Saturday, 6 November 2010
UN is Israeli tool
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Thusday November 4, 2010
Hezbollah: UN, a tool in Israeli hands
Hezbollah says the UN in "taking the side of the executioner" by blaming Lebanon for deadly clashes, which preceded an Israeli invasion earlier in the year.
On August 3, an Israeli patrol unit breached a border fence and moved into the Adeissah village in southern Lebanon, prompting light fire from the country's soldiers.
Confrontation subsequently erupted with the Israeli forces using machineguns and tank shells on Army bases and local residences.
Three Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and a top Israeli officer died during the exchange of fire -- the worst of its kind since Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon, which killed about 1,200 Lebanese.
Commenting on Monday on the world body's Resolution 1701, which has obliged Israel to keep out of Lebanon following the 33-Day War, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon held Beirut responsible for the incident.
The Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, reacted to the account in a Wednesday statement, calling it "completely biased," Lebanese newspaper the Daily Star reported.
"Hezbollah believes that this decision was written by an American hand using Israeli ink," read the statement.
The move, the group said, did not raise eyebrows and "makes the UN an unreliable organization after it came to be in the hands of sides with a project against our people and nation."
Hezbollah defended Lebanon against the war and stood by the nation during Tel Aviv's offensives in 2000 and 2006, forcing Israeli troops into withdrawal on both occasions and preventing the regime from fulfilling any of its objectives.
The movement has vowed to respond with determination to any potential Israel-launched warfare. It has publicly announced that it has the capability to hit targets deep into Israel and to strike Israeli Navy vessels even before they reach the Lebanese waters.
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Thusday November 4, 2010
Hezbollah: UN, a tool in Israeli hands
Hezbollah says the UN in "taking the side of the executioner" by blaming Lebanon for deadly clashes, which preceded an Israeli invasion earlier in the year.
On August 3, an Israeli patrol unit breached a border fence and moved into the Adeissah village in southern Lebanon, prompting light fire from the country's soldiers.
Confrontation subsequently erupted with the Israeli forces using machineguns and tank shells on Army bases and local residences.
Three Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and a top Israeli officer died during the exchange of fire -- the worst of its kind since Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon, which killed about 1,200 Lebanese.
Commenting on Monday on the world body's Resolution 1701, which has obliged Israel to keep out of Lebanon following the 33-Day War, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon held Beirut responsible for the incident.
The Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, reacted to the account in a Wednesday statement, calling it "completely biased," Lebanese newspaper the Daily Star reported.
"Hezbollah believes that this decision was written by an American hand using Israeli ink," read the statement.
The move, the group said, did not raise eyebrows and "makes the UN an unreliable organization after it came to be in the hands of sides with a project against our people and nation."
Hezbollah defended Lebanon against the war and stood by the nation during Tel Aviv's offensives in 2000 and 2006, forcing Israeli troops into withdrawal on both occasions and preventing the regime from fulfilling any of its objectives.
The movement has vowed to respond with determination to any potential Israel-launched warfare. It has publicly announced that it has the capability to hit targets deep into Israel and to strike Israeli Navy vessels even before they reach the Lebanese waters.
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Israel will be cut
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Wednesday August 4, 2010
Hezbollah vows to "hit heart of Israel"
Hezbollah has advised Tel Aviv to think twice before committing another act of aggression against Lebanon, saying the resistance movement is capable of striking the heart of Israel.
One day after deadly clashes between Israeli and Lebanese troops, Hezbollah's deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said on Wednesday that the Shia group is ready to deliver a harsh response to Israel if Tel Aviv attempts to wage another war on the country.
"Israel must understand that any aggression on Lebanon, no matter how small, gives us the complete right to retaliate when and how we find appropriate and in line with Lebanon's political interests," Sheikh Naim Qassem told AFP in an exclusive interview.
"When Israel threatens to destroy Lebanon, it knows Hezbollah is capable of making Israel suffer properly. Israel's territory will be completely exposed and they will have to bear responsibility for that aggression and pay the price," he added.
Qassem's remarks came after a deadly clash on the Lebanese-Israeli border left three Lebanese soldiers, one journalist and a senior Israeli officer dead. Several soldiers from both sides were also injured.
Lebanese forces say the border clash erupted after Israeli troops violated the UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and entered the Lebanese territory. Israel, however, claims that its troops were trying to uproot a tree whose branches were tripping anti-infiltration devices, on the Israeli side of the border.
The Israeli army returned to the conflict zone on Wednesday and removed the tree.
Hezbollah, which inflicted a humiliating defeat on Israel in 2006, did not take part in the incident.
Hizbollah Chief: "We will cut Israeli hands"
Tuesday August 3, 2010
Hezbollah promises action against Israel's potential acts of aggression on Lebanon's Army, responding to the Israeli invaders' recent killing of four Lebanese.
"The Israeli hand that targets the Lebanese Army will be cut off," the Lebanese resistance movement's Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Tuesday.
"…in any place where the Lebanese Army will be assaulted and there is a presence for the resistance, and it is capable, the resistance will not stand silent, or quiet or restrained," Nasrallah said in a speech transmitted via video link in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Israeli troops entered Lebanese soil, exchanging fire with Lebanon's Army.
The offensive, joined by the Israel Defense Forces and the regime's Air Force, saw the military launching rocket and suspected phosphorous bomb attacks on southern Lebanon.
Three Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist from the Beirut-based al-Akhbar newspaper and one senior Israeli Army officer were killed in the crossfire. It also resulted in injuries on both sides.
Lebanon's President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister Saad Hariri as well as Iranian and Jordanian officials have also voiced their condemnation of the invasion.
The Hezbollah leader furthermore praised the Lebanese Army's bravery against the incursion, which he denounced as violation of Lebanon's sovereignty.
He said Tel Aviv has repeatedly breached the United Nations Resolution 1701, which ended Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon, regretting the international bodies' refusal to probe the incidents.
About 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, were killed during the 33-Day War. The Israeli military, however, was met with Hezbollah's resistance and was eventually forced to withdraw without having achieved any of its objectives.
Nasrallah also held Israel responsible for the assassination of the country's former leader Rafik Hariri, who was killed alongside 22 other people in a massive car bombing in the capital on February 14, 2005.
"I accuse the Israeli enemy of the assassination of (former) Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and... I will prove this by unveiling sensitive information at a press conference on Monday."
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Wednesday August 4, 2010
Hezbollah vows to "hit heart of Israel"
Hezbollah has advised Tel Aviv to think twice before committing another act of aggression against Lebanon, saying the resistance movement is capable of striking the heart of Israel.
One day after deadly clashes between Israeli and Lebanese troops, Hezbollah's deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said on Wednesday that the Shia group is ready to deliver a harsh response to Israel if Tel Aviv attempts to wage another war on the country.
"Israel must understand that any aggression on Lebanon, no matter how small, gives us the complete right to retaliate when and how we find appropriate and in line with Lebanon's political interests," Sheikh Naim Qassem told AFP in an exclusive interview.
"When Israel threatens to destroy Lebanon, it knows Hezbollah is capable of making Israel suffer properly. Israel's territory will be completely exposed and they will have to bear responsibility for that aggression and pay the price," he added.
Qassem's remarks came after a deadly clash on the Lebanese-Israeli border left three Lebanese soldiers, one journalist and a senior Israeli officer dead. Several soldiers from both sides were also injured.
Lebanese forces say the border clash erupted after Israeli troops violated the UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and entered the Lebanese territory. Israel, however, claims that its troops were trying to uproot a tree whose branches were tripping anti-infiltration devices, on the Israeli side of the border.
The Israeli army returned to the conflict zone on Wednesday and removed the tree.
Hezbollah, which inflicted a humiliating defeat on Israel in 2006, did not take part in the incident.
Hizbollah Chief: "We will cut Israeli hands"
Tuesday August 3, 2010
Hezbollah promises action against Israel's potential acts of aggression on Lebanon's Army, responding to the Israeli invaders' recent killing of four Lebanese.
"The Israeli hand that targets the Lebanese Army will be cut off," the Lebanese resistance movement's Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Tuesday.
"…in any place where the Lebanese Army will be assaulted and there is a presence for the resistance, and it is capable, the resistance will not stand silent, or quiet or restrained," Nasrallah said in a speech transmitted via video link in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Israeli troops entered Lebanese soil, exchanging fire with Lebanon's Army.
The offensive, joined by the Israel Defense Forces and the regime's Air Force, saw the military launching rocket and suspected phosphorous bomb attacks on southern Lebanon.
Three Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist from the Beirut-based al-Akhbar newspaper and one senior Israeli Army officer were killed in the crossfire. It also resulted in injuries on both sides.
Lebanon's President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister Saad Hariri as well as Iranian and Jordanian officials have also voiced their condemnation of the invasion.
The Hezbollah leader furthermore praised the Lebanese Army's bravery against the incursion, which he denounced as violation of Lebanon's sovereignty.
He said Tel Aviv has repeatedly breached the United Nations Resolution 1701, which ended Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon, regretting the international bodies' refusal to probe the incidents.
About 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, were killed during the 33-Day War. The Israeli military, however, was met with Hezbollah's resistance and was eventually forced to withdraw without having achieved any of its objectives.
Nasrallah also held Israel responsible for the assassination of the country's former leader Rafik Hariri, who was killed alongside 22 other people in a massive car bombing in the capital on February 14, 2005.
"I accuse the Israeli enemy of the assassination of (former) Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and... I will prove this by unveiling sensitive information at a press conference on Monday."
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Hariri probe slammed
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Hezbollah blasts Hariri UN tribunal
Sun Oct 10, 2010 6:42AM
Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has criticized the way the UN tribunal is handling the case of Lebanon's ex-premier Rafiq Hariri's assassination.
In a televised address on Saturday, Nasrallah accused the tribunal of protecting false witnesses who misled the investigation.
He said that the court must provide sufficient evidence that it is a judicial investigation body and would not be affected by fabricated testimonies in the future indictment.
"It is a political investigation which is masked by a judicial covering and made into a judicial system. All of these in the past have proved that the special tribunal was used as a political tool," the Hezbollah chief said.
In 2005, Lebanese former premier Hariri was killed in a massive car bombing in the capital city of Beirut.
The UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon was set up by the world body and the Lebanese government in May 2007 to investigate the case.
Western-backed parties in Lebanon accused Syria and the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah of involvement in the Hariri murder, a claim rejected by both Damascus and Hezbollah.
In September, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri admitted to have wrongly accused Syria of being behind his father's assassination and acknowledged that the accusations were politically charged.
Hezbollah slams UN for 'meddling'
Wed Oct 20, 2010
Lebanon's Hezbollah has accused the United Nations of interfering in the country's internal affairs amid the world body's pressure to disarm the resistance movement.
The UN released a report on Monday concerning the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all armed factions on Lebanese soil and the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country.
In the report, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned of a new climate of "uncertainty" in Lebanon that could spread instability across the Middle East.
Hezbollah issued a statement on Wednesday, lashing out at the world body for its "interference in internal Lebanese affairs, as well as political interference in the affairs of the international tribunal" probing the 2005 assassination of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, AFP reported.
"It would seem that Ban Ki-moon... failed to notice that Hezbollah, and for quite some time, has been at the heart of Lebanese politics through its representation in parliament and cabinet," Hezbollah's statement said.
"It would also seem that he did not find the time to read Lebanon's government statement."
In November, Prime Minister Saad Hariri's government adopted a policy statement that enshrined Hezbollah's right to use its weapons against Israeli threats and incursions.
Hezbollah, which staged a crushing resistance against the enemy forces in the 2006 war with Israel, has repeatedly reiterated its support for the Lebanese army and pledged to protect the country against Israel.
Southern Lebanon was under Israeli control until 2000 when the Israeli army withdrew its forces after more than two decades of occupation.
Hezbollah women chase UN men out of Beirut clinic
Friday October 29, 2010
Dozens of women have chased UN investigators out of a private clinic in Beirut when they tried to question doctors about patients' personal information.
Dr. Iman Sharara, who runs the obstetrics and gynecology clinic, told reporters that she was meeting with the two investigators who visited the clinic to review phone records on Wednesday.
They had requested the phone numbers of 14 to 17 patients who visited the clinic since 2003.
Sharara went on to say that when she went to ask her secretary for the files needed, she was surprised by a crowd of women who had stormed the waiting room.
The UN team was supposedly trying to conduct interviews in connection with the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri for the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon, The Associated Press reported.
Hezbollah quoted two female patients on its Al-Manar TV station as saying that they were reacting at the presence of the two investigators who were foreign men, an Australian and a French national.
A police official said more than 30 women stormed the building with 75 others outside.
He went on to say that the crowd had been yelling curses and one demonstrator stole an investigator's briefcase.
Many Lebanese reportedly suspect that some UN investigators also serve as Israeli informants.
The tribunal's president, Judge Antonio Cassese, released a statement saying, "During the meeting, a large group of people showed up unexpectedly and violently attacked the investigators and their female interpreter."
The Lebanese army took away the two investigators and their female interpreter to receive medical attention after the incident.
Hezbollah: STL spied for West, Israel
Thusday October 28, 2010
Hezbollah says the UN tribunal, investigating the former Lebanese premier's assassination, has been channeling data on the country to the West and Israel.
Under the guise of solving the murder, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) has been penetrating "every single sector" within the country to obtain information, the Lebanese resistance movement's Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday.
It would then direct the data to the Western intelligence services and Tel Aviv, he added, addressing the faithful in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
Former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri was killed alongside more than 20 other people in a massive car bombing in Beirut on February 14, 2005.
The STL was subsequently set up by the United Nations and the Lebanese government in May 2007 to investigate the assassination. The court is expected to announce its findings by the end of 2010.
Nasrallah said in July that he had been informed by the slain leader's son and successor, Saad Hariri, that the court "will accuse some undisciplined [Hezbollah] members."
He has rejected the allegation and warned that the plot was part of "a dangerous project that is targeting the resistance."
In an August speech, Nasrallah presented evidence proving that Israel had masterminded the assassination. The televised address featured video materials, captured by Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), as well as recorded confessions by Israeli fifth columnists, substantiating that Tel Aviv had been behind the killing.
Nasrallah said the investigators had been infiltrating deep into the country even before the tribunal took its current form.
Why does the investigators want "medical files of women" who are related to members of Hezbollah?, Nasrallah questioned after exposing that the team had asked for more than 7,000 of such files.
He said the intrusion impinged on the honor of the Lebanese.
"We always know the magnitude" of the scheme, the resistance leader said, but warned, "We stop here."
He said the movement has been silent on the matter so that it is not accused of disrupting the investigation and causing tension within the country.
Monday November 1, 2010
UN tribunal politicized, Hezbollah says
Hezbollah has fired an acerbic broadside at the UN tribunal investigating the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, saying it is politically motivated.
"Hezbollah is against the International Tribunal because we are absolutely confident that it (the party) is not responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri," Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem told the Qatari newspaper al-Watan.
According to unconfirmed reports, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon plans to charge some Hezbollah members in connection with the assassination of Hariri, who was killed in a massive car bomb explosion on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 other people.
However, Qassem said Hezbollah is opposed to the tribunal since it "has gone beyond its target of finding the truth" behind the 2005 assassination.
Hezbollah has repeatedly denied any involvement in the Hariri assassination, saying it does not recognize the tribunal because it is an "Israeli project" aimed at undermining the resistance movement.
The resistance movement also accuses the tribunal of basing its investigations on testimonies provided by "false witnesses."
In addition, Hezbollah's deputy secretary general stated that Hezbollah members will not hand themselves over to the tribunal.
Meanwhile, a Hezbollah MP, Ali Ammar, reiterated the stance of Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, saying the group will protect officials who refuse to cooperate with the tribunal.
“Those accusing Hezbollah of threatening the state are themselves working with the real threat, which is the Zionist project to sow division in Lebanon,” Ammar told the al-Manar television network.
In August, Nasrallah provided a series of documents proving Israel's involvement in Hariri's murder.
The evidence included footage taken by Israeli drones of the routes frequented by Hariri prior to his assassination as well as recorded confessions by Israeli fifth columnists substantiating that the murder of the Lebanese prime minister was carried out on orders from Tel Aviv.
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Hezbollah blasts Hariri UN tribunal
Sun Oct 10, 2010 6:42AM
Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has criticized the way the UN tribunal is handling the case of Lebanon's ex-premier Rafiq Hariri's assassination.
In a televised address on Saturday, Nasrallah accused the tribunal of protecting false witnesses who misled the investigation.
He said that the court must provide sufficient evidence that it is a judicial investigation body and would not be affected by fabricated testimonies in the future indictment.
"It is a political investigation which is masked by a judicial covering and made into a judicial system. All of these in the past have proved that the special tribunal was used as a political tool," the Hezbollah chief said.
In 2005, Lebanese former premier Hariri was killed in a massive car bombing in the capital city of Beirut.
The UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon was set up by the world body and the Lebanese government in May 2007 to investigate the case.
Western-backed parties in Lebanon accused Syria and the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah of involvement in the Hariri murder, a claim rejected by both Damascus and Hezbollah.
In September, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri admitted to have wrongly accused Syria of being behind his father's assassination and acknowledged that the accusations were politically charged.
Hezbollah slams UN for 'meddling'
Wed Oct 20, 2010
Lebanon's Hezbollah has accused the United Nations of interfering in the country's internal affairs amid the world body's pressure to disarm the resistance movement.
The UN released a report on Monday concerning the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all armed factions on Lebanese soil and the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country.
In the report, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned of a new climate of "uncertainty" in Lebanon that could spread instability across the Middle East.
Hezbollah issued a statement on Wednesday, lashing out at the world body for its "interference in internal Lebanese affairs, as well as political interference in the affairs of the international tribunal" probing the 2005 assassination of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, AFP reported.
"It would seem that Ban Ki-moon... failed to notice that Hezbollah, and for quite some time, has been at the heart of Lebanese politics through its representation in parliament and cabinet," Hezbollah's statement said.
"It would also seem that he did not find the time to read Lebanon's government statement."
In November, Prime Minister Saad Hariri's government adopted a policy statement that enshrined Hezbollah's right to use its weapons against Israeli threats and incursions.
Hezbollah, which staged a crushing resistance against the enemy forces in the 2006 war with Israel, has repeatedly reiterated its support for the Lebanese army and pledged to protect the country against Israel.
Southern Lebanon was under Israeli control until 2000 when the Israeli army withdrew its forces after more than two decades of occupation.
Hezbollah women chase UN men out of Beirut clinic
Friday October 29, 2010
Dozens of women have chased UN investigators out of a private clinic in Beirut when they tried to question doctors about patients' personal information.
Dr. Iman Sharara, who runs the obstetrics and gynecology clinic, told reporters that she was meeting with the two investigators who visited the clinic to review phone records on Wednesday.
They had requested the phone numbers of 14 to 17 patients who visited the clinic since 2003.
Sharara went on to say that when she went to ask her secretary for the files needed, she was surprised by a crowd of women who had stormed the waiting room.
The UN team was supposedly trying to conduct interviews in connection with the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri for the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon, The Associated Press reported.
