Lebanon and Hezbollah

House, Senate Resolutions Introduced Calling for EU to Designate Hezbollah as a Terror Organization

A bipartisan group of Senators and Congressmen on Tuesday introduced House and Senate resolutions calling on the European Union to designate the entirety of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The resolutions, led by Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), were introduced to coincide with the 11th anniversary of a Hezbollah attack on a tourist bus in Burgas, Bulgaria carrying mostly Israeli youths. In that attack a suicide bomber killed six people, including five Israelis, and injured 32 others.  

While the EU designated Hezbollah’s “military wing” as a terrorist organization in 2013, it has not designated Hezbollah in its entirety. “It’s clear that there is no distinction between Hezbollah’s political and military wings when it comes to its terror activities, and it’s past time that the European Union fully designate[s] it as a terrorist organization,” Senator Rosen said in a statement.

Iraq

Sadrist Protesters Storm Swedish Embassy

Hundreds of protesters linked to influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stormed the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad early Thursday and set fire to parts of it ahead of a demonstration outside the Iraqi Embassy in Sweden, where recent Quran burnings have inflamed anger in the Muslim world. In response, Iraq’s prime minister expelled the Swedish ambassador and directed Iraq’s chargé d’affaires to withdraw from the Iraqi embassy in Sweden. The aggressive Iraqi response was likely driven in part by the Iraqi prime minister’s desire to be seen as tough amid the storming of the embassy by the protesters linked to his competitor, al-Sadr. The prime minister’s administration is closely linked to the pro-Iran Coordination Framework, which has feuded with al-Sadr.

Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic of Iran mounted a less aggressive response to date to the events in Sweden. It merely summoned its ambassador and issued a public condemnation. But on Friday, the interim Friday Prayer leader in Tehran Ahmad Khatami threatened Sweden with consequences, which triggered protests outside the Swedish embassy in Tehran.

Syria

Israel Conducts Airstrike in Syria

Israeli missile strikes near the Syrian capital Damascus wounded two Syrian soldiers and “caused some material damage,” the state news agency SANA reported on Wednesday, citing a military source. “At about 12:25 a.m. the Israeli enemy launched an aerial aggression with bursts of missiles from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, targeting some points in the vicinity of Damascus,” the source said.

SANA, citing the military source, said Syrian air defenses responded to the Israeli incursion, downing “most” of the missiles. Syria regularly claims to intercept Israeli missiles, though military analysts doubt such assertions.

Images circulating online showed flames and smoke rising from several sites in the capital, but the target of the strike was unclear. Israel, as has been its custom, did not comment on the airstrike or acknowledge that its air force had carried it out. However, based on the previous pattern of strikes and information leaked from Syrian activists, it can be presumed that the target of the strike was related to Iran or one of its militias – like Hezbollah – operating in Syria.

Powerful Iranian Unit in Syria Targets U.S. and Israel, Intel Finds

Iran has assembled a heavily armed unit – dubbed the Imam Hossein Division – comprised of thousands of fighters from across the region capable of conducting attacks on U.S. troops in Syria as well as against neighboring Israel, according to a document shared with Newsweek by a member of an intelligence agency of a nation allied with the United States. The division is said to be linked to the expeditionary Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Armed with precision-guided munitions and both attack and spy drones, along with a broad array of lighter weaponry, the division conducted an intensive barrage of drone and rocket attacks that hit the U.S. military garrison in southeastern Al-Tanf in October 2021, according to the intelligence official.

The intelligence official also pointed to Imam Hossein Division operations launched against Israel, including a surface-to-surface missile attack in January 2019, a rocket attack in June 2019, and an attempted drone attack on August 2019 that was said to have been intercepted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). More attacks against the two allies were said to be in the works. “They are preparing and gathering capabilities in order to be able to cause a threat to American forces in Syria and to Israel,” the official said.

The document shared with Newsweek stated that the Imam Hossein Division was founded in 2016 under longtime Quds Force commander Major General Qassem Soleimani. The secretive outfit was described as having played a major role in supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government against rebels and jihadis, including the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), in the midst of the country’s civil war.