Iran Risk Matrix

The Suspicious Murder of a Christian Politician in Lebanon Raises Fears of Sectarian Violence

Dror Doron — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 16:25:28 +0000

Tensions in Lebanon have reached a high point in recent days. It is not because of the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. The suspicious murder of Pascal Sleiman, a local Christian politician from the leading anti-Hezbollah party in the country, the "Lebanese Forces," has caused fears of the eruption of sectarian violence in the already politically-torn country.

Pascal Sleiman, the Christian politician who was kidnapped and murdered in suspicious circumstances.

An unusually swift investigation by the state security apparatuses has pointed to a gang of Syrian refugee car thieves as those who committed the murder. Nevertheless, the circumstances of the act have raised serious questions among the disillusioned Lebanese public. This is because of the identity of the victim and his political role; the finding of the car used by the perpetrators to intercept Pascal's car and kidnap him abounded in a nearby town (an unusual act for car thieves); and the fact that the perpetrators drove with a dead body for a while and crossed undetected into Syria through an area along the border which is known to be under close Hezbollah control.

A satirical logo spread on social media regarding Hezbollah's connection to the murder.

Shortly after the kidnapping took place, the Lebanese authorities arrested seven members of the group allegedly responsible for the murder. With the help of the Syrian regime, the body of Pascal was handed over to Lebanon.

In a country where over the years only anti-Hezbollah politicians have been murdered, and state institutions were never able to find those responsible for the crimes, many Lebanese have questioned the speed of these arrests.

Anti-Hezbollah political parties do not accept the formal state explanation and indirectly point at Hezbollah as the perpetrator of the murder, calling it a highly-targeted and well-planned political assassination. Unofficially, using social media, their supporters claim that the assassination was aimed at deterring Hezbollah rivals from criticizing the armed conflict it initiated six months ago with Israel.

Hezbollah itself did not refer directly to the murder. Rather, the organization's secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, warned the Christian politicians against even hinting that Hezbollah was behind the murder and blamed them for promoting a dangerous sectarian discourse that could lead to a civil war.

At the same time, media outlets affiliated with Hezbollah gave the stage to the speculation that maybe Israel was behind the murder as part of its attempts to destabilize Lebanon.

The Lebanese government officials hailed the swift investigation of the murder, adopted the conclusion that it was a random criminal act, and called all sides involved to refrain from unproven accusations. The fact that those officials are part of an interim caretaking government supported by Hezbollah is seen by many opposition figures as a sign of their collaboration with a Hezbollah-led plot.

Past political murders in Lebanon have proved this skepticism toward the state institutions. After all, Hezbollah was never held accountable for any of the political violence incidents attributed to it, and it is known for its ability to carry out elaborate covert operations in Lebanon.

The most prominent example exposed to the public is the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. During the international legal proceedings of that murder, Hezbollah's domestic hit squad, Unit 121, was exposed to the public, and two of Hezbollah's main operatives in that unit, Salim Ayyash and Habib Merhi, were found guilty by a special international court of the murder. The trial also shed light on the elaborate false claim of responsibility scheme aimed at distancing Hezbollah from the murder. Nevertheless, the Lebanese authorities failed to arrest any of the convicted men, and the unit and members have likely continued to execute their mafia-style operations ever since.

Under those circumstances, it is understandable why Hezbollah's rivals in Lebanon are disillusioned and have little hope for finding the truth behind the very suspicious murder of Pascal Sleiman. The combination of an aggressive terror organization not deterred from assassinating its political rivals with weak state institutions and a long tradition of unaccountability leaves Hezbollah's opponents with very few tools to change the domestic reality of the country.

Dror Doron is a senior advisor at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) focusing on Hezbollah and Lebanon. He spent nearly two decades as a senior analyst in the Office of Israel’s Prime Minister. Dror is on Twitter @DrorDoron

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Crossing the Red Lines - Israel and Hezbollah's Spiraling Escalation

Dror Doron — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 13:23:56 +0000

It has been six months since the daily fighting between Israel and Hezbollah erupted. But it is still difficult to envision a "closing mechanism" that will put an end to the hostilities.

Hezbollah has lost more than 270 men; the organization's military facilities in the Bekaa Valley, deep inside Lebanon, were hit several times; and Hezbollah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel were killed in numerous attacks in Syria. The latest targeted killing of the IRGC’s top commander in the Levant, along with six other IRGC officers, is just another example of Israel's willingness to raise the stakes of the conflict as part of its attempt to deter Hezbollah and Iran from continuing their attacks.

At the same time, Israel has suffered damages to military and civilian infrastructures along the border, faced salvos of tens of rockets at a time launched into its northern territory, and multiple UAV penetrations into its airspace. The number of casualties on the Israeli side is less than 10% of those on the Lebanese side, yet it is unprecedented in recent years. On both sides of the border between Israel and Lebanon, tens of thousands of civilians were evacuated from their homes, becoming refugees in their own country, with little hope of returning home anytime soon.

This ongoing reality would have been unimaginable before the October 7 massacre in Israel that was carried out by Hamas. The unwritten understanding for the last 18 years was that neither Israel nor Hezbollah wished to engage in a war with the other side. Since the 2006 Lebanon War, which took a significant toll on both sides, Israel and Hezbollah have been cautious about keeping the joint border calm. Over the years, they have exchanged rare, limited, and highly calculated blows as part of a tit-for-tat policy within a framework of "equations."