Hezbollah quoted two female patients on its Al-Manar TV station as saying that they were reacting at the presence of the two investigators who were foreign men, an Australian and a French national.
A police official said more than 30 women stormed the building with 75 others outside.
He went on to say that the crowd had been yelling curses and one demonstrator stole an investigator's briefcase.
Many Lebanese reportedly suspect that some UN investigators also serve as Israeli informants.
The tribunal's president, Judge Antonio Cassese, released a statement saying, "During the meeting, a large group of people showed up unexpectedly and violently attacked the investigators and their female interpreter."
The Lebanese army took away the two investigators and their female interpreter to receive medical attention after the incident.
Hezbollah: STL spied for West, Israel
Thusday October 28, 2010
Hezbollah says the UN tribunal, investigating the former Lebanese premier's assassination, has been channeling data on the country to the West and Israel.
Under the guise of solving the murder, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) has been penetrating "every single sector" within the country to obtain information, the Lebanese resistance movement's Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Thursday.
It would then direct the data to the Western intelligence services and Tel Aviv, he added, addressing the faithful in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
Former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri was killed alongside more than 20 other people in a massive car bombing in Beirut on February 14, 2005.
The STL was subsequently set up by the United Nations and the Lebanese government in May 2007 to investigate the assassination. The court is expected to announce its findings by the end of 2010.
Nasrallah said in July that he had been informed by the slain leader's son and successor, Saad Hariri, that the court "will accuse some undisciplined [Hezbollah] members."
He has rejected the allegation and warned that the plot was part of "a dangerous project that is targeting the resistance."
In an August speech, Nasrallah presented evidence proving that Israel had masterminded the assassination. The televised address featured video materials, captured by Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), as well as recorded confessions by Israeli fifth columnists, substantiating that Tel Aviv had been behind the killing.
Nasrallah said the investigators had been infiltrating deep into the country even before the tribunal took its current form.
Why does the investigators want "medical files of women" who are related to members of Hezbollah?, Nasrallah questioned after exposing that the team had asked for more than 7,000 of such files.
He said the intrusion impinged on the honor of the Lebanese.
"We always know the magnitude" of the scheme, the resistance leader said, but warned, "We stop here."
He said the movement has been silent on the matter so that it is not accused of disrupting the investigation and causing tension within the country.
Monday November 1, 2010
UN tribunal politicized, Hezbollah says
Hezbollah has fired an acerbic broadside at the UN tribunal investigating the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, saying it is politically motivated.
"Hezbollah is against the International Tribunal because we are absolutely confident that it (the party) is not responsible for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri," Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem told the Qatari newspaper al-Watan.
According to unconfirmed reports, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon plans to charge some Hezbollah members in connection with the assassination of Hariri, who was killed in a massive car bomb explosion on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 other people.
However, Qassem said Hezbollah is opposed to the tribunal since it "has gone beyond its target of finding the truth" behind the 2005 assassination.
Hezbollah has repeatedly denied any involvement in the Hariri assassination, saying it does not recognize the tribunal because it is an "Israeli project" aimed at undermining the resistance movement.
The resistance movement also accuses the tribunal of basing its investigations on testimonies provided by "false witnesses."
In addition, Hezbollah's deputy secretary general stated that Hezbollah members will not hand themselves over to the tribunal.
Meanwhile, a Hezbollah MP, Ali Ammar, reiterated the stance of Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, saying the group will protect officials who refuse to cooperate with the tribunal.
“Those accusing Hezbollah of threatening the state are themselves working with the real threat, which is the Zionist project to sow division in Lebanon,” Ammar told the al-Manar television network.
In August, Nasrallah provided a series of documents proving Israel's involvement in Hariri's murder.
The evidence included footage taken by Israeli drones of the routes frequented by Hariri prior to his assassination as well as recorded confessions by Israeli fifth columnists substantiating that the murder of the Lebanese prime minister was carried out on orders from Tel Aviv.
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Sunday, 10 October 2010
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Monday, 5 July 2010
Ayatollah Fadlallah
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4 July 2010
Spiritual leader to Hizbollah dies condemning Israel
Reuters News Agency - Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of Shia Islam's highest religious authorities and an early mentor of the militant group Hizbollah, died in a Beirut hospital yesterday.
Ayatollah Fadlallah, who was 74, had a wide following beyond Lebanon's Shia, extending to central Asia and the Gulf. He had been too frail to deliver his regular sermon at Friday prayers for several weeks, and had been in hospital since Friday suffering from internal bleeding.
Crowds gathered at his Hassanein mosque in southern Beirut to pay condolences, and Hizbollah said it would mark his death with three days of mourning.
Black banners hung outside mosques in Shia areas of southern Lebanon and the eastern Beqaa valley, as well as at Ayatollah Fadlallah's many charitable institutions. "He was a guide not just for Lebanon but for the whole world and for Muslims," said a mourner, Abu Muhammed Hamadeh, outside the Hassanein mosque. "With his death, he has left a very large void in the Arab and Muslim world."
Ayatollah Fadlallah was a supporter of Iran's Islamic revolution and the spiritual leader and mentor of the Shia guerrilla group Hizbollah when it was formed after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, though he later distanced himself from its ties with Iran.
Hizbollah's al-Manar television interrupted its programmes and showed a picture of the white-bearded, black-turbanned cleric. "He stood with great courage and clarity as a supporter of the resistance against the Zionist enemy and of the heroic mujahedin," Hizbollah said.
A fierce critic of the United States, which formally designated him a terrorist, Ayatollah Fadlallah used many of his Friday sermons to denounce US policies in the Middle East, particularly its alliance with Israel.
But he was also quick to denounce the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, which killed some 3,000 people.
Ayatollah Fadlallah survived several assassination attempts, including a 1985 car bomb which killed 80 people in south Beirut. US news reports said the attack was carried out by a US-trained Lebanese unit after attacks on US targets in Lebanon.
He distanced himself from the abduction of Westerners by Islamic militant groups in Lebanon during the 1980s, saying he was against kidnappings, and repeatedly called for their release.
He was known in Shia religious circles for his moderate social views, especially on women. He issued several notable fatwas, or religious opinions, including banning the Shia practice of shedding blood during the mourning ritual of Ashura. Lebanon's prime minister, Saad al-Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, said Ayatollah Fadlallah "contributed to the consolidation of the values of right and justice to resist injustice".
Ayatollah Fadlallah was born in 1935 in the Iraqi Shia city of Najaf, where he studied before moving to Lebanon in 1966.
In his final sermon, delivered by a deputy on Friday, he condemned Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and criticised the US for "giving cover to the enemy (Israel)".
A doctor at the Bahman hospital, to which he was admitted on Friday, said that when a nurse asked the cleric what he needed, he replied: "For the Zionist entity to cease to exist."
AP - Lebanon's top Shiite cleric Fadlallah dies at 75
BEIRUT — Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of Shiite Islam's main religious figures who had a strong following world over, died Sunday after a long illness. He was 75.
Fadlallah, known for his staunch anti-American stance, helped in the rise of Lebanon's Shiite community in the past decades. He was one of the founders of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's governing Dawa Party and was believed to be its religious guide until the last days of his life.
He was described in the 1980s as a spiritual leader of the Lebanese militant Hezbollah — a claim both he and the group denied.
Fadlallah was born in Iraq in 1935 and lived in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, where he was considered among the top clergymen, until the age of 30.
His family hailed from the southern Lebanese village of Ainata and he later moved to Lebanon, where he started lecturing on religion and prodded Shiites, who today make up a third of Lebanon's population of four million, to fight for their rights in the 1970s and 80s.
During Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, he was linked to Iranian-backed Shiite militants who kidnapped Americans and other Westerners, and bombed the U.S. Embassy and Marine base in Lebanon, killing more than 260 Americans.
Although he adamantly denied involvement in those events, he contended such acts were justifiable when the door is closed to dialogue. "When one fires a bullet at you, you cannot offer him roses," he had said.
Fadlallah later lost much of his 1980s militancy — his sermons, once fiery diatribes denouncing American imperialism, took on a pragmatic tone.
Because of the his ties to the militants, then-President Bill Clinton in Jan. 1995 froze Fadlallah's assets in America, along with those of 17 other people as part of an anti-terror campaign.
The stocky, gray-bearded cleric with piercing brown eyes below his black turban, rejected being described in Western media as Hezbollah's mentor. He claimed his relationship with the group was the same as with any other Shiite faction but that it simply was more obvious because of his physical presence in Lebanon.
"I reject it not because I reject Hezbollah, but because I refuse to be given a title that I don't possess," he said.
Fadlallah escaped several assassination attempts, including a March 1985 car bomb near his home in the Bir el-Abed district of south Beirut that killed 80 people.
The bomb, planted between his apartment block and a nearby mosque Fadlallah was attending that day, was timed to go off as he passed by. But Fadlallah stopped to listen to an old woman's complaints and escaped the 440 pound (200 kilograms) explosives' blast.
In Lebanon, the CIA was widely believed to have been behind the bombing, and American author Bob Woodward wrote in his book, "Veil: The Secret War of the CIA," that the late CIA director William Casey ordered Lebanese agents to plant the car bomb in retaliation for attacks on U.S. interests in the Middle East.
Fadlallah long advocated boycotting American and Israeli products. Yet, despite being a harsh critic of U.S. policy, he condemned the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States as acts of terror.
During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, Israeli warplanes bombed his two-story house in Beirut's southern Haret Hreik neighborhood. Fadlallah was not at home at the time of the bombing, which reduced the house to rubble.
Announcing Fadlallah's death at a Beirut news conference, Bahraini Shiite cleric Abdullah al-Ghuraifi, described him as a "father, religious authority and spiritual leader to all Islamic movements in the Arab and Islamic world."
Outside the hospital and at the Al-Hassanayn mosque in Beirut's suburb of Haret Hreik, where Fadlallah gave religion lessons and Friday sermons, black banners were hung up in a sign of mourning. Thousands of Fadlallah's supporters, including women, wept openly. Fadlallah's Al-Bashaer radio station and Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV started broadcasting Quranic verses.
For long, the cleric suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure. He was in hospital for the past two weeks but his condition deteriorated on Friday when complications from a liver problem led to an internal hemorrhage. One of his doctors, Hashem Noureddine, told The Associated Press he died from stomach bleeding.
"This is a dark day," said Mahmoud Malak, 44, a civil servant. "I don't think anyone will be able to fill the vacuum he will leave behind."
A grandfatherly figure, Fadlallah was also known for his bold fatwas, or religious edicts — including one that gave women the right to hit back their husbands if they attacked them. He issued an edict banning smoking and another saying the Baghdad government has no right to "legitimize" the presence of foreign troops but should call for an imminent and unconditional withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
He supported the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 but distanced himself from the key principle advocated by its leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which placed the Iranian cleric as a supreme, undisputed spiritual leader for the world's Shiites.
Among his followers are many of Iraq's Shiite leaders, including al-Maliki.
In Iraq, a prominent leader in al-Maliki's Dawa Party, Ali al-Adeeb, said Fadlallah's death was a major loss to the Islamic world and that it "will be hard to replace him." Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri called him "a voice of moderation and an advocate of unity" among Lebanese and Muslims in general.
Fadlallah's title was "sayyed" — reflecting a claim of direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad's daughter Fatima and her husband Imam Ali, revered by Shiites as a saint.
In his youth, Fadlallah studied theology in Iraq under prominent scholars. He also worked closely with Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, a co-founder of the Dawa Party that Saddam Hussein later crushed. In Lebanon, he founded the "Family of Brotherhood" charity and his Al-Mabarrat network of charities, orphanages, schools, and religious institutions in Beirut, south Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley, where many Shiites live.
Fadlallah's is survived by his wife Najat Noureddin and 11 children. His eldest son followed in his footsteps as a Muslim scholar.
Funeral arrangements were not immediately decided.
AFP: Lebanon cleric, listed as 'terrorist' in US, dead
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, a former spiritual mentor of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and branded a "terrorist" by Washington, died in hospital on Sunday aged 75, officials said.
A top authority of Shiite Islam revered in Lebanon and the region, including his native Iraq, Fadlallah was a "sayyed" to denote direct lineage with the Prophet Mohammed and known for his moderate social views.
A fiery anti-US and anti-Israeli critic, he died in a Beirut hospital where he was admitted on Friday for internal bleeding.
"Sayyed Fadlallah has died this morning," senior aide Ayatollah Abdullah al-Ghurayfi told a news conference, flanked by the late cleric's son, Sayyed Ali Fadlallah, who could not hold back his tears.
"The father, the leader, the marjaa (religious authority), the guide, the human being is gone," Ghurayfi said.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar television interrupted its regular broadcasts to announce his death, posting a picture of the black-turbaned Fadlallah and airing Koranic verses.
The group urged supporters to turn out in huge numbers for the funeral ceremony on Tuesday and called for three days of mourning, as the militant party's leader hailed Fadlallah as a "father and guide."
"He was a merciful father and a wise guide... who taught us to support dialogue, reject injustice and resist (Israeli) occupation," Hezbollah supremo Hassan Nasrallah said in a statement.
Fadlallah and Nasrallah are both blacklisted as "terrorists" by the United States.
Ghurayfi described the Shiite cleric as "the brains behind the launch of the resistance" against Israel -- including Hezbollah's campaign against the Jewish state's occupation of Arab land.
"I will only rest when the Zionist entity falls," Fadlallah once said, according to Ghurayfi.
Fadlallah is to be buried on Tuesday at southern Beirut's Hassanein mosque following the funeral, his office said, adding that a convoy would set off from the cleric's home in the Haret Hreik suburb at 1030 GMT.
News of his death prompted hundreds of followers to rush to the Hassanein mosque where family and associates were receiving condolences in a sombre mood as officials eulogised the grand ayatollah.
"Lebanon has lost a great national and spiritual authority," Prime Minister Saad Hariri said in a statement.
Health Minister Mohammed Khalifeh said: "Sayyed Fadlallah represented independence and progress and was a partisan of science and development, while still respecting the fundamentals" of religion.
Condolences also poured in from abroad.
The provincial council of the holy Iraqi city of Najaf where Fadlallah was born in 1935 said: "This loss is a catastrophe. He defended Muslim unity through his work and his ideas."
Iraq's firebrand anti-US cleric Moqtada Sadr called on supporters in Iraq to observe three days of mourning for Fadlallah.
Arab League chief Amr Mussa sent a message of condolences praising the "patriotism" of Fadlallah who he said contributed to efforts to make multi-confessional Lebanon "a model of coexistence."
Fadlallah rose in the ranks of Lebanon's Shiite community decades ago and was considered the spiritual guide of Hezbollah when it was founded in 1982 with the support of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard.
He gained political leverage during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, but his ties to Hezbollah strained as the war progressed and he distanced himself from the party's ideological ties to Iran.
But Fadlallah remained an advocate of suicide attacks as a means of fighting Israel and last issued a fatwa, or religious decree, forbidding the normalisation of ties with the Jewish state.
In the 1980s, the US media alleged Fadlallah was behind the taking of American hostages by Iranian-backed radical Islamic groups. Other reports suggested he was a mediator but his real role remained elusive.
Fadlallah frequently blasted US policies in the Middle East, especially the US-led invasion of Iraq and Washington's ties with Israel.
He held particular sway with the Dawa Party of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, which he helped to found in 1957.
His followers revered him for his moderate social views, openness and pragmatism. Fadlallah issued religious edicts forbidding female circumcision and saying women could hit abusive husbands.
BBC: Hezbollah 'mentor' Fadlallah dies in Lebanon
Lebanon's top Shia Muslim cleric, seen as a key figure in the founding of militant group Hezbollah, has died at the age of 74.
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was regarded as Hezbollah's spiritual guide after its founding in 1982, something they both denied.
An implacable critic of the US, he had a wide following among Shias and backed the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
But he was known among Shias for his moderate social views.
He held particularly progressive views on the role of women in Islamic society.
Bombing attempt
The ayatollah had been ill for weeks, reports said, and was too frail to deliver his weekly sermon at Friday prayers.
He was admitted to hospital on Friday, reportedly suffering from internal bleeding.
As new of his death emerged, Hezbollah's TV station, al-Manar, interrupted its programming to broadcast his picture and recitations from the Koran.
Medical sources at Beirut's Behman hospital told news agencies Fadlallah had died, before a spokesman for the cleric emerged from the hospital to confirm the reports.
In the suburb of Haret Hreik, where the ayatollah preached at the al-Hassanayn mosque, black banners were hung in mourning and women wept openly in the street, the Associated Press reported.
Born to Lebanese parents in the Shia holy city of Najaf, in Iraq, Fadlallah moved to Lebanon in 1966 after completing his studies.
He won followers both in his home country and in Lebanon, extending his influence to Central Asia and the Gulf, Reuters reported.
He became regarded as the spiritual mentor to Hezbollah when it emerged as a Shia miliant group in 1982.
His views chimed with the strident anti-Israeli tone of the new movement, bringing him to the attention both of the Lebanese public and of Western intelligence agencies.
A 1985 car bombing in Beirut that killed some 80 people was widely thought to have been an attempt to assassinate the ayatollah.
The bombing was alleged to have been the work of the CIA, possibly in conjunction with regional intelligence agencies friendly to the US.
In his later years, Fadlallah distanced himself from Hezbollah over the group's links to Iran, but remained an outspoken critic of US policy in the Middle East and of Israel.
He welcomed the election of Barack Obama as US president in 2008, but last year expressed disappointment with his lack of progress in the Middle East, saying he appeared to have no plan to bring peace to the region.
Analysis: Jim Muir, BBC News, Baghdad
The US may have regarded him as embroiled in terrorism, but in Lebanon and many parts of the Shia Islamic world he was revered as the most eminent spiritual guide.
Moving to Lebanon in 1966, he rapidly gained a reputation for piety and scholarship. But he was also an activist. He established religious schools and foundations, clinics and libraries. He was in favour of the Islamic revolution in Shia Iran, and advocated armed resistance to Israel after its invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
He was not officially part of that movement, but there were certainly shared ideals and aspirations.
He will be mourned, not just by militants but in Lebanon and around the world by the Shia community as a whole, to whom he has left a rich legacy of institutions and written works.
BBC - 4 July 2010
Obituary: Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah
The ayatollah declared himself disappointed in Barack Obama's Mid-East policy
He was a fierce critic of the United States and Israel, and used many of his Friday prayer sermons to denounce US policies in the Middle East.
He was targeted by unknown assassins in 1985, at the height of Hezbollah's suicide bombing and hostage-taking campaign in Lebanon.
Yet Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who has died aged 74, was also known for his moderate position on women and Islam.
Among his fatwas, or religious edicts, was one that allowed women to wear nail polish during prayers.
But he was also branded a terrorist by the US, and named on a 1995 blacklist.
Fadlallah, who held the title "sayyed" to indicate claims of direct lineage with the Prophet Mohammed, died at Bahman hospital in Beirut on 3 July.
He had been a supporter of Iran's Islamic revolution and was customarily described as the spiritual leader of the militant movement Hezbollah when it was formed in 1982.
