http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20050314-090221-6481r
The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
Hezbollah's deadly record
By Joel Himelfarb
Published March 15, 2005
In the wake of the March 8 demonstrations in which Hezbollah brought
as many as half-a-million people into the streets of Beirut to support
Syria, Americans have been inundated with news stories and analyses
emphasizing Hezbollah's role as an indigenous political movement and
its popularity with Lebanon's Shi'ites.
Under pressure from France and the United Nations, the New York
Times reported in a front-page story on Thursday, the Bush
administration appears to be on the verge of acquiescing to a role for
Hezbollah -- one of the world's most deadly terrorist organizations,
responsible for torturing and killing hundreds of Americans over the
past 22 years -- in Lebanon's future. How can this be, given that
President Bush has made the fight against Islamofascist terrorism the
defining issue of his presidency? Given the fact that more than
800,000 anti-Syrian and anti-Hezbollah demonstraters mobilized in
Beirut yesterday, and given Hezbollah's open contempt for democracy,
why is Washington doing this?
In part, this move is an outgrowth of the administration's
decision to accommodate the concerns of its European allies by taking
a more conciliatory posture toward Iran's nuclear program. The
accommodations would include the use of financial incentives such as
permiting Iran to join the World Trade Organization in an effort to
persuade Iran to change its ways.
Regarding Hezbollah specifically, Washington is responding to a
number of domestic Lebanese political realities: Hezbollah holds 13
seats in Lebanon's 128-member parliament, a total it hopes to increase
in the May elections. It operates a well-run network of social
services in a country where the central government is corrupt and
incompetent. Western diplomats, particularly European ones, are hoping
that Iran will be persuaded to restrain Hezbollah, and that Hezbollah
will become so enmeshed in domestic Lebanese politics that it will
lose interest in terrorism.
But throughout its history, no aspect of Hezbollah's work is
nearly as important as its terrorist role. Outside of Lebanon,
Hezbollah's priority in recent years has been its work in
collaboration with Iran and Syria to destroy any possibility of
Israeli-Palestinian peace. And Hezbollah's history of killing
Americans, collaborating with al Qaeda and setting up terrorist cells
in the United States makes it one of the most dangerous terrorist
organizations in the world today.
Hezbollah, which receives between $100 million and $200 million a
year in assistance from Iran, for the most part does not carry out its
own attacks against Israel. Instead, it provides logistical help, such
as instruction in bomb making, to Palestinian terrorist organizations.
It has actively sought to recruit Israeli Arabs into participating in
terrorism, and it helps Iran funnel assistance to Palestinian
terrorist groups.
Hezbollah had played a minimal role in these terrorist activities
until May 2000, when then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak fulfilled his
campaign pledge to withdraw the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from its
security zone in southern Lebanon. On the evening of May 23, 2000, the
New York Times reported: "Israeli television showed Hezbollah
followers triumphantly raising their yellow flags atop heavily
fortified command posts, some located barely a mile from Israeli
settlements, which Israel turned over to its [Lebanese] militia allies
only days earlier."
Mr. Barak's hope that U.N. peacekeepers would replace Israeli
troops in protecting northern Israel from Hezbollah was quickly
dashed. Instead of an orderly IDF withdrawal, the pullout from Lebanon
descended into chaos, as Israeli troops staggered back across the
border, telling reporters that their military equipment and training
had proven useless against Hezbollah, and its Lebanese allies overran
U.N. checkpoints military posts abandoned by Israel's Lebanese allies.
As the Lebanese fled south, some abandoned heavy military equipment
from Israel to the advancing Hezbollah forces.
The spring and summer of 2000 were a time of triumph for
Hezbollah. The group -- which perfected the art of suicide bombings
during the early 1980s, in a campaign that succeeded in driving
American and French peacekeepers from Lebanon -- had driven Israel,
its mortal enemy, out of Lebanon. But this created a problem for
Hezbollah, which had depicted itself as a Lebanese nationalist
organization focused on driving a foreign occupation force, Israel,
from its country. Since Israel had now withdrawn from every square
inch of Lebanese territory it had controlled, Hezbollah needed to find
a pretext for continuing the war against Israel. It hit paydirt when
the Syrian-dominated Beirut government claimed that an area called
Shebaa Farms, part of the Golan Heights that Israel captured from
Syria during the 1967 war, actually belonged to Lebanon. And Hezbollah
instituted some major changes in tactics: No longer would it confine
itself largely to firing Katyusha rockets at small border towns in
northern Israel; Hezbollah acquired rockets that can reach Haifa, the
industrial center of northern Israel.
Most importantly of all, Hezbollah has taken a leadership role in
directing Palestinian terrorism against Israel. U.S. officials have
said that, shortly after Palestinian rioting began in September 2000,
Iran assigned Imad Mugniyeh, Hezbollah's commander of international
operations, to help Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad stage attacks
against Israel.