Today, it seems that the two sides still refrain from the possibility of an all-out war, but at the same time, they have long passed each other's "red lines" and are operating on uncharted strategic ground. Acts that were unthinkable just seven months ago, such as Israeli air strikes deep inside Lebanon or Hezbollah launching 50 rockets at a time into northern Israel, have now become the new baseline. As each side has already crossed its opponent's red lines, the preexisting balance of deterrence has become less relevant.

As each escalatory step creates a new precedent that sets the bar for the next phase, the spiral of violence is rapidly evolving and pushing the two sides closer to the brink of full-scale war. Even though this is a mutually unwanted scenario, the dynamic created on the battlefield is hard to ignore, especially while diplomatic attempts to ease the tension appear to have had no success.

Another factor adding to this dangerous dynamic is the internal political pressure in Israel, as the government, as in every sovereign country, is expected to secure the lives of its citizens and enable them to go back to their homes. The manifestation of that need is rising calls from the Israeli public for the government to forcefully put an end to Hezbollah's attacks and push it away from the border.

From the Lebanese side of the border, the political environment has the opposite effect. Hezbollah faces political pressure not to escalate the conflict and is blamed for initiating a war with Israel in which Lebanon has no interest. Nevertheless, Hezbollah, which is operating with no formal governmental authority, holds limited accountability for the well-being of the residents in southern Lebanon, and its military operations are hardly affected by political criticism.

This situation will lead Israel to take a more aggressive approach as a part of its attempt to deter Hezbollah and Iran from continuing their attacks. Until now, none of the Israeli operations have been enough to change Hezbollah's calculations, and it appears that the organization’s leadership still considers the cost-benefit balance of its continuous attacks as positive.

At this point, only a radical change in the form and content of the diplomatic efforts to stop the conflict can change the dangerous dynamic from reaching a point where the sides will lose control over the spiraling violence. Without a concrete international roadmap and reliable guarantees for the full implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 that will ensure Hezbollah will not be able to continue its attacks on Israel, there is little hope for restoring the quiet.

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Freedom of Speech and the Risk of Criticizing Hezbollah's Actions in Lebanon

Dror Doron — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 12:09:17 +0000

Last week, the arrest and interrogation of Makram Rabah, a history lecturer at the American University of Beirut and an outspoken critic of Hezbollah, put the focus on one of Hezbollah's primary tools of handling opposition voices to its policies: silencing them.

Rabah was accused of coordinating with Israel after he referred in an interview to Hezbollah's military infrastructures already published by other media outlets and criticized Hezbollah's unilateral and undisturbed terror activities on Lebanon's soil. He was called for questioning by the General Security Directorate, one of Lebanon's security apparatuses known for its close connections to Hezbollah. The decree itself was signed by Judge Fadi Akiki, the son-in-law of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Hezbollah's closest political ally. That fact amplified the already strong suspicions that Rabah's questioning was politically motivated and meant to intimidate him from further criticizing Hezbollah.

Lebanese Forces and Kataeb, the two main parties that oppose Hezbollah's policies in the country, condemned the General Security Directorate’s acts and supported Rabah's rights of free speech and opinion.

This is not the first time Hezbollah's supporters accused Rabah of treason due to his views. In 2021, Rabah was one of the targets of a Hezbollah-affiliated social media campaign that attacked leading journalists and public opinion figures, who pointed at Hezbollah as responsible for the assassination of their colleague, Lokman Slim.

Rabah, on the top left corner, as seen in the 2021 campaign

Lokman Slim, a Shia Muslim himself, was a harsh critic of the organization and received many threats before he was killed. Even though not adequately investigated, the targeted attack was widely attributed to Hezbollah, as Slim received many threats over the years, and intimidating and assassinating journalists is a well-known Hezbollah practice in Lebanon.

In 2005, Hezbollah assassinated Samir Qassir and Gebran Tueni, two leading journalists working for Al-Nahar Newspaper, who voiced harsh criticism against the organization and carried out a failed attempt to kill May Chidiac, another journalist who barely survived the attack which targeted her. Chidiac later became a minister in the government and pointed at Hezbollah as the preparator of the attack against her and her colleagues.

Hezbollah's efforts to silence criticism do not always end up in assassinations. Intimidation campaigns are another tool the organization uses to deliver its terrorizing messages. Over the years, media campaigns, as mentioned above, harassment through the threat of legal actions, or threats of violence were used.

A threatening note left pierced to a Hezbollah-opposing journalist's car wheel in 2022

In some cases, the targets of Hezbollah even chose to leave Lebanon due to the fear for their life. The most prominent examples of journalists who took this path in recent years are Hanin Ghaddar, who left Lebanon for the US, and Nadim Koteich, who found sanctuary in the Persian Gulf states. Both Ghaddar and Koteich continue to voice their harsh opposition to Hezbollah's acts and policies from the safety of their new places of residence.

The net result of Hezbollah's continuous efforts to silence public criticism is evident in Lebanon's poor score in the yearly Freedom of Press Index published by "Reporters Without Borders." In 2023, Lebanon gained the unflattering 119th place out of 180 countries rated by the organization. A year earlier, Lebanon scored even worse: 130 out of 180.

Even though this troubling reality has been well-known in Lebanon for years, the recent Makram Rabah incident was particularly important and caused unusual controversy in the domestic arena. The political dynamic in Lebanon is such that politicians, journalists, and social activists expect Hezbollah to use violence or threats of violence against them, and most of them recognize the risks they are taking when taking a stand against the organization. The reason for the current backlash was the active role the official state institutions took in the intimidation effort in the service of Hezbollah—for example the interrogation of Rabah.