That was a claim which both he and the group denied.
Assassination attempts
Fadlallah was born in the Iraqi city of Najaf in 1935, where he studied religious sciences.
He also studied jurisprudence, logic, Arabic and philosophy before moving in 1966 to Lebanon, where he rose swiftly up the clerical hierarchy.
In the 1980s, at the height of the Lebanese civil war, US media claimed he was behind the seizing of American hostages by Iranian-backed radical Islamic groups. Other reports named him as a mediator in the crisis, but his real role never became clear.
However, in interviews and writings throughout his life he often made reference to the need for those resisting oppression to fight back with equal or greater force, even as he denied direct involvement with militant attacks.
In later years Fadlallah's links with Hezbollah became strained as he distanced himself from its ideological links to Iran's Islamic republic, and his views became more moderate.
But the cleric retained his opposition to the US and Israel, calling for a boycott of American and Israeli products.
He also continued to advocate suicide attacks as a means of fighting Israel, and only last year he issued a fatwa forbidding the normalisation of ties with the Jewish state.
He survived several assassination attempts, including a bombing apparently aimed at him in 1985 in Beirut, in which some 80 people were killed.
He appeared to welcome the election of Barack Obama in the US, telling the Wall Street Journal in 2009 that "some of his statements show that he believes in the method of dialogue".
He added: We don't have a problem with any American president, but our problem is with his policy that might affect our strategic interest."
Reputation for piety
Yet in another interview given in 2009, the ayatollah spoke of his disappointment at President Obama's Middle East policy, accusing him of being "under pressure" from Israeli supporters and "not a man who has a plan for peace".
The Americans may have regarded Fadlallah as embroiled in terrorism, but in Lebanon and many parts of the Shia Islamic world he was revered as the most eminent spiritual guide, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut.
He rapidly gained a reputation for piety and scholarship through his teaching and the many books and treatises he wrote.
But he was also an activist, our correspondent adds.
He established religious schools and foundations, clinics and libraries. He was in favour of the Islamic revolution in Shiite Iran, and advocated armed resistance to Israel.
Away from politics, the white-bearded Fadlallah was also known for relatively liberal views on women.
He issued a fatwa forbidding female circumcision, and was opposed to the "honour killings" of women by their families.
In 2009, as France was debated whether to ban the full body veil, Fadlallah accused the French president of "banning women from choosing their own clothes".
He also had opposed the call to "jihad," or holy war, by Osama bin Laden and the Afghan Taliban, which he considered to be a sect outside Islam.
BBC: Mixed legacy of Ayatollah Fadlallah
Hussein Fadlallah commanded huge respect in Lebanon
The death of the eminent Lebanese Shia religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, resonated almost as much in the West as it did in the Arab and Islamic worlds - but for entirely different reasons.
For many in the West, Sayyid Fadlallah's name was irrevocably linked with acts of violence against the American presence in Lebanon in the early 1980s.
Many bomb attacks, hijackings and kidnappings were attributed to the militant Shia movement Hezbollah, whose spiritual leader the bespectacled cleric was reputed to be in its early phases.
But in Lebanon and among Shia communities further afield, his passing was mourned as the loss of a spiritual giant whose teachings and writings placed him in the top rank of "sources of emulation", religious leaders whose edicts and prescriptions on spiritual and other matters are followed implicitly by the Shia faithful.
In addition to more than 40 books and treatises, the ayatollah also leaves a rich legacy of charitable institutions and theological schools through which he will be long remembered.
His undoubted influence across the Shia world was attested by tributes from Iraq, the Gulf and other communities where his influence was felt.
But his broader stature became evident from glowing praise and condolences from such figures as Amr Mousa, head of the largely-Sunni Arab League, who lauded him as a patriot and conciliator, and from Lebanon's Sunni Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, who called him "a voice of moderation and an advocate of unity".
Sayyid Fadlallah was the only eminence in Lebanon on a par with the Grand Ayatollahs in the two major centres of Shia learning, Iraq and Iran.
Since someone of his stature cannot simply be replaced, Lebanon will thus lose its status as a place to which Shia turn in search of guidance, until such time as another eminence might emerge.
Hezbollah ties
In the West, Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was widely seen as the "godfather" of Hezbollah, and his name became well known during the turbulent and dramatic events that followed Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the subsequent ill-fated insertion of an American-led Multinational Force.
Lebanon was turned into a proxy battleground for a wider regional and international struggle.
Iran at the time was embroiled in an all-out war with neighbouring Iraq which it believed was launched by Iraq in 1980 on behalf of the US and its allies to stifle the 1979 Islamic revolution in its infancy. Iran's regional strategic ally Syria was deeply threatened by the Israeli invasion and US presence on its western doorstep.
To drive the Israelis and Americans out, Tehran and Damascus cooperated to set up Hezbollah, drawn from the Lebanese Shia community and funded and trained by Iran and its Revolutionary Guards, working through Syria.
Suicide attacks on the US embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut were instrumental in persuading the Americans to withdraw. With the Israelis it took much longer - only in 2000 did they complete a unilateral pullout, seen as a triumph for Hezbollah's "Islamic Resistance" and its Iranian and Syrian backers.
Sayyid Fadlallah supported the Iranian revolution and was enthusiastic about the birth of Hezbollah, which he saw as a vehicle through which the oppressed could fight occupation.
But his exact relationship with Hezbollah in its early years remains opaque.
He was never part of its formal hierarchy. But they came from the same background and environment, and shared many of the same ideas and ideals.
His outspoken denunciation of Israeli occupation and American policy certainly amounted to a spiritual blessing for Hezbollah's activities.
At the time of the huge car bomb attempt on his life in 1985 - for which CIA-trained Lebanese agents were reported to be responsible, and in which 80 people were killed - it was said that Imad Mughnieh was among Sayyid Fadlallah's bodyguards.
Mughnieh swiftly acquired notoriety for his reported involvement in numerous bombings, hijackings and kidnappings in the 1980s.
When he was killed in a mysterious car bomb explosion in Damascus in 2008 - after years of public silence about his activities - he was hailed as Hezbollah's top military commander.
But Sayyid Fadlallah always denied implication in any of Hezbollah or Mughnieh's alleged doings.
He also specifically denied, certainly in later years, that he was Hezbollah's "spiritual leader".
It certainly appeared that his relations with Hezbollah in the 1990s were ambivalent, if not troubled.
Social advocate
As he became increasingly eminent in the clerical hierarchy, Sayyid Fadlallah established himself as an independent authority, a marja al-taqlid, the "source of emulation" to which the faithful turn for guidance on religious and other matters.
While he backed the Iranian revolution, he did not support the Iranian invention of the concept of Wilayet al-Faqih, which gives unchallengeable authority in temporal matters to the Supreme Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was only a mid-ranking cleric when he attained the leadership.
Hezbollah by contrast pays allegiance to the Iranian leader. When Israeli troops pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, travelled to Tehran to congratulate Ayatollah Khamenei.
Few Hezbollah rank and file members took Ayatollah Fadlallah as their marja.
But he commanded huge respect among the Shia masses in Lebanon, and relations with Hezbollah remained warm.
Al-Manar, the Hezbollah TV station, interrupted its programmes to announce his death, and dropped its normal output in favour of Koranic recitations and live pictures of condolences being received at Ayatollah Fadlallah's south Beirut mosque.
Despite his unrelenting hostility to Israel and to American policy in the region, Ayatollah Fadlallah's views on social and other matters were more liberal than was to the taste of some hard-liners.
He took a strong stand on many women's issues, and set up a number of women's centres.
Some of the fatwas (religious edicts) he issued were against female circumcision and "honour" killings, and he ruled that women had the right to hit back if beaten by their husbands. He also opined that abortion could be permitted in cases where a woman's health was at risk.
__________________________
4 July 2010
Spiritual leader to Hizbollah dies condemning Israel
Reuters News Agency - Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of Shia Islam's highest religious authorities and an early mentor of the militant group Hizbollah, died in a Beirut hospital yesterday.
Ayatollah Fadlallah, who was 74, had a wide following beyond Lebanon's Shia, extending to central Asia and the Gulf. He had been too frail to deliver his regular sermon at Friday prayers for several weeks, and had been in hospital since Friday suffering from internal bleeding.
Crowds gathered at his Hassanein mosque in southern Beirut to pay condolences, and Hizbollah said it would mark his death with three days of mourning.
Black banners hung outside mosques in Shia areas of southern Lebanon and the eastern Beqaa valley, as well as at Ayatollah Fadlallah's many charitable institutions. "He was a guide not just for Lebanon but for the whole world and for Muslims," said a mourner, Abu Muhammed Hamadeh, outside the Hassanein mosque. "With his death, he has left a very large void in the Arab and Muslim world."
Ayatollah Fadlallah was a supporter of Iran's Islamic revolution and the spiritual leader and mentor of the Shia guerrilla group Hizbollah when it was formed after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, though he later distanced himself from its ties with Iran.
Hizbollah's al-Manar television interrupted its programmes and showed a picture of the white-bearded, black-turbanned cleric. "He stood with great courage and clarity as a supporter of the resistance against the Zionist enemy and of the heroic mujahedin," Hizbollah said.
A fierce critic of the United States, which formally designated him a terrorist, Ayatollah Fadlallah used many of his Friday sermons to denounce US policies in the Middle East, particularly its alliance with Israel.
But he was also quick to denounce the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, which killed some 3,000 people.
Ayatollah Fadlallah survived several assassination attempts, including a 1985 car bomb which killed 80 people in south Beirut. US news reports said the attack was carried out by a US-trained Lebanese unit after attacks on US targets in Lebanon.
He distanced himself from the abduction of Westerners by Islamic militant groups in Lebanon during the 1980s, saying he was against kidnappings, and repeatedly called for their release.
He was known in Shia religious circles for his moderate social views, especially on women. He issued several notable fatwas, or religious opinions, including banning the Shia practice of shedding blood during the mourning ritual of Ashura. Lebanon's prime minister, Saad al-Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, said Ayatollah Fadlallah "contributed to the consolidation of the values of right and justice to resist injustice".
Ayatollah Fadlallah was born in 1935 in the Iraqi Shia city of Najaf, where he studied before moving to Lebanon in 1966.
In his final sermon, delivered by a deputy on Friday, he condemned Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and criticised the US for "giving cover to the enemy (Israel)".
A doctor at the Bahman hospital, to which he was admitted on Friday, said that when a nurse asked the cleric what he needed, he replied: "For the Zionist entity to cease to exist."
AP - Lebanon's top Shiite cleric Fadlallah dies at 75
BEIRUT — Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, one of Shiite Islam's main religious figures who had a strong following world over, died Sunday after a long illness. He was 75.
Fadlallah, known for his staunch anti-American stance, helped in the rise of Lebanon's Shiite community in the past decades. He was one of the founders of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's governing Dawa Party and was believed to be its religious guide until the last days of his life.
He was described in the 1980s as a spiritual leader of the Lebanese militant Hezbollah — a claim both he and the group denied.
Fadlallah was born in Iraq in 1935 and lived in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, where he was considered among the top clergymen, until the age of 30.
His family hailed from the southern Lebanese village of Ainata and he later moved to Lebanon, where he started lecturing on religion and prodded Shiites, who today make up a third of Lebanon's population of four million, to fight for their rights in the 1970s and 80s.
During Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, he was linked to Iranian-backed Shiite militants who kidnapped Americans and other Westerners, and bombed the U.S. Embassy and Marine base in Lebanon, killing more than 260 Americans.
Although he adamantly denied involvement in those events, he contended such acts were justifiable when the door is closed to dialogue. "When one fires a bullet at you, you cannot offer him roses," he had said.
Fadlallah later lost much of his 1980s militancy — his sermons, once fiery diatribes denouncing American imperialism, took on a pragmatic tone.
Because of the his ties to the militants, then-President Bill Clinton in Jan. 1995 froze Fadlallah's assets in America, along with those of 17 other people as part of an anti-terror campaign.
The stocky, gray-bearded cleric with piercing brown eyes below his black turban, rejected being described in Western media as Hezbollah's mentor. He claimed his relationship with the group was the same as with any other Shiite faction but that it simply was more obvious because of his physical presence in Lebanon.
"I reject it not because I reject Hezbollah, but because I refuse to be given a title that I don't possess," he said.
Fadlallah escaped several assassination attempts, including a March 1985 car bomb near his home in the Bir el-Abed district of south Beirut that killed 80 people.
The bomb, planted between his apartment block and a nearby mosque Fadlallah was attending that day, was timed to go off as he passed by. But Fadlallah stopped to listen to an old woman's complaints and escaped the 440 pound (200 kilograms) explosives' blast.
In Lebanon, the CIA was widely believed to have been behind the bombing, and American author Bob Woodward wrote in his book, "Veil: The Secret War of the CIA," that the late CIA director William Casey ordered Lebanese agents to plant the car bomb in retaliation for attacks on U.S. interests in the Middle East.
Fadlallah long advocated boycotting American and Israeli products. Yet, despite being a harsh critic of U.S. policy, he condemned the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States as acts of terror.
During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, Israeli warplanes bombed his two-story house in Beirut's southern Haret Hreik neighborhood. Fadlallah was not at home at the time of the bombing, which reduced the house to rubble.
Announcing Fadlallah's death at a Beirut news conference, Bahraini Shiite cleric Abdullah al-Ghuraifi, described him as a "father, religious authority and spiritual leader to all Islamic movements in the Arab and Islamic world."
Outside the hospital and at the Al-Hassanayn mosque in Beirut's suburb of Haret Hreik, where Fadlallah gave religion lessons and Friday sermons, black banners were hung up in a sign of mourning. Thousands of Fadlallah's supporters, including women, wept openly. Fadlallah's Al-Bashaer radio station and Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV started broadcasting Quranic verses.
For long, the cleric suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure. He was in hospital for the past two weeks but his condition deteriorated on Friday when complications from a liver problem led to an internal hemorrhage. One of his doctors, Hashem Noureddine, told The Associated Press he died from stomach bleeding.
"This is a dark day," said Mahmoud Malak, 44, a civil servant. "I don't think anyone will be able to fill the vacuum he will leave behind."
A grandfatherly figure, Fadlallah was also known for his bold fatwas, or religious edicts — including one that gave women the right to hit back their husbands if they attacked them. He issued an edict banning smoking and another saying the Baghdad government has no right to "legitimize" the presence of foreign troops but should call for an imminent and unconditional withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
He supported the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 but distanced himself from the key principle advocated by its leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which placed the Iranian cleric as a supreme, undisputed spiritual leader for the world's Shiites.
Among his followers are many of Iraq's Shiite leaders, including al-Maliki.
In Iraq, a prominent leader in al-Maliki's Dawa Party, Ali al-Adeeb, said Fadlallah's death was a major loss to the Islamic world and that it "will be hard to replace him." Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad Hariri called him "a voice of moderation and an advocate of unity" among Lebanese and Muslims in general.
Fadlallah's title was "sayyed" — reflecting a claim of direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad's daughter Fatima and her husband Imam Ali, revered by Shiites as a saint.
In his youth, Fadlallah studied theology in Iraq under prominent scholars. He also worked closely with Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, a co-founder of the Dawa Party that Saddam Hussein later crushed. In Lebanon, he founded the "Family of Brotherhood" charity and his Al-Mabarrat network of charities, orphanages, schools, and religious institutions in Beirut, south Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley, where many Shiites live.
Fadlallah's is survived by his wife Najat Noureddin and 11 children. His eldest son followed in his footsteps as a Muslim scholar.
Funeral arrangements were not immediately decided.
AFP: Lebanon cleric, listed as 'terrorist' in US, dead
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, a former spiritual mentor of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and branded a "terrorist" by Washington, died in hospital on Sunday aged 75, officials said.
A top authority of Shiite Islam revered in Lebanon and the region, including his native Iraq, Fadlallah was a "sayyed" to denote direct lineage with the Prophet Mohammed and known for his moderate social views.
A fiery anti-US and anti-Israeli critic, he died in a Beirut hospital where he was admitted on Friday for internal bleeding.
"Sayyed Fadlallah has died this morning," senior aide Ayatollah Abdullah al-Ghurayfi told a news conference, flanked by the late cleric's son, Sayyed Ali Fadlallah, who could not hold back his tears.
"The father, the leader, the marjaa (religious authority), the guide, the human being is gone," Ghurayfi said.
Hezbollah's Al-Manar television interrupted its regular broadcasts to announce his death, posting a picture of the black-turbaned Fadlallah and airing Koranic verses.
The group urged supporters to turn out in huge numbers for the funeral ceremony on Tuesday and called for three days of mourning, as the militant party's leader hailed Fadlallah as a "father and guide."
"He was a merciful father and a wise guide... who taught us to support dialogue, reject injustice and resist (Israeli) occupation," Hezbollah supremo Hassan Nasrallah said in a statement.
Fadlallah and Nasrallah are both blacklisted as "terrorists" by the United States.
Ghurayfi described the Shiite cleric as "the brains behind the launch of the resistance" against Israel -- including Hezbollah's campaign against the Jewish state's occupation of Arab land.
"I will only rest when the Zionist entity falls," Fadlallah once said, according to Ghurayfi.
Fadlallah is to be buried on Tuesday at southern Beirut's Hassanein mosque following the funeral, his office said, adding that a convoy would set off from the cleric's home in the Haret Hreik suburb at 1030 GMT.
News of his death prompted hundreds of followers to rush to the Hassanein mosque where family and associates were receiving condolences in a sombre mood as officials eulogised the grand ayatollah.
"Lebanon has lost a great national and spiritual authority," Prime Minister Saad Hariri said in a statement.
Health Minister Mohammed Khalifeh said: "Sayyed Fadlallah represented independence and progress and was a partisan of science and development, while still respecting the fundamentals" of religion.
Condolences also poured in from abroad.
The provincial council of the holy Iraqi city of Najaf where Fadlallah was born in 1935 said: "This loss is a catastrophe. He defended Muslim unity through his work and his ideas."
Iraq's firebrand anti-US cleric Moqtada Sadr called on supporters in Iraq to observe three days of mourning for Fadlallah.
Arab League chief Amr Mussa sent a message of condolences praising the "patriotism" of Fadlallah who he said contributed to efforts to make multi-confessional Lebanon "a model of coexistence."
Fadlallah rose in the ranks of Lebanon's Shiite community decades ago and was considered the spiritual guide of Hezbollah when it was founded in 1982 with the support of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard.
He gained political leverage during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, but his ties to Hezbollah strained as the war progressed and he distanced himself from the party's ideological ties to Iran.
But Fadlallah remained an advocate of suicide attacks as a means of fighting Israel and last issued a fatwa, or religious decree, forbidding the normalisation of ties with the Jewish state.
In the 1980s, the US media alleged Fadlallah was behind the taking of American hostages by Iranian-backed radical Islamic groups. Other reports suggested he was a mediator but his real role remained elusive.
Fadlallah frequently blasted US policies in the Middle East, especially the US-led invasion of Iraq and Washington's ties with Israel.
He held particular sway with the Dawa Party of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, which he helped to found in 1957.
