Rumors emerged in recent weeks that Hezbollah – its brand as a Lebanese organization protecting Lebanese interests having been shattered by its involvement in the Syrian conflict – was untangling itself from that almost three year old conflict. A graphic video posted online and embedded below, which appeared to show...

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Hezbollah’s global branding has for decades rested on the core claim that it is a Lebanese organization defending Lebanese interests. The group and its Iranian sponsors sought to characterize Hezbollah as engaging in what they termed “resistance” against Israel, rather than as being a global terror organization operating at the...

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Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea today slammed Hezbollah for trying to use purported threats to energy resources near the country’s coast as a pretext for generating tensions with Israel. Caretaker Energy Minister Gebran Bassil, a politician from the Hezbollah-allied Free Patriotic Movement, has begun a process by which energy companies...

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Hezbollah has struggled in recent months to contain the blowback from its involvement in the Syrian war, where the Iran-backed terror group’s forces have been critical in enabling the regime to erode years of opposition gains. In response to jihadist attacks on Hezbollah-dominated areas of Beirut, the group militarized their...

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Among the security assurances given to Israel at the end of its 2006 war with Hezbollah was that an enlarged United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) – the peacekeeping force along the Israeli-Lebanese border – would fan across southern Lebanon to prevent Hezbollah from smuggling weapons into the region....

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Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian war has allowed the Bashar al-Assad regime to steadily erode two years of rebel advances and seize the momentum in the conflict. The opposition stronghold of Qusayr fell to a campaign that combined ground troops from the Iran-backed terror group with air support from the...

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Analysts have recently begun analyzing the Middle East as a function of three emerging regional blocs: an Iranian-led bloc that includes Syria and Hezbollah, an extremist Turkey/Brotherhood bloc with which Qatar often aligns, and a U.S.-allied bloc that includes Israel and moderate Arab states. The interactions between these camps vary...

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Hezbollah has long been criticized for creating inside Lebanon what is effectively a state-within-a-state, where the Iran-backed terror group’s power and weaponry functionally eclipse Beirut’s sovereignty. Lebanon’s Future bloc – the largest faction of the country’s Western-aligned March 14 Alliance – made the criticism a little more pointed this week:...

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Weekend violence and political developments inside Lebanon again have observers focusing on the role played by Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons in undermining the country’s stability. Debates over the degree to which the West should target Hezbollah have sometimes turned on claims that, in fact, the Iran-backed terror group is...

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The State Department yesterday issued a global travel alert covering Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and warning of potential terror attacks. The department cautioned US citizens around the world to “maintain a high level of vigilance”. It warned al-Qaeda and other groups could be planning attacks against US interests. The...

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