The traditional approach by the Lebanese state institutions towards Hezbollah's acts of harassment, intimidation, and targeted violence is looking the other way or undertaking a superficial investigation of those crimes. The fact that never in the history of Lebanon, a Hezbollah member was ever charged, let alone arrested, for the multiple assassinations, attempted attacks, and defamation acts attributed to the organization is proof of that.

Whatever the reason, whether an attempt to maintain political neutrality, fear of Hezbollah retaliation, or ideological/political influence, the formal state institutions refrained in the past from taking a stand in the ongoing political bickering between Hezbollah and its opponents.

But today, the question left unanswered is whether the questioning of Rabah by the General Security Directorate is a one-time unusual event or the beginning of a new era in which Hezbollah's interests in silencing opposition voices against it will be actively promoted through the organization's influence on the formal state security apparatuses. If it is the latter, Lebanon just took another troubling step into becoming a terror state.

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Hezbollah’s Lifeline to the Islamic Republic: Bank Saderat

Jack Roush — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 18:21:29 +0000

It’s no secret that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s support is critical in facilitating the activities of Hezbollah, one of its most powerful proxies. According to the terrorist organization’s general secretary, Hassan Nasrallah, “everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and rockets, comes from the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Along with arms and supplies, the Islamic Republic also provides hundreds of millions of dollars each year to fund Hezbollah’s global operations – which span Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Much of this funding is transferred through illicit means, including smuggling gold, trafficking drugs and arms, or via third-party donors.

However, a significant amount of Hezbollah’s funding is funneled through ostensibly commercial banks that are affiliated with the Islamic Republic and operate in Lebanon. The most important of these is Bank Saderat, one of Iran’s largest banks. Bank Saderat alone has transferred tens of millions of dollars per year to Hezbollah since 2001, acting as an important lifeline through the organization’s war against Israel and Lebanon’s economic collapse. Since that time, such transfers have occurred through clearing funds through Bank Saderat to Hezbollah’s financial arm, al-Qard al-Hasan, or through wire transfers through third parties. Despite coming under heavy scrutiny in the past for involvement in the Islamic Republic’s malign activities, Bank Saderat’s continued connections to Hezbollah have gone largely unabated in recent years. Further action is clearly required from both the United States and its allies.

The United States first recognized Bank Saderat’s role in terror financing in 2006, in a public statement by then-Undersecretary of the Treasury Stuart Levey. This statement was accompanied by a comprehensive ban on the bank’s activities in the U.S. financial market. In 2007, this ban was followed by additional measures, as executive orders designated the bank as an entity tied to the Islamic Republic. Soon thereafter, Bank Saderat came under international restrictions. A resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council in 2008 imposed travel bans and asset freezes on Bank Saderat executives due to its involvement in violating anti-proliferation statutes. The European Union similarly listed the bank as an entity involved in the Iranian nuclear program in 2010, which was upheld following legal opposition.

Despite these efforts to identify Bank Saderat’s involvement in malign activities and impose punitive measures, these U.S., UN, and EU restrictions either expired or were otherwise removed following the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015. These moves were partly enabled by Greece’s efforts to block attempts at renewing sanctions against the bank. After restrictions were removed, Bank Saderat returned to western financial hubs, including London, Frankfurt, and Paris. Rather than inhibiting the Islamic Republic’s malign activities, the JCPOA allowed entities like Bank Saderat to expand their operations and increase their revenue – to the benefit of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations.

Since the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018, moves to draw attention to and restrict Bank Saderat’s terrorist financing activities have resumed. A few months after the withdrawal took place, the U.S. reimposed sanctions on banks connected to the Islamic Republic, including Bank Saderat. Due to its involvement in facilitating Hezbollah’s terrorist operations, the U.S. Department of Justice has also opened the door for Americans to seek legal action against the bank. In addition to actions taken by the U.S., the G7 Financial Action Task Force has issued guidance for state authorities to exercise vigilance over Bank Saderat, monitoring its clients and transactions. Additionally, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has exposed that Bank Saderat illegally wired money through third-party entities in Canada, with the funds channeled to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah.

Ultimately, all these actions are inadequate in preventing Bank Saderat from financing Hezbollah. The organization continues to plot terror operations around the world and conducts military strikes on civilian targets strikes civilian targets. Western states like France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Greece, and the United Kingdom should follow the U.S. and sanction Bank Saderat after immediately suspending its operations as a key first step. Lebanon should also be pressed to ban the bank, following the precedent set after the Iraqi government suspended the operating licenses of other Iranian banks. Members of the Lebanese government have called for such action since 2017. In response, other officials have claimed to be monitoring Bank Saderat’s activities – but this approach has clearly been unsuccessful. Finally, the U.S. must continue to target Hezbollah’s international funding network, particularly in the western hemisphere. Failure to act on each of these fronts will further enable Hezbollah and only embolden the Islamic Republic.

Jack Roush is a research associate at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and a PhD candidate in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is on Twitter @RoushJackW.

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Business Risk

The Shia Duo in Lebanon: The Role of Amal in Hezbollah’s Political Scheme

Dror Doron — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 18:34:29 +0000

The tension between Hezbollah and Israel keeps rising. While attempts to reach a diplomatic agreement to prevent further escalation have thus far failed, another aspect of Lebanese complexities has come into view, namely the complex interplay between the Shia Amal Party and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Nabih Berri, the leader of Amal and the speaker of the Lebanese parliament for the last three decades, has boosted Hezbollah’s legitimacy to continue its attacks on Israel. Berri has not only supported Hezbollah’s public narrative but has also exposed that Amal party members have joined the fighting alongside Hezbollah.

Israel’s strikes have already killed a few Amal fighters. The dead have already gained the position of martyrs.