His followers revered him for his moderate social views, openness and pragmatism. Fadlallah issued religious edicts forbidding female circumcision and saying women could hit abusive husbands.
BBC: Hezbollah 'mentor' Fadlallah dies in Lebanon
Lebanon's top Shia Muslim cleric, seen as a key figure in the founding of militant group Hezbollah, has died at the age of 74.
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was regarded as Hezbollah's spiritual guide after its founding in 1982, something they both denied.
An implacable critic of the US, he had a wide following among Shias and backed the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
But he was known among Shias for his moderate social views.
He held particularly progressive views on the role of women in Islamic society.
Bombing attempt
The ayatollah had been ill for weeks, reports said, and was too frail to deliver his weekly sermon at Friday prayers.
He was admitted to hospital on Friday, reportedly suffering from internal bleeding.
As new of his death emerged, Hezbollah's TV station, al-Manar, interrupted its programming to broadcast his picture and recitations from the Koran.
Medical sources at Beirut's Behman hospital told news agencies Fadlallah had died, before a spokesman for the cleric emerged from the hospital to confirm the reports.
In the suburb of Haret Hreik, where the ayatollah preached at the al-Hassanayn mosque, black banners were hung in mourning and women wept openly in the street, the Associated Press reported.
Born to Lebanese parents in the Shia holy city of Najaf, in Iraq, Fadlallah moved to Lebanon in 1966 after completing his studies.
He won followers both in his home country and in Lebanon, extending his influence to Central Asia and the Gulf, Reuters reported.
He became regarded as the spiritual mentor to Hezbollah when it emerged as a Shia miliant group in 1982.
His views chimed with the strident anti-Israeli tone of the new movement, bringing him to the attention both of the Lebanese public and of Western intelligence agencies.
A 1985 car bombing in Beirut that killed some 80 people was widely thought to have been an attempt to assassinate the ayatollah.
The bombing was alleged to have been the work of the CIA, possibly in conjunction with regional intelligence agencies friendly to the US.
In his later years, Fadlallah distanced himself from Hezbollah over the group's links to Iran, but remained an outspoken critic of US policy in the Middle East and of Israel.
He welcomed the election of Barack Obama as US president in 2008, but last year expressed disappointment with his lack of progress in the Middle East, saying he appeared to have no plan to bring peace to the region.
Analysis: Jim Muir, BBC News, Baghdad
The US may have regarded him as embroiled in terrorism, but in Lebanon and many parts of the Shia Islamic world he was revered as the most eminent spiritual guide.
Moving to Lebanon in 1966, he rapidly gained a reputation for piety and scholarship. But he was also an activist. He established religious schools and foundations, clinics and libraries. He was in favour of the Islamic revolution in Shia Iran, and advocated armed resistance to Israel after its invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
He was not officially part of that movement, but there were certainly shared ideals and aspirations.
He will be mourned, not just by militants but in Lebanon and around the world by the Shia community as a whole, to whom he has left a rich legacy of institutions and written works.
BBC - 4 July 2010
Obituary: Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah
The ayatollah declared himself disappointed in Barack Obama's Mid-East policy
He was a fierce critic of the United States and Israel, and used many of his Friday prayer sermons to denounce US policies in the Middle East.
He was targeted by unknown assassins in 1985, at the height of Hezbollah's suicide bombing and hostage-taking campaign in Lebanon.
Yet Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who has died aged 74, was also known for his moderate position on women and Islam.
Among his fatwas, or religious edicts, was one that allowed women to wear nail polish during prayers.
But he was also branded a terrorist by the US, and named on a 1995 blacklist.
Fadlallah, who held the title "sayyed" to indicate claims of direct lineage with the Prophet Mohammed, died at Bahman hospital in Beirut on 3 July.
He had been a supporter of Iran's Islamic revolution and was customarily described as the spiritual leader of the militant movement Hezbollah when it was formed in 1982.
That was a claim which both he and the group denied.
Assassination attempts
Fadlallah was born in the Iraqi city of Najaf in 1935, where he studied religious sciences.
He also studied jurisprudence, logic, Arabic and philosophy before moving in 1966 to Lebanon, where he rose swiftly up the clerical hierarchy.
In the 1980s, at the height of the Lebanese civil war, US media claimed he was behind the seizing of American hostages by Iranian-backed radical Islamic groups. Other reports named him as a mediator in the crisis, but his real role never became clear.
However, in interviews and writings throughout his life he often made reference to the need for those resisting oppression to fight back with equal or greater force, even as he denied direct involvement with militant attacks.
In later years Fadlallah's links with Hezbollah became strained as he distanced himself from its ideological links to Iran's Islamic republic, and his views became more moderate.
But the cleric retained his opposition to the US and Israel, calling for a boycott of American and Israeli products.
He also continued to advocate suicide attacks as a means of fighting Israel, and only last year he issued a fatwa forbidding the normalisation of ties with the Jewish state.
He survived several assassination attempts, including a bombing apparently aimed at him in 1985 in Beirut, in which some 80 people were killed.
He appeared to welcome the election of Barack Obama in the US, telling the Wall Street Journal in 2009 that "some of his statements show that he believes in the method of dialogue".
He added: We don't have a problem with any American president, but our problem is with his policy that might affect our strategic interest."
Reputation for piety
Yet in another interview given in 2009, the ayatollah spoke of his disappointment at President Obama's Middle East policy, accusing him of being "under pressure" from Israeli supporters and "not a man who has a plan for peace".
The Americans may have regarded Fadlallah as embroiled in terrorism, but in Lebanon and many parts of the Shia Islamic world he was revered as the most eminent spiritual guide, says the BBC's Jim Muir in Beirut.
He rapidly gained a reputation for piety and scholarship through his teaching and the many books and treatises he wrote.
But he was also an activist, our correspondent adds.
He established religious schools and foundations, clinics and libraries. He was in favour of the Islamic revolution in Shiite Iran, and advocated armed resistance to Israel.
Away from politics, the white-bearded Fadlallah was also known for relatively liberal views on women.
He issued a fatwa forbidding female circumcision, and was opposed to the "honour killings" of women by their families.
In 2009, as France was debated whether to ban the full body veil, Fadlallah accused the French president of "banning women from choosing their own clothes".
He also had opposed the call to "jihad," or holy war, by Osama bin Laden and the Afghan Taliban, which he considered to be a sect outside Islam.
BBC: Mixed legacy of Ayatollah Fadlallah
Hussein Fadlallah commanded huge respect in Lebanon
The death of the eminent Lebanese Shia religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, resonated almost as much in the West as it did in the Arab and Islamic worlds - but for entirely different reasons.
For many in the West, Sayyid Fadlallah's name was irrevocably linked with acts of violence against the American presence in Lebanon in the early 1980s.
Many bomb attacks, hijackings and kidnappings were attributed to the militant Shia movement Hezbollah, whose spiritual leader the bespectacled cleric was reputed to be in its early phases.
But in Lebanon and among Shia communities further afield, his passing was mourned as the loss of a spiritual giant whose teachings and writings placed him in the top rank of "sources of emulation", religious leaders whose edicts and prescriptions on spiritual and other matters are followed implicitly by the Shia faithful.
In addition to more than 40 books and treatises, the ayatollah also leaves a rich legacy of charitable institutions and theological schools through which he will be long remembered.
His undoubted influence across the Shia world was attested by tributes from Iraq, the Gulf and other communities where his influence was felt.
But his broader stature became evident from glowing praise and condolences from such figures as Amr Mousa, head of the largely-Sunni Arab League, who lauded him as a patriot and conciliator, and from Lebanon's Sunni Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, who called him "a voice of moderation and an advocate of unity".
Sayyid Fadlallah was the only eminence in Lebanon on a par with the Grand Ayatollahs in the two major centres of Shia learning, Iraq and Iran.
Since someone of his stature cannot simply be replaced, Lebanon will thus lose its status as a place to which Shia turn in search of guidance, until such time as another eminence might emerge.
Hezbollah ties
In the West, Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was widely seen as the "godfather" of Hezbollah, and his name became well known during the turbulent and dramatic events that followed Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the subsequent ill-fated insertion of an American-led Multinational Force.
Lebanon was turned into a proxy battleground for a wider regional and international struggle.
Iran at the time was embroiled in an all-out war with neighbouring Iraq which it believed was launched by Iraq in 1980 on behalf of the US and its allies to stifle the 1979 Islamic revolution in its infancy. Iran's regional strategic ally Syria was deeply threatened by the Israeli invasion and US presence on its western doorstep.
To drive the Israelis and Americans out, Tehran and Damascus cooperated to set up Hezbollah, drawn from the Lebanese Shia community and funded and trained by Iran and its Revolutionary Guards, working through Syria.
Suicide attacks on the US embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut were instrumental in persuading the Americans to withdraw. With the Israelis it took much longer - only in 2000 did they complete a unilateral pullout, seen as a triumph for Hezbollah's "Islamic Resistance" and its Iranian and Syrian backers.
Sayyid Fadlallah supported the Iranian revolution and was enthusiastic about the birth of Hezbollah, which he saw as a vehicle through which the oppressed could fight occupation.
But his exact relationship with Hezbollah in its early years remains opaque.
He was never part of its formal hierarchy. But they came from the same background and environment, and shared many of the same ideas and ideals.
His outspoken denunciation of Israeli occupation and American policy certainly amounted to a spiritual blessing for Hezbollah's activities.
At the time of the huge car bomb attempt on his life in 1985 - for which CIA-trained Lebanese agents were reported to be responsible, and in which 80 people were killed - it was said that Imad Mughnieh was among Sayyid Fadlallah's bodyguards.
Mughnieh swiftly acquired notoriety for his reported involvement in numerous bombings, hijackings and kidnappings in the 1980s.
When he was killed in a mysterious car bomb explosion in Damascus in 2008 - after years of public silence about his activities - he was hailed as Hezbollah's top military commander.
But Sayyid Fadlallah always denied implication in any of Hezbollah or Mughnieh's alleged doings.
He also specifically denied, certainly in later years, that he was Hezbollah's "spiritual leader".
It certainly appeared that his relations with Hezbollah in the 1990s were ambivalent, if not troubled.
Social advocate
As he became increasingly eminent in the clerical hierarchy, Sayyid Fadlallah established himself as an independent authority, a marja al-taqlid, the "source of emulation" to which the faithful turn for guidance on religious and other matters.
While he backed the Iranian revolution, he did not support the Iranian invention of the concept of Wilayet al-Faqih, which gives unchallengeable authority in temporal matters to the Supreme Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was only a mid-ranking cleric when he attained the leadership.
Hezbollah by contrast pays allegiance to the Iranian leader. When Israeli troops pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, travelled to Tehran to congratulate Ayatollah Khamenei.
Few Hezbollah rank and file members took Ayatollah Fadlallah as their marja.
But he commanded huge respect among the Shia masses in Lebanon, and relations with Hezbollah remained warm.
Al-Manar, the Hezbollah TV station, interrupted its programmes to announce his death, and dropped its normal output in favour of Koranic recitations and live pictures of condolences being received at Ayatollah Fadlallah's south Beirut mosque.
Despite his unrelenting hostility to Israel and to American policy in the region, Ayatollah Fadlallah's views on social and other matters were more liberal than was to the taste of some hard-liners.
He took a strong stand on many women's issues, and set up a number of women's centres.
Some of the fatwas (religious edicts) he issued were against female circumcision and "honour" killings, and he ruled that women had the right to hit back if beaten by their husbands. He also opined that abortion could be permitted in cases where a woman's health was at risk.
__________________________
Hizbollah
-
Page last updated at 08:28 GMT, Sunday, 4 July 2010 09:28 UK
BBC: Who are Hezbollah?
Hezbollah - or the Party of God - is a powerful political and military organisation in Lebanon made up mainly of Shia Muslims.
It emerged with financial backing from Iran in the early 1980s and began a struggle to drive Israeli troops from Lebanon.
Hostility to Israel has remained the party's defining platform since May 2000, when the last Israeli troops left Lebanon due in large part to the success of Hezbollah's military arm, the Islamic Resistance.
Hezbollah's popularity peaked in the 2000s, but took a massive dent among pro-Western Lebanese people when it was at the centre of a huge, destructive war with Israel following the capture of two Israeli soldiers in 2006.
Lebanese divisions
Hezbollah is the strongest member of Lebanon's pro-Syrian opposition bloc which has been pitted against the pro-Western government led by Saad Hariri.
It has several seats in parliament and has ministers in a national unity government formed in late 2009.
It also blocked the election of a new president by repeatedly boycotting sessions of parliament.
The stalemate ended on 21 May 2008, when the group reached a deal with the government under which its power of veto was recognised.
Washington has long branded Hezbollah a terrorist organisation and has accused it of destabilising Lebanon in the wake of Syria's withdrawal of its troops from the country following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The movement long operated with neighbouring Syria's blessing, protecting its interests in Lebanon and serving as a card for Damascus to play in its own confrontation with Israel over the occupation of the Golan Heights.
Hezbollah leaders have continued to profess its support for Syria, while stressing Lebanese unity by arguing against "Western interference" in the country.
As well as a political clout, Hezbollah has wide popular appeal by providing social services and health care. It also has an influential TV station, al-Manar.
Hezbollah's biggest test came in mid-2006, when its fighters captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border attack, killing a number of others.
The incident triggered a fierce month-long war with Israel, which ended in a ceasefire.
Having survived a massive military onslaught, Hezbollah declared victory, enhancing its reputation among many in the Arab world.
Its critics, however, blamed it for provoking the massive destruction which Israel wreaked in Lebanon.
Despite two UN resolutions (1559 passed in 2004, and 1701, which halted the war) calling for disarming of militias in Lebanon, Hezbollah's military arm remains intact.
Starting out
Hezbollah was conceived in 1982 by a group of Muslim clerics after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
It was close to a contingent of some 2,000 Iranian Revolutionary guards, based in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, which had been sent to the country to aid the resistance against Israel.
Hezbollah was formed primarily to offer resistance to the Israeli occupation.
It also initially dreamed of transforming Lebanon's multi-confessional state into an Iranian-style Islamic state, although this idea was later abandoned in favour of a more inclusive approach that has survived to this day.
The party's rhetoric calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. It views the Jewish state as occupied Muslim land and it argues that Israel has no right to exist.
The party was long supported by Iran, which provided it with arms and money.
Passionate and demanding
Hezbollah also adopted the tactic of taking Western hostages, through a number of freelance hostage taking cells.
In 1983, militants who went on to become members of Hezbollah are thought to have planned a suicide bombing attack that killed 241 US marines in Beirut.
Hezbollah has always sought to further an Islamic way of life. In the early days, its leaders imposed strict codes of Islamic behaviour on towns and villages in the south of the country - a move that was not universally popular with the region's citizens.
But the party emphasises that its Islamic vision should not be interpreted as an intention to impose an Islamic society on the Lebanese.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4314423.stm
Page last updated at 08:28 GMT, Sunday, 4 July 2010 09:28 UK
BBC: Who are Hezbollah?
Hezbollah - or the Party of God - is a powerful political and military organisation in Lebanon made up mainly of Shia Muslims.
It emerged with financial backing from Iran in the early 1980s and began a struggle to drive Israeli troops from Lebanon.
Hostility to Israel has remained the party's defining platform since May 2000, when the last Israeli troops left Lebanon due in large part to the success of Hezbollah's military arm, the Islamic Resistance.
Hezbollah's popularity peaked in the 2000s, but took a massive dent among pro-Western Lebanese people when it was at the centre of a huge, destructive war with Israel following the capture of two Israeli soldiers in 2006.
Lebanese divisions
Hezbollah is the strongest member of Lebanon's pro-Syrian opposition bloc which has been pitted against the pro-Western government led by Saad Hariri.
It has several seats in parliament and has ministers in a national unity government formed in late 2009.
It also blocked the election of a new president by repeatedly boycotting sessions of parliament.
The stalemate ended on 21 May 2008, when the group reached a deal with the government under which its power of veto was recognised.
Washington has long branded Hezbollah a terrorist organisation and has accused it of destabilising Lebanon in the wake of Syria's withdrawal of its troops from the country following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The movement long operated with neighbouring Syria's blessing, protecting its interests in Lebanon and serving as a card for Damascus to play in its own confrontation with Israel over the occupation of the Golan Heights.
Hezbollah leaders have continued to profess its support for Syria, while stressing Lebanese unity by arguing against "Western interference" in the country.
As well as a political clout, Hezbollah has wide popular appeal by providing social services and health care. It also has an influential TV station, al-Manar.
Hezbollah's biggest test came in mid-2006, when its fighters captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border attack, killing a number of others.
The incident triggered a fierce month-long war with Israel, which ended in a ceasefire.
Having survived a massive military onslaught, Hezbollah declared victory, enhancing its reputation among many in the Arab world.
Its critics, however, blamed it for provoking the massive destruction which Israel wreaked in Lebanon.
Despite two UN resolutions (1559 passed in 2004, and 1701, which halted the war) calling for disarming of militias in Lebanon, Hezbollah's military arm remains intact.
Starting out
Hezbollah was conceived in 1982 by a group of Muslim clerics after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
It was close to a contingent of some 2,000 Iranian Revolutionary guards, based in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, which had been sent to the country to aid the resistance against Israel.
Hezbollah was formed primarily to offer resistance to the Israeli occupation.
It also initially dreamed of transforming Lebanon's multi-confessional state into an Iranian-style Islamic state, although this idea was later abandoned in favour of a more inclusive approach that has survived to this day.
The party's rhetoric calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. It views the Jewish state as occupied Muslim land and it argues that Israel has no right to exist.
The party was long supported by Iran, which provided it with arms and money.
Passionate and demanding
Hezbollah also adopted the tactic of taking Western hostages, through a number of freelance hostage taking cells.
In 1983, militants who went on to become members of Hezbollah are thought to have planned a suicide bombing attack that killed 241 US marines in Beirut.
Hezbollah has always sought to further an Islamic way of life. In the early days, its leaders imposed strict codes of Islamic behaviour on towns and villages in the south of the country - a move that was not universally popular with the region's citizens.
But the party emphasises that its Islamic vision should not be interpreted as an intention to impose an Islamic society on the Lebanese.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4314423.stm
IRGC
--
THE MEN OF ISLAMIC REVOLUTION
The Guards of the Iranian Revolution are profiled here.
BBC - 18 October 2009
Iran's Revolutionary Guards
. Several members of the Iranian cabinet are Guards veterans
. The Guards have some of Iran's most advanced military equipment
REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS
Officially the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), or Pasdaran
Formed after 1979 revolution
Loyal to clerics and counter to regular military
Estimated 125,000 troops
Includes ground forces, navy, air force, intelligence and special forces
Commander-in-chief: Mohammad Ali Jafari
Iran President Ahmadinejad is a former member
Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) was set up shortly after the 1979 Iranian revolution to defend the country's Islamic system, and to provide a counterweight to the regular armed forces.
It has since become a major military, political and economic force in Iran, with close ties to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former member.
