Hezbollah

The Funding of Terrorism (Part II) – Terrorist Financing Hidden among Commercial Ties: Venezuela, Iran and Hezbollah

August 5, 2019 by Strife Staff

by Vanessa Neumann

6 August 2019

Comrades in arms? (Image credit: The Commentator)

Venezuela, my country, is dying. Money has become worthless and we now face the biggest humanitarian disaster ever seen in the Western Hemisphere as the exodus will surpass Syria’s in 2020. The country is projected to lose a third of its population. One in three, and that number is without a hot, shooting war. The main cause of the catastrophe is illicit finance of every stripe: kleptocracy, corruption, money laundering, and terrorist finance. Together, these illicit financial activities have enslaved the country to foreign interests and turned the government against the people, who want freedom and democracy. However, the regime leaders serve only their own enrichment and the interests of foreigners who help prop them up. Amongst these is the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Financial support for terrorism is a policy of the Maduro regime. In short, Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro is in a strategic partnership with the Iranian Ayatollah to provide Hezbollah terrorists with financiers and an assortment of facilitators for the covert movement of people, money, and material. The network reaches right to the top: it is managed by the former Vice President and current Minister of Industries and National Production, Tareck el-Aissami, and members of his immediate family. Hezbollah’s External Security Organisation is active throughout Latin America: its Business Affairs Component oversees enormous money laundering schemes using a minimum of 11 US-sanctioned operatives. However, Venezuela has become their heartland.

Maduro’s network of illicit financial interests was established when he was Hugo Chávez’s Foreign Minister, though it grew out of shared interests and diaspora flows. Today, this global network of illicit finance is what helps keep him in power: too many people are making too much dirty money to see him go, including Iran, which has long used Venezuela to bust sanctions and used by Hezbollah to make drug money. In 1960, Venezuela co-founded OPEC with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait. After its 1979 Revolution, Iran turned towards Latin America to increase trade in the region, and Venezuela was among the first approached because of this relationship through OPEC. The deeper relationship connection with Iran, that opened up the financial channels, was a policy pursued by Hugo Chávez. During 2001 and 2003 visits to Tehran, the former President signed joint venture accords with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the manufacturing of tractor parts and cars, as well as banking through Banco Toseyeh Saderat and others.

The relationship with Hezbollah developed separately. Latin America received many Lebanese immigrants in the 1980s, amid the country’s civil war of 1975-1990. In the following decade, Lebanese Hezbollah sought to deepen its financial associations with its Latin American diaspora, as its funding had been slashed by nearly seventy percent by the administrations of both presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997) and Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), further adding to the significant impact of sanctions on the Iranian economy.

The two-track relationship with Iran and Hezbollah merged in 2007, when Nicolás Maduro (then Foreign Minister) and Rafael Issa (then Vice Minister for Finance), joined by one translator, met with Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, in Damascus. Afterwards, Nicolás Maduro flew to Tehran to join Chávez in his meeting with President Ahmadinejad. Here, a multitude of commercial ties were established, but dirty money was hidden among these broader commercial interests. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) opened subsidiaries in Venezuela that moved money through PDVSA (the Venezuelan state-run oil company), using it to enter the international financial system and evade sanctions. Chávez and Ahmadinejad became so close as to call each other ‘brothers’ and Chávez presented him with a replica of the Sword of Bolívar, a national symbol.

Some Chavistas are tied to Hezbollah by family. A prime example is Tareck el-Aissami Maddah who is Venezuelan of Syrian descent. His father was the head of the Ba’ath party in Venezuela and called Osama bin Laden “the great Mujahideen leader” after 9/11 and himself “a Taliban.” His great-uncle Shibli el-Aissami was Assistant to the Secretary General of the Ba’ath party in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. el-Aissami was a radical student leader at the University of the Andes in the city of Mérida, on the border with Colombia. There have been many Hezbollah sympathisers at the top of the Chávez regime: Fadi Kabboul was the Executive Director of planning for PDVSA; Aref Richany Jimenez was the President of Venezuela’s military-industrial complex, CAVIM; and Radwan Sabbagh was the president of the state-owned mining concern, Ferrominera.

Yet it is el-Aissami that continues to be the lynchpin, and the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) designated him under the Kingpin Act in February 2017, for playing a significant role in international narcotics trafficking, while he was the Executive Vice President of Venezuela. el-Aissami is also linked to the coordination of drug shipments to Los Zetas, a violent Mexican drug cartel, as well as providing protection to Colombian drug lord Daniel Barrera and Venezuelan drug trafficker Hermagoras Gonzalez Polanco. Los Zetas, Barrera and Polanco were previously named as Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers under the Kingpin Act in April 2009, March 2010, and May 2008, respectively. El-Aissami’s primary frontman, Venezuelan national Samark Jose Lopez Bello, was also designated for providing material assistance to el-Aissami’s drug trafficking activities through an international network spanning the British Virgin Islands, Panama, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Venezuela. El-Aissami and Lopez Bello had an international network of businesses and asset holding companies to launder the drug proceeds. Many had government contracts with PDVSA.

Maduro’s diplomatic corps has shown to be the circulatory system of the transnational crime syndicate. Tareck el-Aissami’s sister is posted to the Netherlands, where she oversees the traffic in narcotics and diamonds, shielded by her diplomatic immunity. Chávez’s daughter, Maria Gabriela, is Venezuela’s wealthiest woman (with a net worth of over US$ 4 billion) and was (until recently) the Deputy Chief of Mission to the United Nations. Rocío Maneiro, Maduro’s Ambassador to the Court of St. James, still occupies all three of our buildings in London, and uses them freely to house staff and rent rooms, despite the fact that she is indicted for grand larceny from a money laundering account in Andorra (two separate crimes). She retains her immunity and the properties, despite the fact that the UK recognises Juan Guaidó, and not Nicolás Maduro, as the legitimate head of state and government. Hence the frequently used hashtag #MaduroCrimeFamily. I am personally pressuring for the US and UK to appropriately apply counter-organised crime statutes against the Maduro regime.