The paradoxical characteristics of the Lebanese political system could not have been more bluntly demonstrated. Berri, who, as the speaker of parliament, holds one of the top three political positions in the country, has proudly admitted that his own party is involved in a low-intensity war initiated unilaterally by Hezbollah without the formal approval of the Lebanese state.

Berri’s official position of state should commit him to representing Lebanese interests in the most consensual way due to the sensitive security situation. This is especially true at a time when the two other top positions in Lebanon are technically vacant, as for the past two years, there has been no president of Lebanon, and the current government’s status is of an interim “caretaking” one. Political difficulties have prevented the establishing of a new permanent government since the 2022 elections, in which Hezbollah and its allies have lost their majority in the parliament.

Nevertheless, Berri’s ability to simultaneously hold the role of speaker of parliament and the position of an armed militia leader operating independently from any formal state oversight is a well-accepted reality in Lebanon. After all, Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah and Berri’s close political partner, has been practicing this dual identity scheme for years as Hezbollah holds seats in the Lebanese parliament. But unlike Berri, Nasrallah does not have an official state position.

Amal and Hezbollah, the two Shia parties who have been cooperating closely for years, represent the vast majority of the Shia population in Lebanon. Once bitter ideological rivals, as during the 1980s, Amal represented a secular-Lebanese-oriented Shia movement and Hezbollah a radical religious cause, the balance of power between the two today is overwhelming in favor of Hezbollah. The constant flow of funds from Iran over the years has enabled Hezbollah to supply the Shia population’s social needs in a way Amal was unable to compete with.

Nevertheless, Berri has harbored ambitions of his own, independent of Hezbollah. This was exposed through the WikiLeaks documents, quoting him saying to U.S officials in Beirut during the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel:

“[Berri] admitted that a successful Israeli campaign against Hezbollah would be an excellent way to destroy Hezbollah’s military aspirations and to discredit their political ambitions… Berri then suggested that Israel's strikes were "like honey."

The exposure of the above text was surely an embarrassment for Berri, but it did not change much in the relations between the two parties.

Today, the political and ideological tensions of the past seem to have been set aside. Berri and his Amal party are a crucial element of what is called in Lebanon the “Shia duo,” a close political alliance between Amal and Hezbollah, in which Hezbollah, with its massive Iranian backing, is, of course, the dominant factor.

The armed clashes along the Lebanese-Israeli border over the past few months are examples of the cooperation between the two parties. As Hezbollah is a declared terror organization by most of the international parties involved in the attempts to prevent further escalation, Berri functions as the “mediator” between Hezbollah and the international representatives.

At the same time, as Berri holds an official state position, international negotiations with him give the talks a certain official nature and legitimacy, even though Berri does not represent any formal decision-making body. No parliamentary session regarding the war has been held. The dual identity of Berri—head of a formal state institute and head of a Shia militia participating in actions that undermine the state’s sovereignty—has rarely been more apparent.

From Hezbollah’s point of view, Berri is used as a tool enabling the organization to present its demands and conditions through a top state official, but without state oversight. This is a playbook that Hezbollah has mastered over the years: gaining influence without any responsibility or accountability.

Foreseeing how the current instability will evolve and whether diplomatic efforts to prevent further escalation will prevail is hard. However, the events have already exposed the inability of Lebanon's state institutions to enforce its authority over militant entities using its soil as a fighting platform against a neighboring country, especially as leading state officials are holding conflicting dual positions and operating under the overwhelming influence of Hezbollah.

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The Anniversary of the Assassination of Rafic Hariri and Failed International Attempts At Accountability

Dror Doron — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 13:22:24 +0000

This week, Lebanon marks the 19th anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri on February 14, 2005. The attack was the most high-profile political murder in the country since the end of the civil war in 1989.

The killing of Hariri – by a massive 1800-kilogram car bomb that killed 23 others alongside him – sparked nationwide protests and pushed the Lebanese government and the U.N. Security Council to adopt U.N. Security Council Resolution 1757. It called for establishing a specialized international court to try those responsible for the attack: the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).

In January 2024, Antonio Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, declared the closing of the STL after almost two decades of investigation and legal proceedings and an estimated expenditure of $1 billion. Examining the results of this lengthy and expensive process while looking at Lebanon’s current political, social, and security landscape leads to grim conclusions.

Not even one of Hezbollah’s terrorists involved in the Hariri murder was arrested, the organization’s leadership was not held accountable, and its use of political violence as a tool to promote the organization’s interests continued through a string of assassinations of its rivals, while the trial was taking place in the Hague.

Taking a closer look at this failed attempt at justice is also important in the current landscape. At present, the international community is once again aspiring to promote a change in Lebanon, which stands in contradiction to Hezbollah’s interests, namely the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701. This resolution ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah and called for the withdrawal of the organization’s forces from southern Lebanon.

Although the STL was a U.N. entity established by a Security Council resolution, it lacked enforcement powers in Lebanon. It was left to the weak and highly politicized Lebanese security apparatus to carry out the operational steps required. Given these dynamics, from the beginning, the STL was destined to fall short of its objectives. Its lack of independent enforcement capabilities set the table for Lebanon not implementing any judicial decisions, given Hezbollah’s penetration of the state.

Even though the nature of the STL and its limitations were known to all, Hezbollah invested in a huge effort to delegitimize its position and to sabotage the investigation. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, was highly concerned about the political implications of the exposure of the Shia organization’s responsibility in this sensitive political murder of a popular Sunni leader. In hindsight, it is obvious that his worries were exaggerated, but it nevertheless exposed the set of tools Hezbollah used to undermine the STL.