The force is estimated to have 125,000 active troops, boasts its own ground forces, navy and air force, and oversees Iran's strategic weapons.
It also controls the paramilitary Basij Resistance Force and the powerful bonyads, or charitable foundations, which run a considerable part of the Iranian economy.
The Revolutionary Guards' power and influence are such that the US government has designated it a "proliferator of weapons of mass destruction" and its elite overseas operations arm, the Quds Force, a "supporter of terrorism".
Guardians of the Revolution
Before the 1979 revolution, Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi relied on military might to ensure national security and to safeguard his power.
Afterwards, the new Islamic authorities, headed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, realised they too needed a powerful force committed to consolidating their leadership and revolutionary ideals.
The clerics therefore produced a new constitution that provided for both a regular Military (Artesh), to defend Iran's borders and maintain internal order, and a separate Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran), to protect the country's Islamic system.
In practice, these roles have often overlapped, with the Guards also helping to keep public order and developing its own army, navy and air force.
Despite having 200,000 fewer troops than the regular military, the Guards are considered the dominant military force in Iran and are behind many of the country's key military operations.
In March 2007, it was the Guards' navy which sparked a diplomatic stand-off with the UK by detaining 15 British sailors and marines patrolling the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway separating Iran and Iraq.
The US has also accused the Guards' 15,000-strong overseas operation arm, the Quds Force, of supplying explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) - powerful roadside bombs - to Shia militants in Iraq.
The force is believed to have staff in embassies around the world, from where it allegedly conducts intelligence operations and organises training camps and arms shipments for foreign militant groups which Iran supports, such as Hezbollah.
Civilian presence
The Guards also have a powerful presence in civilian institutions, and control the Basij Resistance Force, an Islamic volunteer militia of about 90,000 men and women.
The Basij, or Mobilisation of the Oppressed, are loyalists to the revolution who are often called out onto the streets at times of crisis to use force to dispel dissent.
Such popular power, combined with the strong support of the Supreme Leader, has also made the Guards a key player in Iranian politics.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - also commander-in-chief of the armed forces - is believed to have used his power to expand his and the Guards' influence by appointing several former members to top political posts and using the force to suppress dissidents and reformists.
Soon after his election in 2005, President Ahmadinejad named several former veterans to key ministries in his cabinet.
After his disputed re-election in June, the Revolutionary Guards warned demonstrators against further protests.
Many people in Iran saw the subsequent crackdown on the opposition as an assertion of control by the Revolutionary Guards.
It is an impression the Guards have confirmed themselves, and members of the Basij militia, a group affiliated with the Guards, have been prominent in putting down the opposition protests.
There are also reports that the Revolutionary Guards have increased their already substantial stake in Iran's economy, with the purchase of a majority stake in the main telecommunications company.
The Guards are thought to control around a third of Iran's economy through a series of subsidiaries and trusts.
The Guards' engineering wing, Khatam-ol-Anbia (also known by an acronym, GHORB), has been awarded several multi-billion-dollar construction and engineering contracts, including the operation of Tehran's new Imam Khomeini international airport.
The Guards are also said to own or control several university laboratories, arms companies and even a car manufacturer.
26 July 2010:
Expanding business empire of Iran's Revolutionary Guards
The IRGC has been building its economic influence for more than 20 years
IRGC's BUSINESS EMPIRE
Khatam al-Anbia construction firm: employs 20,000 workers and boasts of hundreds of government contracts
Iran Telecommunications Company - 50% stake bought in government privatisation scheme
Angouran - the largest lead and zinc mine in the Middle East
Bahman Automobile Manufacturing Group - (manufactures the Mazda brand) - 45% stake
Iran electronics industry - comprises electronic, computer and communications companies
Iranians' Mehr Economic Institution - financial institution with hundreds of branches (one of the largest banking networks in Iran)
Iran has embarked on a remarkable - many would say bizarre - experiment in business management.
Domination of a fairly sophisticated, energy-rich economy has been handed to a secretive military organisation that started out as a religious militia.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is now believed to control a third of the Iranian economy.
Some experts put the figure much higher, although all estimates are a matter of conjecture.
The force was created by Ayatollah Khomeini 30 years ago to protect the state and defend the principles of his Islamic revolution.
Its improbable journey to becoming a powerful business network is bound up with Iran's response to American pressure and international sanctions, which are intended to persuade Tehran to abandon alleged plans to develop nuclear weapons.
Among many other activities, the guard - often referred to by the acronym IRGC - is suspected of playing a central role in organising Iran's nuclear programme.
'In state of siege'
That is why the IRGC has been the prime target of four successive rounds of United Nations sanctions.
"By focussing on the Revolutionary Guards for sanctions, by making it clear to financial institutions around the world that doing business with the Revolutionary Guards puts at risk their access to the US financial system, I think they will be under significant pressure," explains Stuart Levey, the man in charge of US policy-making on this issue.
He has an impressive job title: under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the US treasury.
But there's no guarantee of success.
Indeed, some people argue sanctions and isolation are actually counterproductive because they create the conditions in which hardline groups, like the Revolutionary Guard, can extend their influence over politics and the economy.
"We are not in normal circumstances," says Abbas Edalat, an Iranian anti-sanctions campaigner and maths professor at Imperial College London.
"Iran has been subjected to threats of regime change, threats of military attack. In these circumstances it is not at all strange that the military gets increasingly more economic power in the country."
Speaking of the guard, he continues: "This is the force that the government can trust to run the economy when Iran is in a state of siege."
That is not a view Mr Levey is ever likely to accept.
"It's hard to argue that the Revolutionary Guard would have wanted to be singled out in UN Security Council resolutions for sanctions," he says.
Well concealed
No doubt the debate will continue.
But there's little dispute about the extent of the guards' business ambitions.
"What we do know is that they are trying to infiltrate every single aspect of the economy and are trying to engage in any kind of economic activity, both legal and illegal," explains Ali Alfoneh, an Iranian research fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute.
The IRGC has been building its economic influence for more than 20 years but the process has greatly accelerated since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - himself a former guardsman - took office in 2005.
In that period, the organisation's construction arm, Khatam al-Anbia, has won hundreds of lucrative government contracts in areas like construction, usually without having to bid.
It has also advanced through apparently rigged privatisations and part privatisations of state enterprises that, for example, saw a company affiliated to the guards take ownership of the national telephone service.
The guard is by far the largest investor on the Tehran stock market.
From car manufacturing to mining and clothing, even online shopping, there are few industries they aren't involved in, although often it's hard to tell what they control because it's well concealed.
"The Revolutionary Guard usually engages in trades [on the stock exchange] through front companies with names that vary and change all the time," says Mr Alfoneh.
"They do not want to be perceived as an economic enterprise. They consider themselves and they want to be considered as saviours of Iran, especially from the Iran-Iraq war," he adds.
New business
And that's where the guard's business empire began.
The organisation emerged from the eight-year-long conflict with Iraq in the 1980s as a formidable fighting machine, with organisational and engineering skills to match.
These skills were put to good use in post-war reconstruction, and the guard has been expanding its business activities ever since.
Much more recently, the IRGC has developed a new line of business.
Firms affiliated to the guard have been awarded multi billion-dollar contracts to open up Iran's largest offshore gas field, South Pars.
They have filled the gap left by international energy groups like Shell, Repsol and Total, who have pulled out in response to US pressure and tensions with the government in Tehran.
In economic terms, it may seem mad to entrust the development of one of the nation's most important assets to a military organisation that has no known expertise in energy extraction.
But the politics are easy to understand.
President Ahmadinejad wants to free strategic industries from foreign influence.
But in a clandestine way, the guard is heavily involved in the outside world.
Remarkably for an organisation that's embedded in government, it runs a massive smuggling operation. It brings in everything from contraband to scarce consumer goods, even alcohol which is banned in Iran.
The IRGC is a complex organisation with many different layers.
Some Western analysts see it as a kind of state within a state with its own agenda. Others regard it as directly under the control of hardline elements within the government.
The reality may lie somewhere in between.
It may be both an arm of the state and a power in its own right.
One thing is clear. This is an odd way to run a modern economy.
--
THE MEN OF ISLAMIC REVOLUTION
The Guards of the Iranian Revolution are profiled here.
BBC - 18 October 2009
Iran's Revolutionary Guards
. Several members of the Iranian cabinet are Guards veterans
. The Guards have some of Iran's most advanced military equipment
REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS
Officially the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), or Pasdaran
Formed after 1979 revolution
Loyal to clerics and counter to regular military
Estimated 125,000 troops
Includes ground forces, navy, air force, intelligence and special forces
Commander-in-chief: Mohammad Ali Jafari
Iran President Ahmadinejad is a former member
Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) was set up shortly after the 1979 Iranian revolution to defend the country's Islamic system, and to provide a counterweight to the regular armed forces.
It has since become a major military, political and economic force in Iran, with close ties to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a former member.
The force is estimated to have 125,000 active troops, boasts its own ground forces, navy and air force, and oversees Iran's strategic weapons.
It also controls the paramilitary Basij Resistance Force and the powerful bonyads, or charitable foundations, which run a considerable part of the Iranian economy.
The Revolutionary Guards' power and influence are such that the US government has designated it a "proliferator of weapons of mass destruction" and its elite overseas operations arm, the Quds Force, a "supporter of terrorism".
Guardians of the Revolution
Before the 1979 revolution, Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi relied on military might to ensure national security and to safeguard his power.
Afterwards, the new Islamic authorities, headed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, realised they too needed a powerful force committed to consolidating their leadership and revolutionary ideals.
The clerics therefore produced a new constitution that provided for both a regular Military (Artesh), to defend Iran's borders and maintain internal order, and a separate Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran), to protect the country's Islamic system.
In practice, these roles have often overlapped, with the Guards also helping to keep public order and developing its own army, navy and air force.
Despite having 200,000 fewer troops than the regular military, the Guards are considered the dominant military force in Iran and are behind many of the country's key military operations.
In March 2007, it was the Guards' navy which sparked a diplomatic stand-off with the UK by detaining 15 British sailors and marines patrolling the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway separating Iran and Iraq.
The US has also accused the Guards' 15,000-strong overseas operation arm, the Quds Force, of supplying explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) - powerful roadside bombs - to Shia militants in Iraq.
The force is believed to have staff in embassies around the world, from where it allegedly conducts intelligence operations and organises training camps and arms shipments for foreign militant groups which Iran supports, such as Hezbollah.
Civilian presence
The Guards also have a powerful presence in civilian institutions, and control the Basij Resistance Force, an Islamic volunteer militia of about 90,000 men and women.
The Basij, or Mobilisation of the Oppressed, are loyalists to the revolution who are often called out onto the streets at times of crisis to use force to dispel dissent.
Such popular power, combined with the strong support of the Supreme Leader, has also made the Guards a key player in Iranian politics.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - also commander-in-chief of the armed forces - is believed to have used his power to expand his and the Guards' influence by appointing several former members to top political posts and using the force to suppress dissidents and reformists.
Soon after his election in 2005, President Ahmadinejad named several former veterans to key ministries in his cabinet.
After his disputed re-election in June, the Revolutionary Guards warned demonstrators against further protests.
Many people in Iran saw the subsequent crackdown on the opposition as an assertion of control by the Revolutionary Guards.
It is an impression the Guards have confirmed themselves, and members of the Basij militia, a group affiliated with the Guards, have been prominent in putting down the opposition protests.
There are also reports that the Revolutionary Guards have increased their already substantial stake in Iran's economy, with the purchase of a majority stake in the main telecommunications company.
The Guards are thought to control around a third of Iran's economy through a series of subsidiaries and trusts.
The Guards' engineering wing, Khatam-ol-Anbia (also known by an acronym, GHORB), has been awarded several multi-billion-dollar construction and engineering contracts, including the operation of Tehran's new Imam Khomeini international airport.
The Guards are also said to own or control several university laboratories, arms companies and even a car manufacturer.
26 July 2010:
Expanding business empire of Iran's Revolutionary Guards
The IRGC has been building its economic influence for more than 20 years
IRGC's BUSINESS EMPIRE
Khatam al-Anbia construction firm: employs 20,000 workers and boasts of hundreds of government contracts
Iran Telecommunications Company - 50% stake bought in government privatisation scheme
Angouran - the largest lead and zinc mine in the Middle East
Bahman Automobile Manufacturing Group - (manufactures the Mazda brand) - 45% stake
Iran electronics industry - comprises electronic, computer and communications companies
Iranians' Mehr Economic Institution - financial institution with hundreds of branches (one of the largest banking networks in Iran)
Iran has embarked on a remarkable - many would say bizarre - experiment in business management.
Domination of a fairly sophisticated, energy-rich economy has been handed to a secretive military organisation that started out as a religious militia.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is now believed to control a third of the Iranian economy.
Some experts put the figure much higher, although all estimates are a matter of conjecture.
The force was created by Ayatollah Khomeini 30 years ago to protect the state and defend the principles of his Islamic revolution.
Its improbable journey to becoming a powerful business network is bound up with Iran's response to American pressure and international sanctions, which are intended to persuade Tehran to abandon alleged plans to develop nuclear weapons.
Among many other activities, the guard - often referred to by the acronym IRGC - is suspected of playing a central role in organising Iran's nuclear programme.
'In state of siege'
That is why the IRGC has been the prime target of four successive rounds of United Nations sanctions.
"By focussing on the Revolutionary Guards for sanctions, by making it clear to financial institutions around the world that doing business with the Revolutionary Guards puts at risk their access to the US financial system, I think they will be under significant pressure," explains Stuart Levey, the man in charge of US policy-making on this issue.
He has an impressive job title: under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the US treasury.
But there's no guarantee of success.
Indeed, some people argue sanctions and isolation are actually counterproductive because they create the conditions in which hardline groups, like the Revolutionary Guard, can extend their influence over politics and the economy.
"We are not in normal circumstances," says Abbas Edalat, an Iranian anti-sanctions campaigner and maths professor at Imperial College London.
"Iran has been subjected to threats of regime change, threats of military attack. In these circumstances it is not at all strange that the military gets increasingly more economic power in the country."
Speaking of the guard, he continues: "This is the force that the government can trust to run the economy when Iran is in a state of siege."
That is not a view Mr Levey is ever likely to accept.
"It's hard to argue that the Revolutionary Guard would have wanted to be singled out in UN Security Council resolutions for sanctions," he says.
Well concealed
No doubt the debate will continue.
But there's little dispute about the extent of the guards' business ambitions.
"What we do know is that they are trying to infiltrate every single aspect of the economy and are trying to engage in any kind of economic activity, both legal and illegal," explains Ali Alfoneh, an Iranian research fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute.
The IRGC has been building its economic influence for more than 20 years but the process has greatly accelerated since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - himself a former guardsman - took office in 2005.
In that period, the organisation's construction arm, Khatam al-Anbia, has won hundreds of lucrative government contracts in areas like construction, usually without having to bid.
It has also advanced through apparently rigged privatisations and part privatisations of state enterprises that, for example, saw a company affiliated to the guards take ownership of the national telephone service.
The guard is by far the largest investor on the Tehran stock market.
From car manufacturing to mining and clothing, even online shopping, there are few industries they aren't involved in, although often it's hard to tell what they control because it's well concealed.
"The Revolutionary Guard usually engages in trades [on the stock exchange] through front companies with names that vary and change all the time," says Mr Alfoneh.
"They do not want to be perceived as an economic enterprise. They consider themselves and they want to be considered as saviours of Iran, especially from the Iran-Iraq war," he adds.
New business
And that's where the guard's business empire began.
The organisation emerged from the eight-year-long conflict with Iraq in the 1980s as a formidable fighting machine, with organisational and engineering skills to match.
These skills were put to good use in post-war reconstruction, and the guard has been expanding its business activities ever since.
Much more recently, the IRGC has developed a new line of business.
Firms affiliated to the guard have been awarded multi billion-dollar contracts to open up Iran's largest offshore gas field, South Pars.
They have filled the gap left by international energy groups like Shell, Repsol and Total, who have pulled out in response to US pressure and tensions with the government in Tehran.
In economic terms, it may seem mad to entrust the development of one of the nation's most important assets to a military organisation that has no known expertise in energy extraction.
But the politics are easy to understand.
President Ahmadinejad wants to free strategic industries from foreign influence.
But in a clandestine way, the guard is heavily involved in the outside world.
Remarkably for an organisation that's embedded in government, it runs a massive smuggling operation. It brings in everything from contraband to scarce consumer goods, even alcohol which is banned in Iran.
The IRGC is a complex organisation with many different layers.
Some Western analysts see it as a kind of state within a state with its own agenda. Others regard it as directly under the control of hardline elements within the government.
The reality may lie somewhere in between.
It may be both an arm of the state and a power in its own right.
One thing is clear. This is an odd way to run a modern economy.
--
Friday, 28 May 2010
Britain invites Hezbollah
UK government has dinner with Hezbollah officials but not soldiers.
BBC - 5 March 2009
UK restores links with Hezbollah
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah remains popular in Lebanon
Britain says it is re-establishing contacts with the political wing of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah.
The move follows "positive political developments" in Lebanon, officials from the UK Foreign Office said.
It comes about 10 months after Hezbollah signed a unity accord in Lebanon and joined the government.
Only last year, the government put Hezbollah's military wing on a list of proscribed organisations over its alleged training of insurgents in Iraq.
"We are exploring certain contacts at an official level with Hezbollah's political wing, including MPs," said a spokesperson for the Foreign Office.
The spokesperson said the UK was doing "all it can" to support Lebanon's unity government, of which Hezbollah's political wing is a part.
"Our objective with Hezbollah remains to encourage them to move away from violence and play a constructive, democratic and peaceful role in Lebanese politics, in line with a range of UN Security Council Resolutions."
The spokesperson said Britain would continue to have no contact with Hezbollah's military wing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7927025.stm
--
BBC - 4 March 2009
UK mulls lifting ban on Hezbollah
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah maintains a wide following
By Paul Adams - Diplomatic correspondent, BBC News
Britain is considering dropping a ban on contact with the political wing of the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, a British minister has confirmed.
The government has had no official talks with Hezbollah since 2005.
But the UK's ambassador in Beirut has had contact with at least one Hezbollah politician since the group joined the country's unity government last June.
British ministers say there are no similar plans to open a dialogue with the Palestinian militant group, Hamas.
Hard to avoid
Only last year, the government put Hezbollah's military wing on a list of proscribed organisations over its alleged training of insurgents in Iraq.
But speaking to members of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell confirmed that the government is now looking for ways to establish contact with the organisation's political wing.
Since last summer, the party has been part of Lebanon's national unity government and officials admit that contact is hard to avoid.
In the words of one official in London, there is a lot of political and security fragility in Lebanon - which he says means the UK should do what it can to support the government.
There is no such rethink going on with regard to the Palestinian group, Hamas.
Mr Rammell said the government wanted to get to a position where it could engage directly with Hamas.
But he said there had to be substantive movement towards internationally agreed principles, including the rejection of violence and recognition of Israel's right to exist, before that could happen.