Prior to September 11, Mugniyeh had killed more Americans than any
living person. In April 1983, his Hezbollah operatives bombed the
American embassy in Beirut, killing 63 persons. Six months later, he
ordered the suicide bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing
241 Americans. In 1984, Mugniyeh bombed the annex to the U.S. embassy
in Lebanon, killing another 14 Americans. Mugniyeh is also responsible
for the 1985 torture-murder of William Buckley, the CIA station chief
in Beirut, and the death of Robert Stethem, tortured and killed during
a June 1985 hijacking. Mugniyeh and Hezbollah are also believed to
have been responsible for the March 1992 bombing of the Israeli
Embassy in Buenos Aires, and the July 1994 bombing of a Jewish
community center in Buenos Aires. The U.S. government has posted a $5
million reward for Mugniyeh's capture.
American officials from the Clinton administration have said that
shortly after the Palestinians began the second intifada on Sept. 29,
2000, Mugniyeh was ordered by Tehran to work with the Palestinian
terrorist organization Hamas. Iran arranged for Mugniyeh to purchase a
weapons-smuggling ship called the Karine-A, a vessel captured by the
Israeli Navy in the Red Sea in January 2002 as it headed for Gaza.
Hezbollah operatives working in Gaza with Force-17, which served as
Yasser Arafat's personal bodyguard, directed mortar attacks against
Israeli civilians. A Hezbollah bombmaker built the device detonated by
a Hamas suicide bomber who blew himself up at a Passover seder in a
hotel three years ago, killing 29 Israelis.
In testimony delivered Feb. 16 before two House International
Relations subcommittees, Matthew Levitt, director of terrorism studies
at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told lawmakers about
Hezbollah's burgeoning role in encouraging violence against Israel
since 2000:
"Iran continued to play on the frustration and anger of Israeli
Arabs via its Hezbollah and Palestinian proxies to collect
intelligence on Israel and courier weapons and funds to terrorist
cells. Hezbollah has also engaged in a proactive effort to recruit
Israeli Arabs to provide intelligence on Israel and logistical support
for terrorist operations. Israeli authorities have broken several
cells of Israeli Arabs associated with Hezbollah and other 'Lebanese
groups,' including a four-person cell suspected of passing 'computer
programs, maps, various objects and documents which may constitute
intelligence' through the village of Ghajjar (which straddles the Blue
Line separating Israel and Lebanon to groups in Lebanon) in exchange
for drugs and weapons."
Moreover, Mr. Levitt testified, "a Hezbollah operative recruited a
terrorist cell of Israeli Arabs from the Galilee village of Abu Snan,
which was uncovered by Israeli authorities as the group was planning
kidnapping operations that would have targeted Israeli soldiers.
According to statements by captured operatives and other information
made public by Israeli intelligence, Hezbollah and Lebanese-based
operatives from Iran's [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] have
recruited a network of rogue Fatah cells to serve as Hezbollah's West
Bank cadres."
These are just some of the many reported examples of Hezbollah's
efforts to use Palestinians and Israeli Arabs to target Israel and
destroy any possibility of peace -- thereby sabotaging a top American
foreign policy priority.
But Hezbollah's efforts to destroy the peace process are just one
way in which it works against American interests. It has sent
jihadists to attack coalition forces in Iraq, and its television
station, al Manar, broadcasts propaganda depicting American soldiers
as predators who brutalize the Iraqi people.
To support its terrorist activities, Hezbollah has raised millions
of dollars through extorting money from businesses in South America,
and from cigarette smuggling, tax evasion and credit-card fraud in the
United States. FBI officials told the Senate Intelligence Committee in
2002 that "Hezbollah subjects in the United States have the capability
to attempt terrorist attacks here should this be a desired objective
of the group." The possibility of such attacks could come into play
were the United States to take military action against Iran in the future.
Hezbollah's connections with al Qaeda and Iraqi jihadist Abu Musab
Zarqawi also bear watching. In September 2003, the Treasury Department
listed Zarqawi and several of his associates as Specially Designated
Global Terrorist entities. At the time, Treasury mentioned that plans
were in place for meetings between Zarqawi and Hezbollah. Although the
September 11 commission found no evidence that Hezbollah had advance
knowledge of the attacks on America, it also noted the longstanding
contacts between Hezbollah and Iranian security officials and al Qaeda
agents, and the ease with which at least eight of the hijackers were
able to travel through Iran prior to September 11.
It is of course possible that with the right combination of
political and financial inducements, Hezbollah could at some point
jettison terrorism and evolve into a purely Lebanese political entity.
But it would be dangerous for Western policy-makers to ignore the
reality that Hezbollah has been consistent in its hostility toward
Western democracies and its support of terrorism and violence to
achieve its goals.
Joel Himelfarb is assistant editorial page editor of The
Washington Times.
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