Even before the trial opened and any formal indictments were issued, Hezbollah assassinated a Lebanese security official who worked closely with the international investigation team appointed by the United Nations to investigate the Hariri assassination. At 31 years old, Captain Wissam Eid was a member of the Lebanese Internal Security Force (ISF). The following chart, which was published few years after his death in 2008, was the reason he was killed. This chart is the outcome of Eid’s meticulous intelligence work, and it shows the communication patterns used by the hit squad that followed Hariri and carried out his murder in 2005. Based on these findings, Eid had managed to prove that it was Hezbollah who carried out the Hariri assassination.

Chart outlining Captain Eid’s work via CBC News

But Hezbollah was too late as by the time Eid was murdered, he had already delivered his findings and conclusions to the international investigation team, who, based on Eid’s work, filed the indictments against four Hezbollah members.

As the international investigation continued, Nasrallah initiated an open campaign to delegitimize the STL, which had the effect of incriminating Hezbollah. In a televised speech in late 2010, Nasrallah called to boycott the U.N.-backed probe into the murder of Hariri, describing the investigation as biased against his organization.

A few months later, and days before the STL issued the indictments against Hezbollah members in January 2011, Hezbollah used its political force to bring down the Lebanese government. The trigger was Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Rafic Hariri’s son, refusing to halt cooperation with the STL.

A year later, as the cooperation between the ISF and the STL continued, Hezbollah once again targeted another ISF officer. This time, the victim was Colonel Wissan Al-Hassan, Captain Wissam Eid’s commander and one of Hezbollah’s most bitter enemies in Lebanon. Al-Hassan was killed by another highly precise car bomb attack. The FBI team that was assisting Lebanese authorities investigating the crime was quoted as saying that the kind of explosives and the way the attack was carried out bore similarities to the original Hariri assassination in 2005.

While none of Hezbollah’s attempts to formally stop the trial succeeded, those acts sent a very clear message to its domestic opponents in Lebanon and the international community that the organization was willing to use violence to protect its members from STL’s reach. The fact that the trial was held with the defendants in absentia and that the verdicts were never actually implemented also stemmed from the fear of further destabilizing the fragile country.

Nevertheless, Hezbollah established a very problematic precedent with the STL. Using a mixture of political maneuvers and violent acts, the organization telegraphed to politicians and civil servants across the Lebanese state institutions that confronting the illegal activities of Hezbollah may lead to severe personal consequences. At the same time, Hezbollah made it clear to the international community that attempts to use U.N. resolutions and bodies to challenge the organization’s interests cannot be done through the Lebanese state institutions that are under its influence.

As Lebanon suffers from multiple challenges, it is Hezbollah’s ability to prevent the state institutions from functioning that thwarts any government reform plan the country needs internally or any security agreement to be reached externally, like with Israel, to halt further escalation. The anniversary of the Hariri assassination is a brutal reminder of this reality.

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Targeted Killings and the Deterrence Dilemma

Dror Doron — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 16:31:24 +0000

This month will mark the 16th anniversary of the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s top military commander, in the suburbs of Damascus on February 12, 2008. Mughniyeh’s highly-targeted killing, attributed to a joint U.S.-Israeli covert operation, is considered by many analysts as one of the most effective counterterrorism operations in recent decades. The act deprived Hezbollah of its military wing “chief of staff,” hindered the organization’s operational capabilities, and shattered its leadership’s sense of security.

Mughniyeh was an integral part of Tehran’s proxy network across the Middle East and the IRGC officers supporting them, who operate covertly while using the relative safety of the surrounding civilian environment. Maneuvering in the shadows, the IRGC commanders and their local collaborators in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have been able to build an elaborate network of smuggling routes and training facilities to share knowledge and know-how.

The outcome of this long-running IRGC campaign is evident in the multiple fronts of low-intensity regional war that Iran and its proxies initiated last year against Israel, the U.S., and their allies following the Hamas massacre on October 7.

Deterring Iran, the leading state-sponsor of terrorism, from using the complex regional terror capabilities it has built over the years cannot be done merely through the degrading of infrastructures and low-ranking members of local proxies. Those assets are expendable from Tehran's perspective. They are meant to shield Iran from retaliation through the concept of “deniability,” - as Iranian officials have done over the past months.

The nature of the covert activity is that few men are involved. Thus, each member in the operation holds a significantly higher value than any overt parallel activity. The result is that taking on a specific actor will greatly affect the overall operation. The Mughniyeh assassination is a good example, as the blow to Hezbollah's military wing was significant, no one Hezbollah commander was able to fill his position, and was able to enjoy the close relationship and trust Mughniyeh established with top IRGC officials.

The fallout from Mughniyeh’s death can be compared with the demises of former IRGC Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani and the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the father of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Soleimani’s removal from the battlefield had a severe effect on the IRGC’s attempt to build significant military infrastructures in Syria and to turn it from a transit arena for moving arms, funds, and fighters from Iran to Lebanon to an active operational one, hosting military capabilities and fighters, akin to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Fakhrizadeh’s killing was also very significant as he was the mastermind of the nuclear weaponization project and had unique knowledge and managerial capabilities.

As in the Mughniyeh case, the deaths of Soleimani and Fakhrizadeh were followed by Iranian calls for harsh revenge. Nevertheless, Iran was cautious to act in a way that would prevent further escalation. A few days after Soleimani’s assassination, Tehran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at a U.S. base in Iraq – only after informing Iraq in advance of the strike, which likely tipped off the Americans. The response to Fakhrizadeh’s death was even more subtle – an attack on an Israeli merchant ship in the Gulf of Oman.