FROM OTHER NEWS SITES:
Haaretz: US says no plans to renew contact with Hezbollah
Arab News: US assures Lebanon over Syria overtures
Lebanon Daily Star: Feltman to tell Syria: 'Lebanon is for the Lebanese'
Washington Post: Hezbollah wants dialogue with Britain to be public
Xinhua News Agency Hezbollah welcomes Britain's decision to engage in direct talks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7924849.stm
BBC - 5 March 2009
UK restores links with Hezbollah
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah remains popular in Lebanon
Britain says it is re-establishing contacts with the political wing of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah.
The move follows "positive political developments" in Lebanon, officials from the UK Foreign Office said.
It comes about 10 months after Hezbollah signed a unity accord in Lebanon and joined the government.
Only last year, the government put Hezbollah's military wing on a list of proscribed organisations over its alleged training of insurgents in Iraq.
"We are exploring certain contacts at an official level with Hezbollah's political wing, including MPs," said a spokesperson for the Foreign Office.
The spokesperson said the UK was doing "all it can" to support Lebanon's unity government, of which Hezbollah's political wing is a part.
"Our objective with Hezbollah remains to encourage them to move away from violence and play a constructive, democratic and peaceful role in Lebanese politics, in line with a range of UN Security Council Resolutions."
The spokesperson said Britain would continue to have no contact with Hezbollah's military wing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7927025.stm
--
BBC - 4 March 2009
UK mulls lifting ban on Hezbollah
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah maintains a wide following
By Paul Adams - Diplomatic correspondent, BBC News
Britain is considering dropping a ban on contact with the political wing of the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, a British minister has confirmed.
The government has had no official talks with Hezbollah since 2005.
But the UK's ambassador in Beirut has had contact with at least one Hezbollah politician since the group joined the country's unity government last June.
British ministers say there are no similar plans to open a dialogue with the Palestinian militant group, Hamas.
Hard to avoid
Only last year, the government put Hezbollah's military wing on a list of proscribed organisations over its alleged training of insurgents in Iraq.
But speaking to members of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell confirmed that the government is now looking for ways to establish contact with the organisation's political wing.
Since last summer, the party has been part of Lebanon's national unity government and officials admit that contact is hard to avoid.
In the words of one official in London, there is a lot of political and security fragility in Lebanon - which he says means the UK should do what it can to support the government.
There is no such rethink going on with regard to the Palestinian group, Hamas.
Mr Rammell said the government wanted to get to a position where it could engage directly with Hamas.
But he said there had to be substantive movement towards internationally agreed principles, including the rejection of violence and recognition of Israel's right to exist, before that could happen.
FROM OTHER NEWS SITES:
Haaretz: US says no plans to renew contact with Hezbollah
Arab News: US assures Lebanon over Syria overtures
Lebanon Daily Star: Feltman to tell Syria: 'Lebanon is for the Lebanese'
Washington Post: Hezbollah wants dialogue with Britain to be public
Xinhua News Agency Hezbollah welcomes Britain's decision to engage in direct talks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7924849.stm
Israel fears Hezbollah
After getting defeated twice at hands of Hezbollah, Israel now fears the power of the Lebanese group.
--
BBC - 24 May 2010
Israel fears stronger Hezbollah 10 years after pull-out
A Hezbollah flag can be seen flying just metres from the border
"From a local guerrilla organisation, we've created a monster." - Alon Ben-David - Defence analyst
The Four Mothers activists say soldiers were dying "for nothing' in south Lebanon
Barely 100m from a picnic spot in Israel's northern-most village, the yellow flag of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah flutters in the breeze.
It was through Metulla that the last Israeli soldiers drove as they withdrew unilaterally from Lebanon in 2000, ending their 18-year presence in the country.
The troops had held a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, aiming to protect Israel's northern border from militant attacks.
Now 10 years later, the scene is tranquil, although a major war was fought across this border in 2006, and the regional media is full of talk of Iranian-backed Hezbollah's growing arsenal.
"In Metulla, it's always business as usual," says local resident Jonathan Javor, 28. "You still have to pick fruit, you still have to open your hotel, no matter what's going on."
Metulla forms a finger of land jutting into Lebanon.
Its green orchards back right onto the border, overlooked by Lebanese villages on the hills beyond.
Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, pushing as far as Beirut in an attempt to target Palestinian militants, but then drew back to hold a zone varying from about 5-20km (3-12 miles) into Lebanon, to protect border communities such as Metulla.
While many Lebanese civilians from the buffer zone crossed into Israel daily to work, Hezbollah and other militant groups fought a war of attrition against the Israelis and their Lebanese Christian allies, the South Lebanon Army.
On average, about two or three Israeli soldiers died each month.
Sitting on a sunny veranda in Kibbutz Ashdot Yaacov, an hour's drive south, three friends reminisce together about the campaign they waged, as part of a group called Four Mothers, for the withdrawal.
"Many people called us saying 'Please take my child out of Lebanon, I want him alive," says Amalia Dayan.
The women are at pains to point out their commitment to sending their sons and daughters to defend Israel.
But Mrs Dayan says they felt losses in Lebanon were a sacrifice "for nothing," in a long-standing occupation "with no goal".
Ten years on, the women have no regrets. Smadar Ben-Porat believes it is just a matter of time until the next war with Hezbollah, but she thinks the movement would have grown stronger whether or not Israel had pulled out.
"I believe it's better for us to defend our country from legitimate borders," she says.
Israeli President Shimon Peres recently accused Syria of transferring Scud missiles to Hezbollah. The US says the group now has more missiles than most governments.
There is a UN presence in south Lebanon, which was expanded as part of the 2006 ceasefire agreement, but few Israelis believe it has stopped Hezbollah rearming.
Alon Ben-David, military analyst for Israel's Channel 10 television, believes Hezbollah has 40,000 rockets and long-range precision missiles with which it could strike targets such as military bases and power stations, which "makes the equation completely different".
"From a local guerrilla organisation, we've created a monster," he says.
In 2000, the troops were pulled out ahead of schedule, in what was perceived on both sides as a hasty scramble. Hezbollah claimed it as a major victory.
"We boosted the radical axis - Iran, Syria and Hezbollah - we gave them a lot of encouragement in the withdrawal and I think we're still paying the price for it," says Mr Ben-David.
At present, he believes neither side has the incentive for another war, "because they realise what devastation it would cause on both sides".
But, he says, if Israel were to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear programme, Hezbollah would be likely to hit back.
'Necessity'
In Metulla, town mayor Herzel Boker dismisses talk of imminent war as "manufactured by journalists".
A commander in Israel's south at the time of the withdrawal, he believes the pull-out was "a necessity", but says it left the security situation "effectively without control".
Few Israelis argue that the troops should have stayed, but many wish they had left differently - as part of a peace deal with Syria and Lebanon, or at least without creating the impression of weakness.
Mr Boker is also angered that Israel did not make better provisions for the SLA fighters and their families. Some were able to rush across the border to begin new lives in Israel, but others were left behind and captured by Hezbollah.
The 2006 war began when Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers from the border region. Israel struck back, mainly at south Lebanon and Hezbollah areas in Beirut.
Some 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and some 160 Israelis, most of whom were soldiers, were killed.
Now, there are two Hezbollah ministers in Lebanon's unity government and Israel has said it will hold Lebanon as a whole responsible for the activities of Hezbollah.
"If Lebanon creates an escalation, the state of Israel will react, and as we saw in 2006 it could react aggressively… if we will not live in peace, neither will they," Mr Boker says.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8699425.stm
--
BBC - 28 April 2010
US: Hezbollah armed with improved missiles
The US defence secretary has warned that Hezbollah now has more rockets and missiles than most governments.
Robert Gates accused Syria and Iran of supplying weapons of "ever-increasing capability" to the military wing of the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement.
"This is obviously destabilising for the whole region," he said following talks with his Israeli counterpart.
Hezbollah has said the missile stock is not as big as the US or Israel's and vowed to continue arming itself.
Mr Gates did not say if Syria was supplying Hezbollah with Scud ballistic missiles, as Israel has alleged.
Hezbollah fought a 34-day conflict with Israel in 2006 during which more than 1,200 Lebanese people, mostly civilians, were killed. Some 160 Israeli people, most of whom were soldiers, also died.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the conflict, included an arms embargo on Lebanon, except for transfers authorised by the Lebanese government or UN.
'Delicate balance'
After meeting Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak in Washington on Tuesday, Mr Gates said Syria and Iran was "providing Hezbollah with rockets and missiles of ever-increasing capability".
"And we're at a point now, where Hezbollah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world, and this is obviously destabilising for the whole region and we're watching it very carefully," he told a news conference at the Pentagon.
Mr Barak also warned that Syria was arming Hezbollah with "weapons systems that can turn or disrupt the very delicate balance in Lebanon".
But he played down the chances of war over the alleged transfers.
"We do not intend to provoke any kind of major collision in Lebanon, or vis-a-vis Syria... but we are watching closely these developments and think that they do not contribute to stability in the region."
Mr Barak also chose not to repeat the allegation, made by Israeli President Shimon Peres last week, that Syria had been smuggling "Scud missiles to Hezbollah so that it can threaten peace".
A Hezbollah member of Lebanon's parliament told local media that the organisation would continue to rearm itself.
"Our choice was and remains to secure all the arms of resistance that we can," Hassan Fadlallah told the Arabic As-Safir newspaper.
But he said Hezbollah's armaments "do not compare" with the US or Israel's.
And another Hezbollah MP, Nawwar al-Sahili, told the BBC that the group had the right to buy whatever it needed from whomever it deemed appropriate in order to protect Lebanon.
Mr Sahili also said that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah - who recently said that if there was another war, Hezbollah would be able to hit Tel Aviv - never made empty threats.
Syria strongly denied the charge, saying it believed Israel aimed "through these claims to further strain the atmosphere in the region". Lebanon's prime minister said it seemed Israel was trying to find a pretext for a military strike.
Last week, Syria's most senior diplomat in Washington, Deputy Chief of Mission Zouheir Jabbour, was summoned by the state department to be warned about its "provocative behaviour".
A senior state department official later said the US would consider the "full range of tools" available to halt any smuggling of Scuds.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8647909.stm
--
BBC - 7 November 2006
Israelis count cost of conflict
"We got in. We got killed. That's it. We didn't achieve anything." - Boaz, Israeli reservist
At Biranit, an Israeli military outpost, high on a hill overlooking a broad sweep of southern Lebanon, Lt Col Guy Hazoot, of the Galilee Division of the Israeli army, pointed to a heap of rubble not more than 50 yards away across no-man's land.
"This was a Hezbollah position," he told me. "And they're not here any more."
But when Oren, a young lieutenant, took me for a drive along the fence, he painted a slightly different picture.
He told me it was quiet now, but there are still Hezbollah fighters out there, collecting information, making sketches.
Getting ready for the next round?
"It's hard to tell," he said. "Everyone wants to be ready."
Another round. It's hard to find Israelis who don't fear a fresh outbreak of violence, perhaps soon.
Pessimism
Their pessimism is fuelled, in part, by the belief that Israel did not fight well enough in this summer's conflict in Lebanon.
In Haifa, at the scene of an explosion in August, I found Rami, brooding and resentful about a war he called a failure.
“ We got in. We got killed. That's it. We didn't achieve anything ”
Boaz, Israeli reservist
"We didn't achieve anything because the kidnapped soldiers are not back. But I think in the next war you will see what our strength is."
His sentiments are echoed by soldiers who fought in Lebanon.
Boaz, a reservist, told me his engineering unit lacked proper equipment and adequate training.
He lost nine colleagues when Hezbollah fighters fired anti-tank missiles into a house where the unit was sleeping.
"We got in. We got killed. That's it. We didn't achieve anything."
Sense of failure
Whether it is soldiers who fought in Lebanon, or civilians in the north, the sense of failure and mistrust seems all pervasive.
Two and a half months after the war ended, the questions - and recriminations - haven't stopped.
Hardly a day goes by without further allegations of military incompetence and political bungling being aired in Israel's notoriously unruly press.
A perceived lack of effective leadership, political or military, is a question in the minds of many.
With the era of the commanding soldier-politician apparently behind them - at least for now - journalist Danny Ben-Simon says Israelis feel lost.
"Israelis feel... that the current leaders are a total failure," he says.
"You can see in the paper ironic ads: "If you have right qualities, we need a prime minister, a defence minister. We need all the ministers.""
Israel's military did a lot of damage to Hezbollah over the summer, but those who fought, and those on the receiving end of Hezbollah's rockets don't feel any sense of triumph.
The latest fighting in Gaza, and the spectre of a nuclear-armed Iran, serve to convince many that Israel's sixth Middle East war was simply the latest in a series without end.
Speaking in Tel Aviv on Monday, the British Ambassador to Israel, Tom Phillips, warned that the Lebanon war had "prompted Israelis to believe that Israel has no choice but to remain strong, and to be prepared to pay the heavy price of however many wars the future may bring".
Hear the full story on Radio 4: File on 4 Tue 7 Nov 2000GMT, repeated Sun 12 Nov 1700GMT or online at the File on 4 website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/file_on_4/6121950.stm
--
BBC - 25 May 2010
Hezbollah entrenched in Lebanon years after Israel left
Every day 70-year-old Abu Ali Shami looks at Israel from his olive grove. The barbed wire, which is only a metre away, reminds him of what life was like when Israeli soldiers were stationed on the Lebanese side of the barbed wire fence.
"We were powerless," Abu Ali Shami says. "There was so much injustice, if felt like we lived in a big prison."
Like all residents of Kfar Kila, a village on the Lebanese-Israeli border, Abu Ali Shami still remembers restrictions on travel and the climate of fear, enforced not only by the Israeli military but also their Lebanese collaborators.
"We were so happy when they left," remembers Abu Ali, another villager in Kfar Kila. "They withdrew in the middle of the night and it felt as if we finally had our country back."
Ten years on since the withdrawal, the UN together with the Lebanese army patrol the border area. But flapping in the breeze along the fence are yellow and green flags of Hezbollah. Waving next to them is the flag of the group's biggest foreign backer - Iran.
It is Hezbollah that has real control over what happens in southern Lebanon and many villagers say they like the arrangement.
"It's the resistance, its weapons and [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nasrallah who make us feel safe here," says Fawwaz Mohammed. "Without the resistance we could never be free."
'Victories'
Hezbollah is staging a series of events marking the 10th anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal, and what it sees as its victories since then - particularly the most recent war with Israel in 2006. Among them is the opening of a new war museum just a short drive away from the border.
The museum showcases hundreds of pieces of weaponry and equipment. The museum cost more than $3m to build. This was raised, according to Hezbollah, entirely from private donations.
"It's a commemoration of our fighters, of our martyrdom and also this museum is the way of reminding the new generation about sacrifices that they made," says the group's spokesman, Dr Ibrahim Moussawi.
As a guide leads visitors around the museum through an elaborate network of underground tunnels, he describes the battles and the living conditions of the Hezbollah fighters.
Almost all of South Lebanon is riddled with similar bunkers, it is believed that Hezbollah uses them to keep its weapons and train its guerrillas.
But the guide brushes off all questions about the real tunnels: "It's a secret," he laughs.
While Hezbollah remains extremely secretive about its military, the museum is in many ways, a sign of just how much the group has evolved over the last 10 years.
Politics and military
Today, it is arguably the most powerful militia in the Middle East and inside Lebanon it also functions as a sophisticated political organisation which has won elections, which has a track record of doing serious social work, and which is clever at marketing itself.
Hezbollah's growing military might, fuelled by funding from Iran, is a serious concern for Israel and its allies.
Israel and Washington have recently accused Syria of transferring long range scud rockets to Hezbollah. The allegations sparked off a new cycle of mutual accusations, and speculation about another war.
The Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, was among those to deny the allegations that there were scud rockets in Lebanon, but Hezbollah never issued a denial.
In fact many in Lebanon believe that the group does have some sort of long-range missile, if only because in some of his recent speeches the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has threatened to hit targets deep inside Israel.
"I don't know what kind of rockets Hezbollah has, but what I do know is that Hassan Nasrallah does not make empty threats. Israel knows that, which is why they are worried," says Beirut-based analyst Rami Khoury.
And yet, despite all the talk of war, tensions and mutual accusations - or partly because of it all - the situation, Rami Khoury believes, is currently under control.
"What we have now is a situation of quite good mutual deterrence. Nobody is going to give up or surrender to the other side. At the same time, both sides know that if they start a war, it will be ferocious and it will kill many civilians," says Rami Khoury.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/10152082.stm
--
BBC - 26 February 2010
Hezbollah chief Nasrallah meets Ahmadinejad in Syria
"If the Zionist regime decides to repeat its past mistakes, the region will finish it off", Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian President
The head of the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has made a rare public appearance in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Sheikh Nasrallah attended a dinner with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
He is under an Israeli death threat and makes very few appearances in public. When he addresses Hezbollah, he does so by video from a secret location.
Both Syria and Iran provide the group with financial and military support.
Hezbollah fought a 33-day war with Israel in 2006 during which more than 1,200 Lebanese people, mostly civilians, were killed. Some 160 Israeli people, most of whom were soldiers, also died.
In November, Sheikh Nasrallah vowed to boost the capacity of its military wing and threatened to retaliate if Israel attacked Lebanon.
'Deep' ties
Since 2006, the Hezbollah leader has made few public appearances in Lebanon, even avoiding key religious and political occasions.
His fear of an assassination attempt has been particularly heightened since February 2008, when the commander of his group's military wing, Imad Mughniyeh, was killed in a car bombing in Damascus.
Hezbollah blamed Israel for the attack, but it denied any involvement.
Before Thursday's dinner, Sheikh Nasrallah and President Ahmadinejad discussed "the latest developments in the region, and Zionist threats against Lebanon and Syria", Hezbollah's al-Manar television reported.
"If the Zionist regime decides to repeat its past mistakes, the region will finish it off," al-Manar quoted the Iranian leader as saying.
After bilateral talks on Thursday, President Assad said Syria and Iran were working together to confront "Israeli terrorism".
Both leaders dismissed US calls for Syria to distance itself from Iran, emphasising their "deep and brotherly" ties.
The meeting came a week after the US signalled an attempt to improve ties with Syria, sending a senior official to Damascus for talks and nominating a new ambassador after the withdrawal of his predecessor five years ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8539178.stm
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BBC - 24 May 2010
Israel fears stronger Hezbollah 10 years after pull-out
A Hezbollah flag can be seen flying just metres from the border
"From a local guerrilla organisation, we've created a monster." - Alon Ben-David - Defence analyst
The Four Mothers activists say soldiers were dying "for nothing' in south Lebanon
Barely 100m from a picnic spot in Israel's northern-most village, the yellow flag of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah flutters in the breeze.
It was through Metulla that the last Israeli soldiers drove as they withdrew unilaterally from Lebanon in 2000, ending their 18-year presence in the country.
The troops had held a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, aiming to protect Israel's northern border from militant attacks.
Now 10 years later, the scene is tranquil, although a major war was fought across this border in 2006, and the regional media is full of talk of Iranian-backed Hezbollah's growing arsenal.