The vast and multi-layered money laundering network set up by el-Aissami works through a structure designed by the former Deputy Chief of Mission in Syria, Ghazi Nasr al Din, who was sanctioned in 2008 by OFAC and designated a ‘person of interest’ by the FBI in 2015 for his support of Hezbollah. While el-Aissami was Interior Minister (2008-2012), 173 Middle Easterners with suspected ties to Hezbollah were provided with authentic, fully-legal Venezuelan passports, birth certificates, and national identification cards. In short, they were provided with completely new Venezuelan identities, to conceal these Hezbollah operatives from detection by international intelligence agencies. This case was covered in a CNN documentary, Passports to Terror. The main source of information on this is Misael López Soto, a legal attaché at the Venezuelan embassy in Baghdad, who turned whistleblower in 24 November 2015 and revealed the identities of several of these suspected Hezbollah militants. These are highly skilled and effective well beyond their numbers.

Amongst them is Hakim Diab Fattah, a Palestinian-Venezuelan dual national with suspected ties to the 9/11 hijackers. In 2015 he resurfaced in Amman, where he was arrested for potentially plotting a terrorist attack on the Allenby Bridge, connecting Jordan to the West Bank. The Venezuelan consulate in Jordan funded his legal defence. On 28 October 2014, Lebanese national and accused Hezbollah operative Muhammad Ghaleb Hamdar, was arrested in Lima, Peru for allegedly planning a terrorist attack. During questioning, he admitted he travelled to Venezuela to obtain new identification, which was eventually secured in Liberia. As recently as February 2018, OFAC sanctioned Jihad Muhammad Qansu (who has a Venezuelan passport) and five other individuals tied to an important Hezbollah financier, Adam Tabaja. The sanctions announcement describes him as “a Hezbollah member that maintains direct ties to the senior leadership.”

In October 2018 the US Department of Justice named Hezbollah one of the top five transnational criminal organisations in Latin America. The Drug Enforcement Administration led an effort to undercut Hezbollah financing from illicit drug sources, known as Operation Cassandra. Within Cassandra was Operation Perseus, targeting the Venezuelan syndicate. The effort uncovered links between two important Hezbollah financiers, directly related to Nasrallah, and cutouts connected to Maduro. Venezuela under Maduro is a hub for the convergence of criminal and terrorist networks that fund Hezbollah, loot Venezuela, and destabilize both the Western Hemisphere and the Middle East. Getting Maduro and his cartel out of power and restoring Venezuela to democracy, will not only end the horrible suffering of 32 million people, a newly free Venezuela will deal a significant blow to Hezbollah operational capabilities. That is a diplomatic win-win if ever there was one.

Dr. Vanessa Neumann is President Juan Guaidó’s appointed Ambassador and Chief of Diplomatic Mission to the United Kingdom. She is also the President of the British-Venezuelan Society and Chamber of Commerce, which is partnered with UK Trade & Investment’s Oil & Gas Team for the Americas, as well as the Caracas-based British-Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce. Prior to her diplomatic appointment, Dr. Neumann was a long-standing expert on crime-terror pipelines, the founder & CEO of Asymmetrica, and the author of “Blood Profits: How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists.”

PROXY Capabilities – Proliferation and Patronage: UAV Diffusion as a New Form of Proxy

April 6, 2016 by Strife Staff

This is the third of a series of articles we will be featuring on Strife in the coming week looking at the role of Proxy Warfare in the 21st century by Series Editor Cheng Lai Ki. Previous articles in the series can be found here.

By: Rian Whitton

Though having existed for most of the twentieth century, the improved technological capabilities and increased reconnaissance and lethal capacities of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) have raised concern about their proliferation. Through analysing developments in China, Iran and non-state actors like Hezbollah, it becomes clear that regulation is not working, and the diffusion of UAV is providing new avenues for proxy strategies.

China –Interstate proliferation a form of arms competition and proxy

Beijing has been researching unmanned aerial vehicles since the late 1950s.[1] More recently, China’s economic boom has fuelled a substantial programme of military modernisation, one of the fruits of which has been the procurement of some 50 designs. These range from micro-drones to unmanned combat systems (UCAV’s) like the Wing Loong II (Pterodactyl), a platform whose similarities to the MQ-1 Predator led some to believe it was procured through espionage.[2]

While the Chinese rationale for UAV’s relates directly to the patrolling of Beijing’s interests in the contested maritime waters of the South China Sea and East pacific, the most striking development has been the exporting of platforms to other countries.[3] Nigeria, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have all purchased the Wing Loong I, with Jordan, a prominent US ally in the fight against IS, also rumoured to have negotiated a deal in May 2015.[4]

A number of factors explain Beijing’s success in selling UAV’s. A recent senate report noted that China was not hindered by the same export restrictions of the two premiere UAV producers; the USA and Israel. While the two countries are bound by the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and the Wassenaar Arrangement, China is not, and thus has been sheltered from competition with its more renowned competitors.[5]

Another driver is the relatively low cost of Chinese systems. The Wing Loong II is believed to cost $1 million in comparison to the $30 million Reaper.[6] Though it lacks the payload, maximum altitude and speed of its US counterpart, such deficiencies are redundant in a market strategy primarily pandering to developing countries in Africa and the Middle-East. At a 2012 air show in Zhuhai, a Chinese official explained that Asian and African countries were “quite interested in the intermediate and short-range UAVs because they are expendable and low-cost.”[7] China also attempted to capitalise on Pakistani frustration at not accessing US UAV technology by supplying Islamabad with the CH-3 Rainbow.[8] This was averted with the indigenous development of the Burraq UCAV.[9]

Worries about Beijing undercutting Washington in the sale of UAV’s led Republican rep. Duncan Hunter to urge the President to provide the Jordanian government with access to the Predator, in response to concerns that China was finalising a deal with America’s regional ally to supply a number of unmanned platforms.[10] That General Atomics (producer of the Predator) is Hunter’s largest campaign contributor should be noted, and in the face of stagnating domestic budgets, American companies are pushing for ever looser export-restrictions. Concomitantly US-aligned countries like Ukraine have begun requesting Reapers.[11] Washington’s current policy has been to help its allies by using UAV’s to provide lethal targeting information, like with French forces in Mali.[12]

With both internal and external pressure, America has eased its restrictions on exports as of mid-2015.[13]Though still abiding by the MTCR agreements, the development suggests an understanding in Washington that their stringent controls have done nothing to stall proliferation, as they risk losing market ground to China.