These retaliations clearly demonstrate Iran's cautious approach when confronting rivals with superior intelligence and military capabilities. Because of this risk aversion, these targeted killings of critical figures responsible for Iran’s covert activities left Tehran with no real “proportionate” response options.

As proven in the long list of thwarted Iranian terror attempts (and the one deadly success in Burgas in 2012) across Asia and Europe over the years, Iran and Hezbollah have suffered from significant weaknesses in their attempts to carry out attacks against high-profile American and Israeli targets. Instead, their retaliation took the form of terror attacks aimed at softer targets, such as civilians or low-ranking diplomats.

The other option for Iranian retaliation is a direct military response from Iranian soil towards available targets in the region – like U.S. bases and Israeli civilian assets. But retaliating directly through military means carries the risk of military escalation—a scenario that clearly contradicts Iran’s national security strategy of “fighting away from its borders.”

Deterring Iran and preventing it from further destabilizing the region through its terror-sponsoring activities has today become a critical issue for Western decision-makers. Diplomatic messages, strongly worded press statements, and military signaling by hitting its proxies’ terror infrastructures are all half-measures.

As long as Iran’s proxy war strategy and its plausible deniability remain unchallenged, the chances of any change in Iran’s calculus are slim. Targeting high-profile IRGC officers and leading figures of the Resistance Axis is an escalatory step, but in the context of current regional dynamics, it is necessary.

The targeted killing of Imad Mughniyeh 16 years ago was a highly calculated operation. The decision-makers who approved the operation were surely exposed to an elaborate intelligence analysis regarding the predicted impacts of his disappearance and the risk of potential retaliation. Nevertheless, the cost-benefit calculations were clearly in favor of his removal. In hindsight, there has been wide consensus among counterterrorism analysts and scholars about the effectiveness of the operation.

Today, when Iran’s proxy network is engaged in direct military attacks against U.S. personnel and assets, the idea that Tehran should not be made to pay a price is as absurd as it is dangerous. Now is the time to challenge Tehran’s national security paradigm of keeping the war away from its borders and exploiting to the maximum Iran’s interest, avoiding a direct confrontation with Washington.

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Lebanon State Institutions Are a Platform to Advance Hezbollah’s Interests

Dror Doron — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 20:24:53 +0000

As the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel continues along the Israeli-Lebanese border for the third month now, fears of an all-out war are rising. Two events in recent weeks are contemporary examples of how Hezbollah operates in Lebanon on the strategic and domestic internal levels. They demonstrate how Hezbollah has overtaken and dominated the Lebanese state.

On the strategic level, which includes the spheres of security and foreign relations, the organization has exhibited its total independence and autonomy from the formal state institutions as it conducts military activities in southern Lebanon without regard to the government or the national army. Hezbollah continues to operate freely in south Lebanon and has used the area as a platform for attacking Israel over the last three months since the Hamas massacre on October 7 as a part of the Iranian encirclement campaign against Israel. South Lebanon, under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 Lebanon War, was supposed to be controlled by the Lebanese army with no Hezbollah presence. But its leaders reject the suggestions presented by international mediators to stop the fighting there. Not only that, but Hezbollah has also presented its own set of demands as pre-conditions. Those include the cessation of the war in Gaza and territorial claims along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

The curious point is that those negotiations in which Hezbollah’s positions are presented to Israel are not done directly with Hezbollah’s leaders but rather through two figures holding the highest positions in the Lebanese state administrative system: Najib Mikati, the caretaker prime minister of Lebanon for the more than three years, and Nabih Berri, the head of the Lebanese parliament for the past two decades. Both of those politicians are closely affiliated with Hezbollah, and none of them represents a formal state position regarding the fighting with Israel – as no such position was agreed upon in the government.

Nevertheless, during their meetings with the foreign mediators involved in the diplomatic efforts, both Mikati and Berri represent Hezbollah’s stances and serve the organization’s interests. They essentially act as Hezbollah’s messengers. Lebanese opposition parties have even opened a campaign criticizing Prime Minister Mikati and blaming him for adopting Hezbollah’s linkage between stopping the war in Gaza and a halt to the fighting along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Concurrently with the ongoing fighting in southern Lebanon and the inability of the government to fulfill its responsibility and sovereignty, another event caught the public’s attention in recent weeks on the domestic internal level. Once again, the state institutions acted on behalf of Hezbollah’s interests and stirred harsh criticism from the opposition, but this time, the context was a local matter: a controversial decision by Lebanon’s top courts that canceled arrest warrants for Hezbollah-affiliated ministers wanted for interrogation over their roles in Beirut Port blast case.

The devastating tragedy that hit Lebanon in August 2020, causing the death of 200 civilians and damages estimated at more than $15 billion, stemmed from the explosion of a stockpile of ammonium nitrate, which was stored in the Beirut Port. This highly explosive material is used as an agricultural fertilizer, but at the same time, it is known to be used by terrorists to produce homemade explosives, including Hezbollah.

Although Hezbollah formally denies any involvement in the disaster, several facts contradict the organization’s claims and arouse strong suspicions regarding its role in the event and the fact that after more than three years of investigation, no clear conclusion has been presented to the public. Hezbollah is known for using ammonium nitrate for terror plots across Europe. There are also reports about huge deliveries of this material from Iran to the organization in recent years. Continued political interference with the investigation prevents its completion, going as far as toppling the previous government that initiated the probe. Hezbollah also pushed for appointing a friendlier prime minister, Najib Mikati. These events raise serious questions.