"In Metulla, it's always business as usual," says local resident Jonathan Javor, 28. "You still have to pick fruit, you still have to open your hotel, no matter what's going on."
Metulla forms a finger of land jutting into Lebanon.
Its green orchards back right onto the border, overlooked by Lebanese villages on the hills beyond.
Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, pushing as far as Beirut in an attempt to target Palestinian militants, but then drew back to hold a zone varying from about 5-20km (3-12 miles) into Lebanon, to protect border communities such as Metulla.
While many Lebanese civilians from the buffer zone crossed into Israel daily to work, Hezbollah and other militant groups fought a war of attrition against the Israelis and their Lebanese Christian allies, the South Lebanon Army.
On average, about two or three Israeli soldiers died each month.
Sitting on a sunny veranda in Kibbutz Ashdot Yaacov, an hour's drive south, three friends reminisce together about the campaign they waged, as part of a group called Four Mothers, for the withdrawal.
"Many people called us saying 'Please take my child out of Lebanon, I want him alive," says Amalia Dayan.
The women are at pains to point out their commitment to sending their sons and daughters to defend Israel.
But Mrs Dayan says they felt losses in Lebanon were a sacrifice "for nothing," in a long-standing occupation "with no goal".
Ten years on, the women have no regrets. Smadar Ben-Porat believes it is just a matter of time until the next war with Hezbollah, but she thinks the movement would have grown stronger whether or not Israel had pulled out.
"I believe it's better for us to defend our country from legitimate borders," she says.
Israeli President Shimon Peres recently accused Syria of transferring Scud missiles to Hezbollah. The US says the group now has more missiles than most governments.
There is a UN presence in south Lebanon, which was expanded as part of the 2006 ceasefire agreement, but few Israelis believe it has stopped Hezbollah rearming.
Alon Ben-David, military analyst for Israel's Channel 10 television, believes Hezbollah has 40,000 rockets and long-range precision missiles with which it could strike targets such as military bases and power stations, which "makes the equation completely different".
"From a local guerrilla organisation, we've created a monster," he says.
In 2000, the troops were pulled out ahead of schedule, in what was perceived on both sides as a hasty scramble. Hezbollah claimed it as a major victory.
"We boosted the radical axis - Iran, Syria and Hezbollah - we gave them a lot of encouragement in the withdrawal and I think we're still paying the price for it," says Mr Ben-David.
At present, he believes neither side has the incentive for another war, "because they realise what devastation it would cause on both sides".
But, he says, if Israel were to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear programme, Hezbollah would be likely to hit back.
'Necessity'
In Metulla, town mayor Herzel Boker dismisses talk of imminent war as "manufactured by journalists".
A commander in Israel's south at the time of the withdrawal, he believes the pull-out was "a necessity", but says it left the security situation "effectively without control".
Few Israelis argue that the troops should have stayed, but many wish they had left differently - as part of a peace deal with Syria and Lebanon, or at least without creating the impression of weakness.
Mr Boker is also angered that Israel did not make better provisions for the SLA fighters and their families. Some were able to rush across the border to begin new lives in Israel, but others were left behind and captured by Hezbollah.
The 2006 war began when Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers from the border region. Israel struck back, mainly at south Lebanon and Hezbollah areas in Beirut.
Some 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and some 160 Israelis, most of whom were soldiers, were killed.
Now, there are two Hezbollah ministers in Lebanon's unity government and Israel has said it will hold Lebanon as a whole responsible for the activities of Hezbollah.
"If Lebanon creates an escalation, the state of Israel will react, and as we saw in 2006 it could react aggressively… if we will not live in peace, neither will they," Mr Boker says.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8699425.stm
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BBC - 28 April 2010
US: Hezbollah armed with improved missiles
The US defence secretary has warned that Hezbollah now has more rockets and missiles than most governments.
Robert Gates accused Syria and Iran of supplying weapons of "ever-increasing capability" to the military wing of the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement.
"This is obviously destabilising for the whole region," he said following talks with his Israeli counterpart.
Hezbollah has said the missile stock is not as big as the US or Israel's and vowed to continue arming itself.
Mr Gates did not say if Syria was supplying Hezbollah with Scud ballistic missiles, as Israel has alleged.
Hezbollah fought a 34-day conflict with Israel in 2006 during which more than 1,200 Lebanese people, mostly civilians, were killed. Some 160 Israeli people, most of whom were soldiers, also died.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the conflict, included an arms embargo on Lebanon, except for transfers authorised by the Lebanese government or UN.
'Delicate balance'
After meeting Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak in Washington on Tuesday, Mr Gates said Syria and Iran was "providing Hezbollah with rockets and missiles of ever-increasing capability".
"And we're at a point now, where Hezbollah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world, and this is obviously destabilising for the whole region and we're watching it very carefully," he told a news conference at the Pentagon.
Mr Barak also warned that Syria was arming Hezbollah with "weapons systems that can turn or disrupt the very delicate balance in Lebanon".
But he played down the chances of war over the alleged transfers.
"We do not intend to provoke any kind of major collision in Lebanon, or vis-a-vis Syria... but we are watching closely these developments and think that they do not contribute to stability in the region."
Mr Barak also chose not to repeat the allegation, made by Israeli President Shimon Peres last week, that Syria had been smuggling "Scud missiles to Hezbollah so that it can threaten peace".
A Hezbollah member of Lebanon's parliament told local media that the organisation would continue to rearm itself.
"Our choice was and remains to secure all the arms of resistance that we can," Hassan Fadlallah told the Arabic As-Safir newspaper.
But he said Hezbollah's armaments "do not compare" with the US or Israel's.
And another Hezbollah MP, Nawwar al-Sahili, told the BBC that the group had the right to buy whatever it needed from whomever it deemed appropriate in order to protect Lebanon.
Mr Sahili also said that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah - who recently said that if there was another war, Hezbollah would be able to hit Tel Aviv - never made empty threats.
Syria strongly denied the charge, saying it believed Israel aimed "through these claims to further strain the atmosphere in the region". Lebanon's prime minister said it seemed Israel was trying to find a pretext for a military strike.
Last week, Syria's most senior diplomat in Washington, Deputy Chief of Mission Zouheir Jabbour, was summoned by the state department to be warned about its "provocative behaviour".
A senior state department official later said the US would consider the "full range of tools" available to halt any smuggling of Scuds.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8647909.stm
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BBC - 7 November 2006
Israelis count cost of conflict
"We got in. We got killed. That's it. We didn't achieve anything." - Boaz, Israeli reservist
At Biranit, an Israeli military outpost, high on a hill overlooking a broad sweep of southern Lebanon, Lt Col Guy Hazoot, of the Galilee Division of the Israeli army, pointed to a heap of rubble not more than 50 yards away across no-man's land.
"This was a Hezbollah position," he told me. "And they're not here any more."
But when Oren, a young lieutenant, took me for a drive along the fence, he painted a slightly different picture.
He told me it was quiet now, but there are still Hezbollah fighters out there, collecting information, making sketches.
Getting ready for the next round?
"It's hard to tell," he said. "Everyone wants to be ready."
Another round. It's hard to find Israelis who don't fear a fresh outbreak of violence, perhaps soon.
Pessimism
Their pessimism is fuelled, in part, by the belief that Israel did not fight well enough in this summer's conflict in Lebanon.
In Haifa, at the scene of an explosion in August, I found Rami, brooding and resentful about a war he called a failure.
“ We got in. We got killed. That's it. We didn't achieve anything ”
Boaz, Israeli reservist
"We didn't achieve anything because the kidnapped soldiers are not back. But I think in the next war you will see what our strength is."
His sentiments are echoed by soldiers who fought in Lebanon.
Boaz, a reservist, told me his engineering unit lacked proper equipment and adequate training.
He lost nine colleagues when Hezbollah fighters fired anti-tank missiles into a house where the unit was sleeping.
"We got in. We got killed. That's it. We didn't achieve anything."
Sense of failure
Whether it is soldiers who fought in Lebanon, or civilians in the north, the sense of failure and mistrust seems all pervasive.
Two and a half months after the war ended, the questions - and recriminations - haven't stopped.
Hardly a day goes by without further allegations of military incompetence and political bungling being aired in Israel's notoriously unruly press.
A perceived lack of effective leadership, political or military, is a question in the minds of many.
With the era of the commanding soldier-politician apparently behind them - at least for now - journalist Danny Ben-Simon says Israelis feel lost.
"Israelis feel... that the current leaders are a total failure," he says.
"You can see in the paper ironic ads: "If you have right qualities, we need a prime minister, a defence minister. We need all the ministers.""
Israel's military did a lot of damage to Hezbollah over the summer, but those who fought, and those on the receiving end of Hezbollah's rockets don't feel any sense of triumph.
The latest fighting in Gaza, and the spectre of a nuclear-armed Iran, serve to convince many that Israel's sixth Middle East war was simply the latest in a series without end.
Speaking in Tel Aviv on Monday, the British Ambassador to Israel, Tom Phillips, warned that the Lebanon war had "prompted Israelis to believe that Israel has no choice but to remain strong, and to be prepared to pay the heavy price of however many wars the future may bring".
Hear the full story on Radio 4: File on 4 Tue 7 Nov 2000GMT, repeated Sun 12 Nov 1700GMT or online at the File on 4 website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/file_on_4/6121950.stm
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BBC - 25 May 2010
Hezbollah entrenched in Lebanon years after Israel left
Every day 70-year-old Abu Ali Shami looks at Israel from his olive grove. The barbed wire, which is only a metre away, reminds him of what life was like when Israeli soldiers were stationed on the Lebanese side of the barbed wire fence.
"We were powerless," Abu Ali Shami says. "There was so much injustice, if felt like we lived in a big prison."
Like all residents of Kfar Kila, a village on the Lebanese-Israeli border, Abu Ali Shami still remembers restrictions on travel and the climate of fear, enforced not only by the Israeli military but also their Lebanese collaborators.
"We were so happy when they left," remembers Abu Ali, another villager in Kfar Kila. "They withdrew in the middle of the night and it felt as if we finally had our country back."
Ten years on since the withdrawal, the UN together with the Lebanese army patrol the border area. But flapping in the breeze along the fence are yellow and green flags of Hezbollah. Waving next to them is the flag of the group's biggest foreign backer - Iran.
It is Hezbollah that has real control over what happens in southern Lebanon and many villagers say they like the arrangement.
"It's the resistance, its weapons and [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nasrallah who make us feel safe here," says Fawwaz Mohammed. "Without the resistance we could never be free."
'Victories'
Hezbollah is staging a series of events marking the 10th anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal, and what it sees as its victories since then - particularly the most recent war with Israel in 2006. Among them is the opening of a new war museum just a short drive away from the border.
The museum showcases hundreds of pieces of weaponry and equipment. The museum cost more than $3m to build. This was raised, according to Hezbollah, entirely from private donations.
"It's a commemoration of our fighters, of our martyrdom and also this museum is the way of reminding the new generation about sacrifices that they made," says the group's spokesman, Dr Ibrahim Moussawi.
As a guide leads visitors around the museum through an elaborate network of underground tunnels, he describes the battles and the living conditions of the Hezbollah fighters.
Almost all of South Lebanon is riddled with similar bunkers, it is believed that Hezbollah uses them to keep its weapons and train its guerrillas.
But the guide brushes off all questions about the real tunnels: "It's a secret," he laughs.
While Hezbollah remains extremely secretive about its military, the museum is in many ways, a sign of just how much the group has evolved over the last 10 years.
Politics and military
Today, it is arguably the most powerful militia in the Middle East and inside Lebanon it also functions as a sophisticated political organisation which has won elections, which has a track record of doing serious social work, and which is clever at marketing itself.
Hezbollah's growing military might, fuelled by funding from Iran, is a serious concern for Israel and its allies.
Israel and Washington have recently accused Syria of transferring long range scud rockets to Hezbollah. The allegations sparked off a new cycle of mutual accusations, and speculation about another war.
The Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, was among those to deny the allegations that there were scud rockets in Lebanon, but Hezbollah never issued a denial.
In fact many in Lebanon believe that the group does have some sort of long-range missile, if only because in some of his recent speeches the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has threatened to hit targets deep inside Israel.
"I don't know what kind of rockets Hezbollah has, but what I do know is that Hassan Nasrallah does not make empty threats. Israel knows that, which is why they are worried," says Beirut-based analyst Rami Khoury.
And yet, despite all the talk of war, tensions and mutual accusations - or partly because of it all - the situation, Rami Khoury believes, is currently under control.
"What we have now is a situation of quite good mutual deterrence. Nobody is going to give up or surrender to the other side. At the same time, both sides know that if they start a war, it will be ferocious and it will kill many civilians," says Rami Khoury.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/10152082.stm
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BBC - 26 February 2010
Hezbollah chief Nasrallah meets Ahmadinejad in Syria
"If the Zionist regime decides to repeat its past mistakes, the region will finish it off", Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian President
The head of the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has made a rare public appearance in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
Sheikh Nasrallah attended a dinner with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
He is under an Israeli death threat and makes very few appearances in public. When he addresses Hezbollah, he does so by video from a secret location.
Both Syria and Iran provide the group with financial and military support.
Hezbollah fought a 33-day war with Israel in 2006 during which more than 1,200 Lebanese people, mostly civilians, were killed. Some 160 Israeli people, most of whom were soldiers, also died.
In November, Sheikh Nasrallah vowed to boost the capacity of its military wing and threatened to retaliate if Israel attacked Lebanon.
'Deep' ties
Since 2006, the Hezbollah leader has made few public appearances in Lebanon, even avoiding key religious and political occasions.
His fear of an assassination attempt has been particularly heightened since February 2008, when the commander of his group's military wing, Imad Mughniyeh, was killed in a car bombing in Damascus.
Hezbollah blamed Israel for the attack, but it denied any involvement.
Before Thursday's dinner, Sheikh Nasrallah and President Ahmadinejad discussed "the latest developments in the region, and Zionist threats against Lebanon and Syria", Hezbollah's al-Manar television reported.
"If the Zionist regime decides to repeat its past mistakes, the region will finish it off," al-Manar quoted the Iranian leader as saying.
After bilateral talks on Thursday, President Assad said Syria and Iran were working together to confront "Israeli terrorism".
Both leaders dismissed US calls for Syria to distance itself from Iran, emphasising their "deep and brotherly" ties.
The meeting came a week after the US signalled an attempt to improve ties with Syria, sending a senior official to Damascus for talks and nominating a new ambassador after the withdrawal of his predecessor five years ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8539178.stm
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Hezbollah hates Photos
Hezbollah does not let US and Israel take pictures.
BBC - 31 May 2007
Hezbollah's secret nectarines
Hezbollah flags are flown all over southern Lebanon
In southern Lebanon, where the Israeli army and Hezbollah fighters fought last year, an uneasy peace reigns. But as Darius Bazargan reports, Hezbollah remains a force to be reckoned with.
"Modern live/work space available to buy or rent: 400 sq metres in a sun drenched Mediterranean valley. Electricity, hot/cold running water, shower, fitted kitchen, air con, reinforced concrete construction, all metal walls, 100 metres under a mountain. Can withstand all known ordnance and most air strikes."
If you are looking for a place in the sun with a difference, head for Lebanon. The south of this country is riddled with such des-res properties.
They are the secret bunkers of Hezbollah, recently abandoned by the Shia Islamist guerrillas after last year's ceasefire took hold. You can find them in amongst the cluster bombs and debris of war.
I spent many a sweaty day stumbling up and down the precarious slopes of Lebanese mountains, looking for such heavily disguised sites for a documentary I was filming.
But where had all the fighters and their heavy weapons gone?
Defensive line
With over 10,000 UN peacekeepers now patrolling the ground between the Israeli border and the Litani River, it has become increasingly difficult for the militants to operate in their old stamping ground.
But I had heard that they were reinforcing a defensive line north of the Litani, just outside of the UN zone. From here, they could launch longer range rockets into Israel, over the heads of the peacekeepers.
As we drove into the misty mountains, my trusty driver Dawoud - himself a Hezbollah supporter from south Beirut - regaled me with stories about how "The Party of God" dealt with espionage during last summer's war.
"I don't know what equipment they had. But they caught these spies red-handed, put 'em up against a wall and shot the three," Dawoud said.
We drove on in silence.
"Killed 'em dead," he added.
Mysterious activity
This was not what I needed to hear at the time. We were all alone in an extremely hostile environment.
Live minefields spread out as far as the eye could see, the earth was also seeded with unexploded and unmapped cluster bombs.
All across this region, mysterious activity. Bulldozers, diggers and cement mixers could be seen abandoned on hilltops, or by the roadsides, in the middle of nowhere - but no new buildings.
There were fresh roads above us, but they were blocked off. Occasionally, cars packed with grim looking, black clad figures, sat guarding the entrances.
All around, the Lebanese Army was manning roadblocks with an unusual alacrity, but leaving the final decision as to who they should let through to a number of other bearded gentlemen, also dressed in black and who carried Motorola walkie-talkies.
Most locals were too apprehensive to do interviews, but one told us to be careful. "Hezbollah are everywhere," he said. "But you will not see them, they will see you."
Another recounted how Hezbollah had restricted her family's movements on their own farmland.
"The Boys", as she called them, had dumped several hundred tonnes of sand at the bottom of her garden and were shipping it out by truck. She had no idea where they were taking it or what they were doing.
Sand is a vital ingredient for mixing concrete. And concrete is a vital ingredient if you are building underground bunkers.
Detained by Hezbollah
We drove down one of the new roads.
What had started as a muddy cart track suddenly became a metalled road, with saplings planted on either side.
Large tennis court-sized areas had been completely smoothed off and were followed by a number of squat concrete buildings, a sentry box and painted a sign declaring the area a security zone and Hezbollah territory.
My driver panicked. In a grinding of gears he spun the vehicle around and got us out of there at high speed.
But just as we thought we had made a lucky escape I saw a dark green truck approaching. I had pushed our luck too far.
We got picked up and detained by a Hezbollah patrol.
They made us an offer we could not refuse. We were to accompany them to the dingy looking farmhouse and they would find someone who could "help us to do even better filming."
Inside the farmhouse were the rest of the Hezbollah cadre and we feared the worst.
They did not shoot us though. They sat us down in front of a big yellow Hezbollah flag and offered us sweet tea.
Then they questioned me and my driver and went through the tape in my video camera. It was blank. Luckily I had been able to swap it when they were not looking.
The Hezbollah men told me that we were in a restricted military security zone, but admitted that Hezbollah had indeed been taking over the land in the area.
"We are not forcing Christian or Druze off their land," one Hezbollahi insisted. "We're offering them a good price. They're moving of their own free will. Anyone can buy land here," he added, seemingly forgetting that it was a strict military zone.
But what to do with their surprise guests?
One man favoured formally arresting us and calling Hezbollah security agents from Beirut. Others said we were clearly a pair of nervous hacks, not spies, and just to let us go.
Secret gardens
Thankfully the latter argument prevailed. Flushed with relief, we walked back to our car. But as we were about to drive off, the strangest thing happened.