Iran- Middle Powers can develop significant UAV industries

The proliferation and control of UAV’s is increasingly out of the hands of great powers, with regional players like Iran developing significant capability.

The international embargoes on Tehran have so far limited it to domestic technology, but the programme; spearheaded by the Revolutionary Guard’s Aerospace division, has made considerable progress off the back of reverse-engineering US/Israeli systems.[14] An example of this is the Shahed-129 (based on the Israeli Hermes-450), which is purported to be capable of a missile payload for a non-stop 24-hour flight over 2000km.[15] Iran has also claimed to develop an air-to-air combat drone (Sarir H-110). The ability of Iran, a regional power under international embargo, to develop a thriving UAV industry primarily through the reverse engineering of Western models is impressive.

The effectiveness of regulation or embargos is unlikely to stall this development. The Iranian drone fleet is comprised mainly of small tactical platforms, and thus the majority of necessary components are accessible via the use of middlemen and front companies. In 2009, a US cable published by WikiLeaks warned about Iran trying to obtain German Limbach 550E engines and ship them to an Iranian Aircraft Manufacturing Company with faked shipping labels.[16] Such accessibility to dual-use components and off-the-shelf materials makes UAV’s a difficult category to regulate compared to more expensive systems (vis-à-vis fighter aircraft). Alarmingly, Iran’s success in procuring modern UAV technology is facilitating the diffusion to non-state proxies.

Hezbollah- Non-state proxies have increased access to UAV’s

One of Iran’s key beneficiaries; Hezbollah, has had access to drone technology for a number of years, with a fleet of reportedly 200 platforms.[17] As early as 2004, Iran ferried an update of the Mohajer, the Mirsad, to Hezbollah.[18]

This has exacerbated security concerns for Israel. In2006, Hezbollah launched Ababil UCAV’s allegedly carrying explosives against Tel Aviv. They were promptly shot down by Israeli F-16s.[19] These medium-altitude UAV’s are virtually defenceless against sophisticated air defences, but the main concern for Tel Aviv is that Hezbollah will use large quantities of low-flying miniature drones that are harder to intercept. An example this came in 2014 when a low altitude reconnaissance drone was caught loitering over an Israeli nuclear reactor.[20]

UAV’s provide Hezbollah with a number of advantages; kamikaze-style strikes could have a similar casualty rate to suicide bombings. The unmanned systems could also supply the group with accurate reconnaissance of Israeli movements while potentially directing a 60,000 strong stockpile of projectiles.[21] The psychological impact is also substantive, with insurgents appearing to strike technological parity with the world’s fourth-strongest military. This constitutes a misappropriation of awe regarding the sophistication and strategic impact of UAV’s.

Iran’s patronage of Hezbollah represents the most striking case-study of UAV’s being used as a tool of proxy warfare by competing powers, and the technology is proliferating on multiple fronts. In the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, reports suggest the Donetsk People’s Republic has deployed the Russian-made Eleron 3SV for ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) campaigns.[22] In turn, Kiev has been using modified and hobbyist UAV’s for ISR support.[23]

Looking forward

The successes of China in undercutting America by exporting cheaper drones, and the ability of Iran, despite embargos, to develop an impressive apparatus and arm its proxies, points to the fact that the stringent US-export controls and wider international regulations are not going to prevent the proliferation of unmanned aerial vehicles.

While the mentioned examples relate to the diffusion of drone technology via state patronage, the economics and feasibility of drones are driving proliferation beyond arms sales.

As Woods notes, non-state actors are trying to build their own UAV’s. In 2013 alone, local law enforcement has uncovered ‘drone workshops’ in three nations.[24] In Iraq and Islamabad, ‘Drone-laboratories’ have been uncovered.[25] As Iran’s procurement through reverse engineering and off-the-shelf purchasing has shown, the acquisition of drone technology is becoming increasingly feasible, so much so that non-state actors may not have to act as a proxy and rely on a generous patron for accessing UAV’s. In 2012, the RAND Corporation study noted the possibility of insurgents and terrorists being armed with substantial fleets of small, rudimentary drones and employing swarm technology.[26] There is certainly no guarantee that even the tightest international regulation of states, or even a ban, would stop terrorist organisations incorporating unmanned systems within their wider arsenals.

Despite these concerns, three considerations should undercut hyperbole regarding the diffusion of UAV’s. Firstly, unmanned systems, though tactically convenient and incorporating multiple capabilities, have yet to prove beyond doubt their strategic war-winning ability.

Second, unmanned systems remain secondary to conventional airpower. During the 2011 intervention in Libya, NATO remote crews carried out 145 strikes, compared to the 7,455 weapons released by manned aircraft.[27] This provides some context of drone usage not as transformative but as a growing development alongside traditional airpower.

Third, the growth in unmanned systems has been mirrored by counter-measures employed by both non-state actors and states. In Mali, a document was discovered which provided practical solutions on how to foil drone strikes.[28] Militants and non-state actors are receiving the military kit, like Russian-made ‘Skygrabber’ transceivers, that can interfere with UAV signals and hack into drone feeds.[29] The Kremlin has also provided its separatist beneficiaries in the Donbass with signal jamming technology.[30] The proliferation of unmanned systems is feeding a simultaneous proliferation of ‘anti-UAV’ technology.

Technologists like Elon Musk have opened a debate on banning autonomous weapons.[31] But when it comes to regulating the systems on which the prophesied artificial intelligence might run, the ship has sailed.

Rian holds a bachelor’s degree in history & politics from the university of Sheffield. He is currently undertaking his MA in science & security at King’s where his academic interests revolve around technological innovation, unmanned systems, remote warfare and strategic culture.