The recent cancellation of the arrest warrants against former Public Works Minister Youssef Fenianos and former Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil is most likely another manifestation of Hezbollah’s “behind the scenes” influence on the state institutions meant to cover its involvement in the 2020 catastrophic explosion.

These two very different situations – the clashes with Israel and the disruption of the Beirut Port investigation – demonstrate Hezbollah’s ability to exploit the Lebanese government to achieve its goals. This ability to use political alliances, collaborators within the state administrative systems, and violence, when needed, shows the way Hezbollah has mastered its hybrid state/non-state actor status to maximize its freedom to employ Lebanon’s soil as a platform for its terror and military goals.

The grim conclusion derived from this reality is that Lebanon’s formal state institutions are not a relevant tool to curb Hezbollah’s power and influence. Any effective international assistance to Lebanon should first focus on finding appropriate alternatives in Lebanon through civil society, private organizations, or turning to internationally imposed mandates through the U.N. Security Council.

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Hezbollah’s Modus Operandi of Combat with Israel: The Unwritten Rules of Engagement

Dror Doron — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 19:13:50 +0000

Over the years and through numerous speeches and articles published by the Hezbollah leadership, there is a conceptual framework for its use of military power against Israel. The main components of this framework are “balance of deterrence,” a term used to describe the mutual willingness of two sides to engage in warfare and to face the risks of an armed conflict, and “equations,” which refers to the calculated way each side responds to the other side’s acts. This analysis will present those terms in the context of the pre- and post-October 7 regional landscape surrounding Hamas’ massacre in Israel and the ongoing exchange of fire between Hezbollah and Israel along the border with Lebanon.

The Rules of the Game Pre-October 7, 2023

During the last 18 years since the 2006 Lebanon War with Israel, Hezbollah’s military capabilities were rebuilt with significant Iranian support. The result of this effort is that current estimations of Hezbollah’s massive missile and rocket arsenal stand at over 130,000 weapons with various operational ranges and payloads that can target any point in Israel. Most analysts agree that the main aim of this continuous investment by Tehran was to transform Hezbollah into an Iranian forward operating base meant to deter Israel from attacking Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Nevertheless, over the years—and especially in response to Israel’s ongoing military activities in Syria aimed at severing Iranian supply routes to Lebanon—Hezbollah tried to establish tactical deterrence (as a “balance of deterrence”) to prevent those Israeli attacks. Using his public speeches, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, had set the following rules of engagement: any Israeli attack on Hezbollah or Iranian personnel in Syria or Lebanon and any attack on the organization’s infrastructure in Lebanon will be answered militarily. As Nasrallah holds the final word regarding Hezbollah’s use of force, any terror attack initiated by the organization must be approved by him, and therefore would follow the logic he had set.

Since 2006, and especially after Israel started attacking the Iranian supply routes in Syria in a campaign which began in 2014 and is referred to as the “campaign between the wars,” it appeared that Hezbollah chose to use its military force against Israel according to a complex decision matrix—or “equations.” It took into consideration the following factors regarding the Israeli act, before coming up with the “appropriate and proportional” response:

The nature of the target (military vs. civilian);
The damage caused (materiel vs. casualties); and
The geographic location (along the border vs. deep in land).

Taking into consideration Hezbollah’s logic, Israel’s attacks on the organization’s supply routes before October 7 were undertaken outside of Lebanon’s territory, either in Syria or Iraq, and were intentionally constructed to ensure minimal casualties. More than one report indicated that Israel used “warning shots” ahead of hitting the targets it was seeking to allow Hezbollah’s terrorists to flee before being hit. In the handful of operations in which the Israeli attacks did cause casualties, the targets were involved in active terror plots against Israeli territory, as opposed to “routine” military buildup.

Those few incidents with casualties, such as Israel’s targeted killing in January 2015 of Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of the late Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh, and other Hezbollah and IRGC officers along the Israeli-Syrian border, led Hezbollah to retaliate in a very calculated manner. The organization chose to target an Israeli border patrol along the Israeli-Lebanese border with anti-tank missiles, causing the deaths of two Israeli soldiers.

This cautious pattern of behavior was seen again in 2019, after Israel was blamed for a targeted drone attack on Hezbollah’s technical equipment in Beirut. Once again in retaliation for an Israeli attack that crossed Hezbollah's red line—attacking on Lebanese soil—Hezbollah retaliated according to the “equations” logic choosing a military target and hitting it with pinpoint accuracy without any casualties. Hezbollah’s response was launching high accuracy anti-tank missiles towards two Israeli military targets along the border, without causing casualties.

Both incidents were followed by a few days of high tensions, but shortly thereafter the quiescence along the border was restored. The relatively stable status quo along the Israel-Lebanon border since the 2006 Lebanon War was a result of the mutual understanding of the above-mentioned “equations” and the wish, shared by both sides, to avoid a devastating full-scale war.

The End of the Known “Equations” Reality

Nevertheless, a day after Hamas’ surprise attack against Israel on October 7, Hezbollah joined the fighting in solidarity with Hamas and opened a campaign of daily attacks on targets along the border with Lebanon. By now, three months into the low-intensity war Hezbollah initiated, it appears that the “equations” logic of the past years is becoming less relevant.

The need to keep an even score with Israel in terms of casualties has been abandoned, as by now more than 130 Hezbollah terrorists have been killed in the ongoing clashes. Hezbollah appears to have given up its past efforts to cause similar numbers of casualties in Israel, which has suffered 10% of this number.

At the same time, while Israel has already hit targets deep inside Lebanon, the Saleh Al-Arouri targeted killing in Beirut being the most prominent one, Hezbollah seems to be careful to focus its fire on northern Israel in what reflects its leadership’s understanding that attacking targets in central Israel might push Israel to declare an all-out war against it.