One of the Hezbollah men came running up and insisted that I had to tell the truth about what the Party of God's activities are in those forbidding mountains.
Hezbollah were not building new bunker networks, missile bases or anything military, he said. They were, in fact, moving into fruit production.
"We are going to import nectarine plants from Italy," he said. "Then we will sell our fruits on the world market. It is most important you tell the world what we are doing."
I told him absolutely, yes, of course, I would tell everyone all about the nectarines if I could just go now. Please?
It was completely unprofessional of me. But I was in such a hurry to get home safely, that I forgot to ask him whether or not Hezbollah's nectarines were going to be grown organically.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6707499.stm
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BBC - 31 May 2007
Hunting for Hezbollah
"This World" provides an exclusive insight into Hezbollah - the powerful political and military organisation of Shia Muslims in Lebanon.
In his State of the Union address, George Bush said Hezbollah was one of the most dangerous terrorist organisations in the world.
So This World hits the ground in Beirut, seeking out the "Party of God".
It is a year since the Iranian backed militants claimed victory in a bloody 33 day conflict with Israel.
"This World" investigates claims that Hezbollah are back, more powerful than ever and readying themselves for another war.
Perfect bridge
Just after we arrived in Beirut, Hezbollah's Press Office put a blanket ban on all filming activity. So this is the film they did not want you to see.
Our guide through Hezbollah-land is Dawoud Indahoud- a wise-cracking former Shia militiaman with all the right connections to the city's darkly vibrant underbelly.
He is a Hezbollah voter, but is not officially a member of the organisation.
Having lived in the US for 18 years he understands the West, but in his heart he is a loyal Shia Muslim.
Dawoud is the perfect bridge between our world and theirs.
Secret network
This World investigates how Hezbollah uses Iranian money to win the battle for hearts and minds: rebuilding houses through their Construction Jihad organisation.
Guided by Dawoud, This World meets the martyr's mother - the most hardcore Hezbollah supporter Dawoud has ever met - talks to arms dealers, and finds a new mountain stronghold.
They also discover a secret Hezbollah bunker network with electricity, running water and steel walls 100 metres underground.
Hezbollah MPs and leaders say that they are ready and waiting for the next war.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/6701117.stm
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BBC - 24 August 2006
Hezbollah's camera-shy fighters
The Lebanese army found some routes lined by Hezbollah flags
In most wars reporters have no difficulty seeing, and even talking to, soldiers or fighters.
In Bosnia, for example, you could meet one set of soldiers, race across the airport and be talking to soldiers on the other side within ten minutes.
Mind you, it was a dangerous exercise: during one such drive bullets struck between the T and the V of the large taped letters on both sides of one journalist's car.
But in Lebanon it's been a different story.
Newsnight was struck by the absence of television footage of Hezbollah fighters in action, let alone shots of fighters firing Katyusha or other rockets over the border into Israel. This despite more than 4,000 being launched, wreaking havoc among northern Israel's civilian population.
No filming
Hezbollah had delivered an edict: no filming of their fighters. They preferred all the video and photo images to be of civilians, preferably of mangled bodies in rubble.
In the southern port town of Tyre, Hezbollah representatives threatened dire consequences for anyone filming their fighters during the war.
"You'll never find real fighters to film," veteran photojournalist Bruno Stevens said as we chatted in Beirut's Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs.
"I've come very close in Baalbek, but [Hezbollah] high command vetoed it."
Our conversation was interrupted by a missile courtesy of an Israeli F-16 - we hastily departed.
Deserted streets
Newsnight decided to seek out fighters in two cities reputed to be Hezbollah strongholds: Nabatiyeh, just north of the Litani River, and Khyam, a smaller city well to the south to which we sent our intrepid Lebanese-Canadian camerawoman Katia Jarjora to.
Not only were there no fighters in the centre of Nabatiyeh, there were hardly any people of any description. Most had evaded the Israeli attacks by seeking refuge in outlying villages.
Filming by day in the eerily deserted streets, I figured it would be best to sleep in the one village Israel had never attacked, possibly because it was solely peopled by Lebanese Maronite Christians.
Even Christian villagers, though, had been severely affected by war. They, like all of the Nabatiyeh area, had no electricity, thanks to a recent Israeli air strike on the power plant in the Mediterranean coastal city of Sidon.
My host was a civil engineer whose office in a nearby town no longer existed: it, and 20 years of files, had gone up in a puff of smoke along with the entire building. It had been hit late one night, presumably, he said, because a Hezbollah charity ran a micro-lending scheme from a part of it.
In the run up to the end of the fighting, no-one in and around Nabatiyeh believed the ceasefire would materialise, let alone hold.
Final battles
We found a well-staffed by far from crowded local hospital a very useful place: it had a generator, so we could recharge camera batteries - and it even had a warm shower. I stayed there one night - in the gynaecological ward.
It also had a great lookout point, from where we could watch the final battles along the Litani River, as Israel thrust ground troops forward, supported by aircraft fire, to seize strategic spots on the key waterway.
There were flashes from outgoing Katyushas, but mainly plumes of smoke from buildings being hit by the Israelis. Rushing to one such scene, we found Israel had hit a sprawling newly-built edifice. Inside there was a room filled with charity boxes bearing a yellow cupped-hand signs - the charity was part of Hezbollah's drive to win hearts and minds, and recruits.
In the garage of the bombed building we found a large lorry marked with these signs - but inside the cab were dozens of yellow Hezbollah flags, containing the movement's gun-bedecked emblem. Make of that what you will.
After the guns fell silent as the ceasefire took hold we raced out of the city southwards and came across a group of Hezbollah men holding a barbeque, with their children. Their wives sat at a separate table.
"This is all part of our plan: to destroy Israel and drive the Zionists out of all Palestine," one man declared. Hezbollah considers all of Israel to be Arab land. "Peace with Israel? Never."
Lebanese troops
On the Litani River, Thursday 17 August, just after dawn, we watched Lebanese army troops driving over a makeshift bridge. But Hezbollah had stolen a march on them and the army's vehicles had to rumble past a succession of lamp-posts displaying portraits of Hezbollah heroes from Ayatollah Khomeini to Hassan Nasrallah.
We continued south to Bint Jbail, scene of a bitter battle, and there found 14 Hezbollah fighters being buried. Their fellow fighters at the funeral had hidden their arms.
A pro-Syrian militia group had fought alongside Hezbollah, and were walking around the town of Khamia, openly displaying their weapons in defiance of the United Nations ceasefire resolution.
Finally we met two members of Hezbollah who, as we watched, took delivery of Kalashnikov semiautomatic weapons from a red van.
They cut short our interview after a phone call because of a sudden rise in tension. Israeli commandos had just attacked Hezbollah positions to prevent what Israel claimed was a resupply of weapons from nearby Syria.
Glimmer of hope
On the border, in Kfar Kila, as the last Israeli vehicles left that part of the south, a youngster defiantly waved a huge Hezbollah flag at the departing troops - behind the border fence but still only yards away.
His father was doing a roaring trade in his souvenir shop - selling Hassan Nasrallah posters.
On the balcony of the closest house, another young boy was waving to the Israelis on the other side.
Do you actually want peace or war? I asked him, expecting the usual answer that there would never be peace with the Jews.
Instead he said: "Yes, I believe peace will come. War just brings destruction"
Amid a generally stark scene, Ali provided a glimmer of hope.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/5282484.stm
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BBC - 31 May 2007
Hezbollah's secret nectarines
Hezbollah flags are flown all over southern Lebanon
In southern Lebanon, where the Israeli army and Hezbollah fighters fought last year, an uneasy peace reigns. But as Darius Bazargan reports, Hezbollah remains a force to be reckoned with.
"Modern live/work space available to buy or rent: 400 sq metres in a sun drenched Mediterranean valley. Electricity, hot/cold running water, shower, fitted kitchen, air con, reinforced concrete construction, all metal walls, 100 metres under a mountain. Can withstand all known ordnance and most air strikes."
If you are looking for a place in the sun with a difference, head for Lebanon. The south of this country is riddled with such des-res properties.
They are the secret bunkers of Hezbollah, recently abandoned by the Shia Islamist guerrillas after last year's ceasefire took hold. You can find them in amongst the cluster bombs and debris of war.
I spent many a sweaty day stumbling up and down the precarious slopes of Lebanese mountains, looking for such heavily disguised sites for a documentary I was filming.
But where had all the fighters and their heavy weapons gone?
Defensive line
With over 10,000 UN peacekeepers now patrolling the ground between the Israeli border and the Litani River, it has become increasingly difficult for the militants to operate in their old stamping ground.
But I had heard that they were reinforcing a defensive line north of the Litani, just outside of the UN zone. From here, they could launch longer range rockets into Israel, over the heads of the peacekeepers.
As we drove into the misty mountains, my trusty driver Dawoud - himself a Hezbollah supporter from south Beirut - regaled me with stories about how "The Party of God" dealt with espionage during last summer's war.
"I don't know what equipment they had. But they caught these spies red-handed, put 'em up against a wall and shot the three," Dawoud said.
We drove on in silence.
"Killed 'em dead," he added.
Mysterious activity
This was not what I needed to hear at the time. We were all alone in an extremely hostile environment.
Live minefields spread out as far as the eye could see, the earth was also seeded with unexploded and unmapped cluster bombs.
All across this region, mysterious activity. Bulldozers, diggers and cement mixers could be seen abandoned on hilltops, or by the roadsides, in the middle of nowhere - but no new buildings.
There were fresh roads above us, but they were blocked off. Occasionally, cars packed with grim looking, black clad figures, sat guarding the entrances.
All around, the Lebanese Army was manning roadblocks with an unusual alacrity, but leaving the final decision as to who they should let through to a number of other bearded gentlemen, also dressed in black and who carried Motorola walkie-talkies.
Most locals were too apprehensive to do interviews, but one told us to be careful. "Hezbollah are everywhere," he said. "But you will not see them, they will see you."
Another recounted how Hezbollah had restricted her family's movements on their own farmland.
"The Boys", as she called them, had dumped several hundred tonnes of sand at the bottom of her garden and were shipping it out by truck. She had no idea where they were taking it or what they were doing.
Sand is a vital ingredient for mixing concrete. And concrete is a vital ingredient if you are building underground bunkers.
Detained by Hezbollah
We drove down one of the new roads.
What had started as a muddy cart track suddenly became a metalled road, with saplings planted on either side.
Large tennis court-sized areas had been completely smoothed off and were followed by a number of squat concrete buildings, a sentry box and painted a sign declaring the area a security zone and Hezbollah territory.
My driver panicked. In a grinding of gears he spun the vehicle around and got us out of there at high speed.
But just as we thought we had made a lucky escape I saw a dark green truck approaching. I had pushed our luck too far.
We got picked up and detained by a Hezbollah patrol.
They made us an offer we could not refuse. We were to accompany them to the dingy looking farmhouse and they would find someone who could "help us to do even better filming."
Inside the farmhouse were the rest of the Hezbollah cadre and we feared the worst.
They did not shoot us though. They sat us down in front of a big yellow Hezbollah flag and offered us sweet tea.
Then they questioned me and my driver and went through the tape in my video camera. It was blank. Luckily I had been able to swap it when they were not looking.
The Hezbollah men told me that we were in a restricted military security zone, but admitted that Hezbollah had indeed been taking over the land in the area.
"We are not forcing Christian or Druze off their land," one Hezbollahi insisted. "We're offering them a good price. They're moving of their own free will. Anyone can buy land here," he added, seemingly forgetting that it was a strict military zone.
But what to do with their surprise guests?
One man favoured formally arresting us and calling Hezbollah security agents from Beirut. Others said we were clearly a pair of nervous hacks, not spies, and just to let us go.
Secret gardens
Thankfully the latter argument prevailed. Flushed with relief, we walked back to our car. But as we were about to drive off, the strangest thing happened.
One of the Hezbollah men came running up and insisted that I had to tell the truth about what the Party of God's activities are in those forbidding mountains.
Hezbollah were not building new bunker networks, missile bases or anything military, he said. They were, in fact, moving into fruit production.
"We are going to import nectarine plants from Italy," he said. "Then we will sell our fruits on the world market. It is most important you tell the world what we are doing."
I told him absolutely, yes, of course, I would tell everyone all about the nectarines if I could just go now. Please?
It was completely unprofessional of me. But I was in such a hurry to get home safely, that I forgot to ask him whether or not Hezbollah's nectarines were going to be grown organically.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6707499.stm
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BBC - 31 May 2007
Hunting for Hezbollah
"This World" provides an exclusive insight into Hezbollah - the powerful political and military organisation of Shia Muslims in Lebanon.
In his State of the Union address, George Bush said Hezbollah was one of the most dangerous terrorist organisations in the world.
So This World hits the ground in Beirut, seeking out the "Party of God".
It is a year since the Iranian backed militants claimed victory in a bloody 33 day conflict with Israel.
"This World" investigates claims that Hezbollah are back, more powerful than ever and readying themselves for another war.
Perfect bridge
Just after we arrived in Beirut, Hezbollah's Press Office put a blanket ban on all filming activity. So this is the film they did not want you to see.
Our guide through Hezbollah-land is Dawoud Indahoud- a wise-cracking former Shia militiaman with all the right connections to the city's darkly vibrant underbelly.
He is a Hezbollah voter, but is not officially a member of the organisation.
Having lived in the US for 18 years he understands the West, but in his heart he is a loyal Shia Muslim.
Dawoud is the perfect bridge between our world and theirs.
Secret network
This World investigates how Hezbollah uses Iranian money to win the battle for hearts and minds: rebuilding houses through their Construction Jihad organisation.
Guided by Dawoud, This World meets the martyr's mother - the most hardcore Hezbollah supporter Dawoud has ever met - talks to arms dealers, and finds a new mountain stronghold.
They also discover a secret Hezbollah bunker network with electricity, running water and steel walls 100 metres underground.
Hezbollah MPs and leaders say that they are ready and waiting for the next war.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/6701117.stm
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BBC - 24 August 2006
Hezbollah's camera-shy fighters
The Lebanese army found some routes lined by Hezbollah flags
In most wars reporters have no difficulty seeing, and even talking to, soldiers or fighters.
In Bosnia, for example, you could meet one set of soldiers, race across the airport and be talking to soldiers on the other side within ten minutes.
Mind you, it was a dangerous exercise: during one such drive bullets struck between the T and the V of the large taped letters on both sides of one journalist's car.
But in Lebanon it's been a different story.
Newsnight was struck by the absence of television footage of Hezbollah fighters in action, let alone shots of fighters firing Katyusha or other rockets over the border into Israel. This despite more than 4,000 being launched, wreaking havoc among northern Israel's civilian population.
No filming
Hezbollah had delivered an edict: no filming of their fighters. They preferred all the video and photo images to be of civilians, preferably of mangled bodies in rubble.
In the southern port town of Tyre, Hezbollah representatives threatened dire consequences for anyone filming their fighters during the war.
"You'll never find real fighters to film," veteran photojournalist Bruno Stevens said as we chatted in Beirut's Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs.
"I've come very close in Baalbek, but [Hezbollah] high command vetoed it."
Our conversation was interrupted by a missile courtesy of an Israeli F-16 - we hastily departed.
Deserted streets
Newsnight decided to seek out fighters in two cities reputed to be Hezbollah strongholds: Nabatiyeh, just north of the Litani River, and Khyam, a smaller city well to the south to which we sent our intrepid Lebanese-Canadian camerawoman Katia Jarjora to.
Not only were there no fighters in the centre of Nabatiyeh, there were hardly any people of any description. Most had evaded the Israeli attacks by seeking refuge in outlying villages.
Filming by day in the eerily deserted streets, I figured it would be best to sleep in the one village Israel had never attacked, possibly because it was solely peopled by Lebanese Maronite Christians.
Even Christian villagers, though, had been severely affected by war. They, like all of the Nabatiyeh area, had no electricity, thanks to a recent Israeli air strike on the power plant in the Mediterranean coastal city of Sidon.
My host was a civil engineer whose office in a nearby town no longer existed: it, and 20 years of files, had gone up in a puff of smoke along with the entire building. It had been hit late one night, presumably, he said, because a Hezbollah charity ran a micro-lending scheme from a part of it.
In the run up to the end of the fighting, no-one in and around Nabatiyeh believed the ceasefire would materialise, let alone hold.
Final battles
We found a well-staffed by far from crowded local hospital a very useful place: it had a generator, so we could recharge camera batteries - and it even had a warm shower. I stayed there one night - in the gynaecological ward.
It also had a great lookout point, from where we could watch the final battles along the Litani River, as Israel thrust ground troops forward, supported by aircraft fire, to seize strategic spots on the key waterway.
There were flashes from outgoing Katyushas, but mainly plumes of smoke from buildings being hit by the Israelis. Rushing to one such scene, we found Israel had hit a sprawling newly-built edifice. Inside there was a room filled with charity boxes bearing a yellow cupped-hand signs - the charity was part of Hezbollah's drive to win hearts and minds, and recruits.
In the garage of the bombed building we found a large lorry marked with these signs - but inside the cab were dozens of yellow Hezbollah flags, containing the movement's gun-bedecked emblem. Make of that what you will.
After the guns fell silent as the ceasefire took hold we raced out of the city southwards and came across a group of Hezbollah men holding a barbeque, with their children. Their wives sat at a separate table.
"This is all part of our plan: to destroy Israel and drive the Zionists out of all Palestine," one man declared. Hezbollah considers all of Israel to be Arab land. "Peace with Israel? Never."
Lebanese troops
On the Litani River, Thursday 17 August, just after dawn, we watched Lebanese army troops driving over a makeshift bridge. But Hezbollah had stolen a march on them and the army's vehicles had to rumble past a succession of lamp-posts displaying portraits of Hezbollah heroes from Ayatollah Khomeini to Hassan Nasrallah.
We continued south to Bint Jbail, scene of a bitter battle, and there found 14 Hezbollah fighters being buried. Their fellow fighters at the funeral had hidden their arms.
A pro-Syrian militia group had fought alongside Hezbollah, and were walking around the town of Khamia, openly displaying their weapons in defiance of the United Nations ceasefire resolution.
Finally we met two members of Hezbollah who, as we watched, took delivery of Kalashnikov semiautomatic weapons from a red van.
They cut short our interview after a phone call because of a sudden rise in tension. Israeli commandos had just attacked Hezbollah positions to prevent what Israel claimed was a resupply of weapons from nearby Syria.
Glimmer of hope
On the border, in Kfar Kila, as the last Israeli vehicles left that part of the south, a youngster defiantly waved a huge Hezbollah flag at the departing troops - behind the border fence but still only yards away.
His father was doing a roaring trade in his souvenir shop - selling Hassan Nasrallah posters.
On the balcony of the closest house, another young boy was waving to the Israelis on the other side.
Do you actually want peace or war? I asked him, expecting the usual answer that there would never be peace with the Jews.
Instead he said: "Yes, I believe peace will come. War just brings destruction"
Amid a generally stark scene, Ali provided a glimmer of hope.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/5282484.stm
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