Notes:

[1] O’Gorman, R. & Abbott, C., ‘Remote control war Unmanned combat air vehicles in China, India, Israel, Iran, Russia and Turkey,’ Remote Control Project, Open Briefing, September 20^th, 2013, p. 3 http://remotecontrolproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Remote-Control-War.pdf

[2]Baker, B. ‘Chinese Arms Companies Are Picking Up the Pace in Africa and the Middle East,’ The Diplomat, October 21^st, 2015 http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/chinese-arms-companies-are-picking-up-the-pace-in-africa-and-the-middle-east/

[3] O’Gorman, R. & Abbott, C., p. 5

[4] Tucker, P. & Weisgerber, M., ‘China May Be Selling Armed Drones to Jordan,’ Defense One, May 15^th, 2015. http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/05/china-may-be-selling-armed-drones-jordan/112876/

[5] Hsu, K., ‘China’s Military Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Industry,‘ U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, June 13, 2013, p. 15 http://origin.www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/China’s%20Military%20UAV%20Industry_14%20June%202013.pdf

[6] Baker, B., ‘Drone Wars: China and US Compete on the Global UAV Market,’ October 25, 2015 ‘http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/drone-wars-china-and-us-compete-on-the-global-uav-market/

[7] Standaert, M. ‘China unveils new drones aimed at buyers in developing countries,’ Global Post, November 15, 2012, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/121114/china-unveils-newdrones-developing-economies.

[8] Ali Ehsan, M., ‘Drone warfare in Balochistan,’ The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2015 http://tribune.com.pk/story/903100/drone-warfare-in-balochistan/

[9] Baghwan, J., ‘Drone war: ‘Burraq’ turned the tide in Tirah battle, say officials,’ The Express Tribune, March 26, 2015, http://tribune.com.pk/story/859152/drone-war-burraq-turned-the-tide-in-tirah-battle-say-officials/

[10] Tucker, P. & Weisgerber, M.

[11] ‘‘Hostile Drones,’ p. 13

[12] Woods, C., ‘ Sudden Justice, America’s Secret Drone Wars,’ Hurst company, London, 2015, p. 280

[13] Tucker, P. & Weisgerber, M., ‘Obama To Sell Armed Drones To More Countries,’ Defense One, February 17^th, 2015 http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/02/obama-sell-armed-drones-more-countries/105495/

[14] O’Gorman, R. & Abbott, C., p. 9

[15] Rawnsley, A., ‘Like It or Not, Iran Is a Drone Power: Sanctions have not stopped Tehran’s robot development,’ War is Boring, September 5^th, 2014 https://medium.com/war-is-boring/like-it-or-not-iran-is-a-drone-power-e9899c954a3f#.zcv6do9u5

[16] Rawnsley, A.

[17] ‘Hostile Drones,’ Remote Control project, Open briefing, January 2016, p. 12 http://remotecontrolproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Hostile-use-of-drones-report_open-briefing_16.pdf

[18] Dreazen, Y., The Next Arab-Israeli War Will Be Fought with Drones,’ New Republic, March 27^th, 2014 https://newrepublic.com/article/117087/next-arab-israeli-war-will-be-fought-drones

[19] ‘Hostile Drones,’ p. 12

[20] Hostile Drones,’ p. 12

[21] Dreazen, Y.

[22] Dreazen, Y.

[23] ‘Hostile Drones,’ p. 13

[24] Woods, C., p. 275

[25] Woods, C., p. 275

[26] Woods, C., p. 275

[27] Woods, C., p. 279

[28] Woods, C., p. 273

[29] Woods, C., p. 273

[30] Hostile Drones,’ p. 13

[31] Roberts, B. & Musgrave, Z., ‘Why Humans Need To Ban Artificially Intelligent Weapons,’ Defense One, August 14^th, 2015 http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/08/why-humans-need-ban-artificially-intelligent-weapons/119130/

A third Lebanon War?

September 22, 2015 by Strife Staff

By Matthew Williams:

The volatile relationship between Israel and Hizbullah has worsened since early 2015 and has threatened to deteriorate into open war. A Third Lebanon War would have significant repercussions not only for Israel, but for the entire region. Lebanon faces a major crisis: it now contains over 1-1.5 million Syrian and Palestinian refugees; and its neighbour Syria is in the midst of a civil war that has left an estimated 240,000 dead,

Tension is growing between Israel and Hizbullah. This was underlined by the violence between the two parties in January-February 2015, which left two Israeli soldiers dead and threatened to escalate into open war. This tension could be the catalyst for the breakdown of the Lebanese government’s capability to control the civil war already spilling over into Lebanon. This is illustrated by the refugee crisis, the presence of extremist cells like ISIS in Lebanon, and the operations of Hizbullah and the Lebanese government forces against such groups.

While a third war has failed to materialise thus far, a future crisis may await in the Levant; indeed, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Liberman has declared that a third war is ‘inevitable’. From Netanyahu’s perspective, the Arab Spring provoked insecurity across the region and Israel had to respond. The insecurity was brought about by the original phase of protests and upheavals that constituted the Arab Spring, the subsequent deterioration of many of these protests into protracted violent conflicts (as exemplified by Syria), and the rise of Iranian influence and involvement in such civil wars across the region. From the outset Netenyahu’s response has been to consolidate Israel’s control over the West Bank by expanding settlements, increasing military spending, strongly condemning Iranian involvement in these various conflicts, and reinforcing ‘the bunker mentality of Israel’s right-wing government’[1] in what has become an unpredictable regional environment.

However, the Knesset has endured a difficult year in 2015, calling into question the sustainability of this strategy. The Iranian nuclear deal has left Israel’s coalition government exposed to heavy criticism, with both parties from the left and the right describing the deal as a major foreign policy disaster. Politicians across the political spectrum fear that Netanyahu’s coarse diplomatic approach to the matter has not only produced a foreign policy disaster for Israel, but also damaged relations with the Obama administration through heavy-handed criticism.