From the Israeli point of view after the Hamas attack in the south, Israeli decision makers and the public alike are unwilling to cope anymore with a reality in which thousands of Hezbollah terrorists are stationed along the border, a stone’s throw distance from Israeli settlements. Hezbollah’s presence in southern Lebanon stands in total defiance to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Lebanon War and called for the expulsion of Hezbollah from southern Lebanon.

The Israeli call for “no more acceptable status quo” along its northern border pushed Israel to pursue a military campaign which does not take into consideration the past “equations.” By now, more than 150 Lebanese have been killed (most of them Hezbollah operatives), Shia Muslim villages used as military platforms have suffered huge damage, and tens of thousands of the southern Lebanon population have fled to the north.

It appears that Israel is willing to risk an all-out war with Hezbollah to push the threat it poses away from its border if diplomatic efforts to achieve this goal fail. The question is whether Hezbollah’s leadership understands the change in the Israeli psyche post-October 7, and how far Hezbollah will go in its refusal of any diplomatic effort to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701.

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Argentina: The Airbridge Linking Tehran And Caracas

Jerry Canto — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 13:45:58 +0000

An Argentine court reportedly decided on January 8 to order a Boeing 747 plane—previously owned by the Islamic Republic’s state airline company Mahan Air—to be returned to U.S. jurisdiction. If the order takes effect, it will hinder cooperation between two anti-American regimes: Iran and Venezuela. This U.S.-origin cargo plane should not be in the hands of regimes using it to undermine U.S. national security interests.

Iran wants to establish a logistical airbridge connecting Tehran to Caracas that would be used for weapons proliferation, personnel deployments, money laundering, narcotics trafficking, cash and gold transfers, and even the shipment of parts and equipment for Venezuela’s derelict oil and gas infrastructure.

The Western Hemisphere is not immune from Iran’s signature export, Islamic Revolution, and its program of violence, subversion, and destabilization. In fact, in 1992 Hezbollah conducted devastating bombings against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1994, it blew up a Jewish community center in that same city. Both attacks were supported by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

U.S. and Argentine authorities must dismantle the IRGC’s logistical network that allows it to operate in the Western Hemisphere. Argentina’s President Javier Milei, who is known for his staunch positions against the Islamic Republic, could become a crucial ally to the U.S. in preventing Iranian illicit activities in the Western Hemisphere.

Argentine authorities have taken a step in that direction in seizing the cargo plane in June 2022. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), in turn, made a request two months later for it to be returned to the U.S. because its transfer in 2021 to Emtrasur, a subsidiary of Venezuela’s “civilian” state airline company Conviasa, violated U.S. export controls prohibiting Mahan Air from transferring it.

However, there may be more to this story than an export control violation. Argentine authorities acknowledged the suspicious circumstances surrounding the plane’s activities and crew. The pilot of the plane, Gholamreza Ghasemi Abbassi, was a former IRGC Aerospace Force general and is a shareholder and board member of Qeshm Fars Air, a cargo line owned by Mahan Air that has been tracked regularly flying to Russia since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022.

There were 14 Venezuelans and 5 Iranians traveling on board the Emtrasur plane when it was grounded. A federal judge in Argentina ordered that three Venezuelan and four Iranians of the crew be retained in the country to allow for an investigation. At least two of the crew are believed to have ties to the Quds Force, the extraterritorial branch of the U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization the IRGC. Whether the crew has returned to their home countries is unclear.

The plane was purportedly hired to deliver auto parts from Mexico to Argentina when it stopped in Caracas ostensibly to refuel. In the month before its grounding, the plane had landed in Paraguay, near the border with Argentina, where it loaded cigarettes intended to be delivered to Aruba.

Various theories about the nature of the operation have emerged in the media. They range from investigative reports that the cigarette company is tied to Hezbollah and controlled by Horacio Cartes, the former president of Paraguay, to an Argentine lawmaker’s accusations that the plane’s crew intended to attack human targets.

Recent history shows that Iran sees an airbridge linking Tehran to Caracas as an important initiative to undermine U.S. security interests in the Western Hemisphere. “Aero-terror” was the nickname a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) task force gave to Conviasa’s weekly flights from Caracas to Tehran via Damascus between 2007 until they were abruptly closed in 2015. On these flights, Iranian and Iran-sponsored Hamas and Hezbollah operatives, as well as arms and explosives, streamed into Venezuela in exchange for narcotics and cash, netting Hezbollah billions of dollars. The Conviasa flights between Caracas and Tehran resumed in May 2022.

These are not hypothetical challenges to U.S. interests. According to a DOJ indictment issued in May 2020, Venezuelan national Adel El Zabayar went to the Middle East in the mid 2010s to recruit Hamas and Hezbollah operatives to train in Venezuela and establish terrorist cells in the Western Hemisphere and flood the U.S. with cocaine. In 2014, Zabayar received a Lebanese cargo plane full of rocket-propelled grenade launchers, AK-103s, and sniper rifles in Venezuela, after returning from the Middle East. The owner and operator of the Lebanese cargo plane and Hezbollah’s role in these operations were not clarified in the DOJ press release.

The U.S. must focus closely on the IRGC and Hezbollah’s actions which threaten the U.S. homeland from what has effectively become a forward operating base in Venezuela. These efforts should be given priority especially given recent U.S. intelligence reporting a heightened risk of Hezbollah attacks against U.S. interests, including on U.S. soil.

Jerry Canto is a research analyst at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). He is on Twitter @JerryCanto2.

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