to ask what more the godfather of terrorism in Tehran has to do before the world says: Enough!
We submit it may start with disqualifying a child-killing Iranian terrorist from the Olympic Games and that Javad Foroughi be arrested as an international war criminal.
Can we at least teach our children that there should be no gold medals for terrorists?