The potential removal of sanctions on Iran, a key sponsor of Hizbullah, will be a significant cause for concern amongst the Israeli security services, as the lifting of embargoes on conventional arms will be perceived as an opportunity to strengthen Hizbullah both financially and militarily. Sources close to the organisation have argued that ‘additional Iranian support would not come in the form of weaponry, but rather in the form of institutional resources — schools, hospitals and roads — increasing local support, while propping up Shiite militias and regime forces in neighbouring Syria.’[2]

However, the implications of the Iranian nuclear deal, while important in changing the future dynamics of the Hizbullah-Israeli conflict, serves to distract attention from the way that Hizbullah has established a degree of parity with the Israeli military that was absent in the 2006 Lebanon war.

According to Jeffrey White, Hizbullah has unilaterally expanded its missile capabilities alongside significant innovations in its defensive layout in southern Lebanon, while their military support for Bashar al-Assad has meant that the group has gained considerable potential in offensive strategy.[3] Israeli intelligence has estimated that Hizbullah ‘would likely…sustain fire of around a thousand rockets and missiles per day, dwarfing the approximate daily rate of 118 achieved in 2006.’[4] Such an increase in military power means that in the event of an attack major damage would be dealt to Israeli civil and military infrastructure, as well as the killing of scores of Israeli civilians.

Covert Iranian support for Hizbullah, while prevalent, has been over-emphasized by Western media. According to Uzi Rubin, it was ‘Syrian rockets (that) played the major role in the Second Lebanon war (2006), while Iranian rockets were practically absent from it’ and ‘few if any Iranian rockets hit Israel throughout the entire (2006) campaign.’[5] Whether or not Iran covertly supports Hizbullah or not in the next war will not determine the group’s capacity to do formidable damage to Israel.

An ill-timed military campaign designed to weaken Hizbullah, while considered legitimate to the hawkish Israeli government, will provide more problems than solutions for Israeli security, as well as increasing problems for its European allies, and further destabilizing the wider region. The conflict would exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East and Europe and present Western leaders with yet another war in the Middle East to navigate.

The Lebanese government and Hizbullah are already struggling to provide for a huge number of refugees, which has produced a major socio-economic and humanitarian crisis in Lebanon. This is not an entirely new phenomenon. The Palestinians and its refugee population have, historically, had a difficult relationship with the Lebanese population. But the Syrian refugees provide a new and unpredictable dynamic to this relationship between local and refugee populations.

If Lebanese civil and military infrastructure and its civilians are treated in an indiscriminate manner by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in the pursuit of Hizbullah, it will create a new humanitarian crisis by displacing thousands of Lebanese civilians while undermining governmental capacity to provide for its Palestinian and Syrian refugee populations. In the second Lebanon War (2006) the IDF severely damaged Lebanese civil infrastructure and displaced 900,000 Lebanese civilians, as well as killing over one thousand.[6]

A war now would have far greater impact, making these statistics pale by comparison. Not only is the regional context significantly less stable than it was in 2006, but there is also a more belligerent government in power in Isreal. Netanyahu’s coalition is drifting towards an open embrace of ethno-religious nationalism. It continues to introduce increasingly discriminatory policies against Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, and perseveres in its use of draconian military tactics, many of which have invited international condemnation.

In the second Lebanon War, according to Human Rights Watch, ‘94 attacks show that Israel often, even though not deliberately attacking civilians, did not distinguish between military objectives and civilians or civilian objects.’ The heavy casualties and critical damage resulting from these attacks illustrated ‘the failure of the IDF to take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian casualties’ in the fight against Hamas during the 2014 Gaza War, the IDF obliterated entire areas of the Gaza Strip, much of which remains in ruins, leaving thousands of Palestinians homeless and dependent on a trickle of humanitarian aid. This seems to demonstrate that the IDF has barely changed its military conduct.

Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian refugees will be caught in the cross-fire and thousands will be forced to flee. These refugees would struggle to enter Israel – Netanyahu has reaffirmed the Knesset’s policy of zero tolerance on providing asylum for refugees, who he contends will destabilise the geographic and demographic integrity of Israel. The alternative for these refugees fleeing a third Israeli-Lebanon war is Assad or ISIS, an unrealistic alternative that may force thousands to flood to Turkey, Jordan or to Europe. This will exacerbate the ongoing migrant/refugee crisis there and further destabilise a the fragile Balkan countries.

A third Lebanon War would additionally increase Israeli isolation while providing an opportunity for ultra-violent extremist splinter groups affiliated with Islamic State and radical jihadist cells to strengthen their position in a disordered eastern Lebanon. Eastern Lebanon remains fiercely contested by Lebanese Armed Forces and Hizbullah fighting against insurgents associated with ISIS who have been pushed into Lebanon by the Syrian military.

These are plausible scenarios as Israel’s stature in the international community continues to slide, as typified by the wide-spread international condemnation of the brutal Gaza War, Netanyahu’s souring relationship with Barack Obama, and the anti-Arab rhetoric he used against Israeli Arabs to swing the March elections in Likud’s favour.

Is the war inevitable? As Ari Shavit notes, a balance in military deterrents could prevent an escalation. However the precarious January crisis proved that small incidents can escalate into open hostility (the second Lebanon war was an even graver example). Amidst the unpredictability of the radically changing Middle East and the unprecedented changes occurring in Israeli society and politics, conventional military deterrents may not be enough in the long-term.

The remaining solution is for Israel to reform its diplomatic approach in the region and with the international community, and for Western policymakers to make serious efforts to reach out to the new (and legitimate) and conventional regimes in the Middle East. This could prove decisive in preventing an escalation in hostilities and mediating a swift ceasefire between the two parties should conflict break out, meaning that impact of the war upon Lebanon and Israel would be limited.

The Arab-Israeli conflict dynamic remains a dangerous blind-spot in the current Middle Eastern crisis that cannot be neglected. For Israel, a protracted war with Hizbullah would not only be a costly military confrontation, it would also further damage Israel’s standing amongst its western allies. These allies suspect that Netanyahu’s unilateral attempts to secure national security will trigger a destabilising conflict between Israel, Lebanon and Hizbullah, thereby undermining one of the West’s wider strategic objectives in the Middle East: the containment of the regional violence and instability.

Future military and diplomatic hostilities between Israel and Hizbullah are inevitable. What is crucial is how Israeli politicians, Western policymakers, and Hizbullah’s leadership contain this rivalry to limited and intermittent confrontations. This will decide whether or not the conflict will ignite a regional inferno.

Matthew Williams recently completed his MA in Conflict, Security and Development in the Department of War Studies and King’s College London. You can follow him on Twitter @Matthew431 or view his personal website www.archivesofconflict.wordpress.com/

[1] Muriel, Ausseberg, “The Arab Spring and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Vicious Cycle of Mutually Reinforcing Negative Repercussions,” in An Arab Springboard for EU Foreign Policy eds. Sven Biscop, Rosa Balfour and Michael Emerson (The Royal Institute for International Relations): 86.

[2] Alessandra, Masi, “Will A Nuclear Deal With Iran Strengthen American Enemies Across The Region?,” The International Business Times, July 14th, 2015, accessed September 18th, 2015, http://www.ibtimes.com/will-nuclear-deal-iran-strengthen-american-enemies-across-region-2008602.

[3] “A War Like No Other: Israel vs. Hezbollah in 2015,” last modified 29 January 2015, accessed September 14, 2015, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/a-war-like-no-other-israel-vs.-hezbollah-in-2015.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Uzi, Rubin, “The Rocket Campaign against Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War,” The Begin-Sada Center for Strategic Studies, 71 (2007): 6-7.

[6] “Israel accused over Lebanon war,” last modified September 6, 2007, accessed September 14, 2015, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6981557.stm.

Hezbollah in Syria: a game of high stakes

June 19, 2015 by Strife Staff

By Kitty Veress:

000_Nic6455785-e1432745822842-635x357 — Hezbollah members mourn during the funeral of a comrade who was killed in combat alongside Syrian government forces in the Qalamoun region. Photo: Times of Israel (published under fair use policy for intellectual non-commercial purposes)

The Western world has been quick to label Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria and Iraq as nefarious and threatening while failing to consider the wider strategic implications. A more comprehensive perspective is needed to evaluate the risks and opportunities the extremist Shi’ite group faces in its support of the Syrian regime. The potential benefit of establishing itself as a regional power and battle-hardening its troops needs to be weighed against Hezbollah’s risk of physical and ideological overexpansion that might expose the group’s vulnerabilities and ultimately endanger Lebanon’s defence capabilities.

Hezbollah

Created in 1982, Hezbollah was originally a resistance group against the Israeli occupation in Lebanon. Since then it has become a prolific global terrorist organisation that has proven its ability to attack anywhere in the world through a wide network of cells. Hezbollah has adapted to domestic and regional dynamics, asserted its position by strengthening its grip on Lebanese politics, and expanded its military influence in the region. The extremist group remains a strong political player with an ability to paralyze Lebanese political institutions and obstruct the appointment of key positions.

Thanks to its state-sponsor Iran, Hezbollah has grown into the strongest military force in Lebanon, with its own division of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and a breadth and variety of both short and long-range military-grade weapons, such as Syrian Scud-D missiles, that can reach deep into Israeli territory. The group’s involvement in regional crises in Syria, Iraq and Yemen marks an ideological and tactical shift towards regional power that renews the threat to American interests and to their allies in the Middle East.

The regional footprint

Hezbollah’s engagement in Syria is not based on rash decision-making but is rather a sign of the trademark methodical approach that has ensured the group’s survival over more than three decades. Openly operating in Syria since 2013, Hezbollah assists the Assad regime and wages what is essentially a counterinsurgency campaign against inferior enemy rebel factions. In response to ISIS’ territorial expansion, Hezbollah also sent troops to Iraq in early 2015 to back local Shi’ite militias leading the fight against the Sunni extremist group. Although the West publicly minimizes the role that foreign Shi’ite fighters play in the coalition’s battle against ISIS, Hezbollah’s formidable military posture and its ability to foster support against a common enemy beyond its Shi’ite constituency render it an essential part of the fight against Sunni extremism.

Recent open source footage chronicles Hezbollah’s pro-Assad battlefield actions and illustrates the commitment and fierceness of the group’s operations: Youtube videos show military battles against both al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, as well as against ISIS, after Hezbollah began an offensive within the Syrian Qalamoun Mountains along the Lebanese-Syrian border.

In addition to its advanced weapons cache, Hezbollah continues to tactically innovate, the prime example being its employment of commercial short-range UAVs. The drones assist in the planning of assaults, conduct reconnaissance and support real-time combat operations via live feeds.

A recently revealed UAV airstrip in the Lebanese Beka’a valley, close to the Syrian border, underlines the role of technological innovation in Hezbollah’s operations as well as the group’s longer-term commitment to defending the Assad regime. While Hezbollah has employed Iranian-made drones against Israel since 2004, its construction of an airstrip as well as its switch to commercial drones against other non-state actors proves how seriously the group takes its involvement in Syria.

The stakes

Hezbollah’s engagement in Syria was undoubtedly requested by Iran, its main sponsor, who directed Hezbollah to support its prime regional Shi’ite ally by fighting the Syrian opposition and Sunni extremists alike. Yet Hezbollah’s involvement also reflects deep personal stakes because it could be immeasurably damaged were the Syrian regime to fall. By bolstering Assad’s forces, the Shi’ite group preserves its relationship to the state and ensures that important logistical and weapons supply routes are kept accessible. At the same time, it fends off an expansion of Sunni extremism that threatens to spillover into neighbouring countries.

Risks and opportunities

Hezbollah’s active regional presence comes with a plethora of consequences that will be decisive for the group’s future. Success on the battlefield will bolster Hezbollah’s reshaped identity as living proof that the group has evolved from merely a defender of Lebanese Shi’ites against Israel to a defender of the Shi’ite faith within the entire region. In an echo of the Arab World’s overwhelmingly supportive reaction to Hezbollah after the second Lebanon War in 2006, an effective Syria campaign would exponentially boost the group’s regional influence and elevate it into a key stakeholder in the Middle East. A successful extension of Assad’s grip on Syria would keep the Iranian-led Shi’ite Axis intact and continue to allow Hezbollah a logistical safe-haven to sustain smooth operations.

Military successes would further maintain Hezbollah’s position within Lebanon and promote continued, self-sustained domestic recruitment into the organisation. A worry, especially promulgated by Israel, is that Hezbollah’s engagement in Syria could battle-harden its troops who will gain valuable skills and combat experience that will give them an edge in potential future conflicts with its primary enemy Israel. This concern is not unwarranted, as the group is already bolstering its military capabilities by cleaning out Syria’s weapons depots and stockpiling them in southern Lebanon. However, due to its deep commitments in Syria and other regional crises, it would seem suicidal for Hezbollah to embark upon an offensive against Israel at this time.

At the same time, continued involvement in Syria without visible successes may lead to a rift between Hezbollah’s leadership and its followers. Since its involvement in domestic politics in 1992, the group has become more accountable to its constituency who – with unprecedented magnitude – have voiced concerns about the legitimacy of the Syrian intervention. The leadership is being forced to justify the sacrifice of Shi’ite lives in a conflict that at present does not pose any immediate threats to Lebanon, thereby straining the coherency of Hezbollah’s narrative. While imposing speeches by Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah continue to maintain widespread and fervent support among its members, rebellion within its own ranks may become a more pressing issue as the conflict moves on without resolution and battle-weariness sets in.

In addition to the risk of internal division, Hezbollah also faces potential over-exertion by waging a multi-front campaign that could overstretch its forces and limit its operational capacities. While this may at first seem beneficial to Western national security interests, a weakening of the Shi’ite group would expose Lebanon’s defence capabilities, which depend on Hezbollah as the first line of defence. A weakened Hezbollah might also tempt ISIS to direct some elements towards Lebanon, especially in the face of Hezbollah’s propagation of anti-Sunni sentiment. Extreme battlefield attrition could thus render the group unable to defend Lebanon and make its home base an attractive target for the high-flaming sectarian tensions fostered by ISIS.

Conclusion

Hezbollah has repeatedly proven its adaptability to changing domestic and regional dynamics, which demonstrates the group’s strength and unpredictability. Yet the intervention in Syria pushes the group into a somewhat reactive position, as Hezbollah’s fate now hinges on Assad’s perseverance and on ISIS’ success or failure. Should Hezbollah manage to push back the Sunni extremist factions, the prospective rewards are likely to elevate the group’s domestic and regional standing beyond anything it has ever experienced. However, the risks of failure are great, as an unsuccessful mission in Syria threatens to unravel the group’s reputation for strong ideological and organisational coherence. In a worst-case scenario, Hezbollah’s risky enterprise could daisy-chain Lebanon into the events in Syria and push the country into the black hole of sectarian violence.

Kitty Veress is a recent graduate from the M.A. Security Studies Program at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Her research focuses on non-state violent actors and the nexus between psychology and terrorism. She currently lives in Washington, DC, and is about to take up her PhD studies at King’s College London’s War Studies Department on the topic of European foreign fighters and their decision-making processes. Follow her @Kitonia

An elusive stalemate: Israel and Hezbollah along the tri-border

May 22, 2015 by Strife Staff

By Sebastian Maier:

07hezbollah.xlarge1 — Hezbollah soldiers. Photo copyright: Associated Press (published under fair use policy for intellectual non-commercial purposes)

When the Israeli Air Force on 12 January 2015 allegedly carried out a sortie against a Hezbollah military convoy in the south western Syrian district of Quneitra, news spread quickly that among the victims was a prominent figure of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force special unit, General Allah Dadi. The purported Israeli air strike on the al-Amal Farms also killed Jihad Mughniyeh, son of the late Hezbollah intelligence commander Imad Mughniyeh, who in February 2008 died in a car bomb in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Merely two weeks after, Hezbollah lived up to expectations and retaliated by ambushing Israeli military vehicles, killing two and wounding seven soldiers close to the Israeli-occupied Sheba’a Farms on the Golan Heights.

In the grand scheme of things, the reported airstrike and Hezbollah’s act of reprisal are hardly surprising. Quite the contrary, in order to understand these events, one has to look to the inception and evolvement of what has become a well-entrenched animosity taking place across one of the Middle East’s most precarious theatres: the Syria-Lebanon-Israel tri-border area.

The prelude: Hezbollah’s early years

When Israel in 1978 first staged a military incursion into southern Lebanon, few considered it a harbinger of what was to come. With the outbreak of the 1982 Lebanon War, the Israeli occupation, and Hafez al-Assad’s efforts to establish a Ba’athist Pax Syriana on its neighbouring country’s soil, Lebanon’s sectarian fractures became deeply entrenched.

While the Israelis pushed northbound into the outskirts of Beirut with the support of the South Lebanon Army (its Christian proxy), the emerging Islamic Republic of Iran came to the fore and seized an opportunity to spread Iran’s influence in the region. Iran deployed 1,500 Revolutionary Guards to Lebanon, with the strategically crucial Beqa’a Valley as their final destination. In doing so, Tehran turned this fertile land into a Shia militant hotbed, ultimately paving the way for the birth of its Lebanese surrogate, ‘the Party of God’, or Hezbollah.

With this consolidated supply route over Shia territory, ranging from Tehran through Damascus into Southern Lebanon, the foundation had been laid for Hezbollah. In the coming years it relied on this route to violently resist the Israeli occupation while pursuing its integration into Lebanese politics.[1] As a consequence, after a 15 year-long low-level war of attrition, in 2000 Israel’s prime minister Ehud Barak called for the unilateral withdrawal of troops from what had become a protracted battlefield in Southern Lebanon. It was no longer the cordon sanitaire the Israelis had originally set out to create. Playing into Hezbollah’s hands, this manoeuvre subsequently fuelled the perception that the politicians in Israel were trying to sell an obvious surrender as a strategy.

Lessons of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War

The years after the withdrawal do not represent a period of peaceful coexistence along the Lebanese border. Occasional skirmishes prevailed on the meadows of the Sheba’a Farms. Then on 12 July 2006, Hezbollah mounted a cross-border raid leading to the killing of 8 Israeli soldiers and the abduction of two reservists. This was supposed to represent a stepping stone towards securing the release of Druze Samir al-Quntar, the Lebanese former Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) member, who was imprisoned by Israel for his involvement in the 1979 Nahariya kidnapping attack. The raid by Hezbollah sparked the outbreak of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War.

Other factors that led to the War were Israel’s determination to change the rules of the strategic deadlock along the border, and Hezbollah’s increasing influence on Hamas, who in June 2006 had abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit. What’s more, there were rumours that Hezbollah were on the brink of achieving first-strike capabilities.[2]

With the Israeli military campaign one week old, Ehud Barak admitted that the Israeli occupation in Lebanon may have led to the creation of Hezbollah:

‘When we entered Lebanon, there was no Hezbollah. We were accepted with perfumed rice and flowers by the Shia in the south. It was our presence there that created Hezbollah.’[3]

Soon it became clear that Israel’s military had lost its deterrent edge against an enemy who could blend irregular warfare with the weaponry and capabilities that were generally the preserve of regular armies.

As a result, in the later stages of the hostilities, Israel tried to alter the perception of Hezbollah at the receiving end by applying an iron fist policy of massive retaliation. On 22 July 2006 the Israeli Air flattened the Shia Dahiya suburb, a Hezbollah stronghold, in Beirut’s southern outskirts. Ever since, the term ‘Dahiya’ has been used to describe a strategic watershed experience for the Israeli military. The draconic air campaign was intended to be a disproportional punishment in order to restore credibility and to induce ‘a calm built on fear, not on political settlement.’[4]

Hezbollah, however, endured the pounding by absorbing the damage, and continued their operational resistance. Indeed, it even managed to drag Israel back into waging a ground incursion into Southern Lebanon, a battlefield with negative connotations hard-wired into Israel’s military history.[5] To that end, Israel’s firepower, and Hezbollah’s ability to exploit Israel’s ‘Lebanese mud-syndrome’[6] cleared the way for a realignment of their animosity.

Both sides managed to seriously damage each other, which explains the relative quietude and restraint along the Israeli-Lebanese border ever since. Israel’s calculus stems from a pragmatic realization that only an escalatory response can achieve the temporary absence of violence along its borders. Hezbollah, for its part, internalized the art of blending into civilian areas and concealing its operating squads in order to hide and disperse. It decreased its own vulnerability but raised the probability of Lebanese civilians coming into the firing line.

Another front opens up: Hezbollah’s engagement in Syria

In April 2013, the Arab Spring now a distant memory, Hezbollah’s Secretary General Nasrallah made a public vow of fidelity to Assad. This came only a few days after visiting Tehran.[7] He made no secret of the fact that his fighters had gone to support the Shia-sect Alawite regime. Nasrallah, in an attempt to rally domestic support across sectarian lines, justified the deployment of his troops over the border by declaring that Hezbollah would only fight Sunni extremists, who would otherwise threaten Lebanese Shia and Christians.

The true reason for helping Assad is different: besides Tehran, Damascus still counts Hezbollah’s amongst its most important allies. If Assad were to fall, Hezbollah’s resilience in its struggle against Israel would be at stake, as would its strategic foothold in the Levant. For Assad, the involvement of Hezbollah’s troops in Syria is vital in containing a variety of anti-regime forces and the surge of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

The consequence of Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria is that the group is very busy. Another escalation with Israel and it may be forced to engage on two fronts simultaneously. This would divert and overstretch its military capabilities, and could even push Lebanon to the brink of collapse. This is exacerbated by the massive influx of Syrian refugees, who have become a huge social burden for the country.

Nasrallah, the former hero of the Arab masses, has thus embarked on a dangerous path. Celebrated for his achievement in forcing Israel’s pullout in 2000 and resisting a military incursion 6 years later, he has now risked further deepening the region’s broader Sunni-Shia divide. In addition, despite possessing an impressive rocket arsenal, it appears unlikely that Hezbollah could survive another round of Israeli escalation as long as it is caught up in the Syrian quagmire.[8]

Israel is attempting to navigate through an increasingly troublesome landscape on its northern front, and so for now it seems to be determined to adhere to a containment policy against Hezbollah. In 2013, when the risk of violence increased in the Shia Crescent, Israel sent a clear message by carrying out air strikes targeting military transport in the outskirts of Damascus, which Israel claimed to be supplying Hezbollah.

Finally, the events in January 2015 can be considered the latest reminder of a strategic stalemate along the border. The law of talion, ‘an eye for a tooth’[9], which represented the Israeli strategy during the hostilities in 2006, set the pattern for the conflict. Israel and Hezbollah now tacitly adhere to an even-tempered rationale. In the foreseeable future it will be tit-for-tat, rather than all-out war, that will characterise the ever volatile tri-border area.

Sebastian Maier graduated in January 2015 from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, with an MA in Intelligence & International Security. He lives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

NOTES

[1] Saad Ghorayeb, A., Hizbu’llah: Politics and Religion (Pluto Press London UK, 2001), pp.112,113.

[2]Norton, A.R., Hezbollah- A Shorty History (Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 2007), pp.133,134.

[3] Ibid. p.33.

[4] Rapoport, M., Flaws in Israel’s ‘punish and deter’ strategy, Middle East Eye, 10 July, 2014.

[5] Even before Hezbollah’s inception hostile actions against Israel had been carried out from Southern Lebanese soil, e.g. by armed terrorists, including 1000 Libyan and 500 Syrian volunteers. In: Gilbert, M., The Arab-Israeli Conflict- Its history in Maps ( London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984), p.77.

[6] Lieberman, E., Reconceptualizing Deterrence: Nudging Toward Rationality in Middle Eastern rivalries (Abingdon, Routledge, 2013), p.197.

[7] The Daily Star, Lebanon, Nasrallah met Khamenei in Iran, to make speech May 9, April 22, 2013.

[8] Levitt, M., Hezbollah’s Syrian Quagmire, PRISM, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, September 2014.

[9] Byman, D. L., An Eye for a Tooth: The Trouble with Israeli Deterrence, ForeignPolicy.com, 23 July, 2014.

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