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The Hybrid Terrorist Organization: Hezbollah as a Case Study

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 36; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1057610x.2013.832113

1521-0731

Eitan Azani,

Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies

AbstractSince 1982, Hezbollah has evolved from a "revolutionary vanguard" terrorist organization bent on violently overthrowing the Lebanese government to a hybrid terrorist organization that uses legitimate political tools to the same end. Today Hezbollah operates on the civilian plane of da'wa, social welfare, and religious education; the military–Resistance plane (jihad); and the political plane. In its drive to dominate Shi'ite society, Hezbollah overcame its chief rival, Amal, and now plays a decisive role in Lebanon's political system and the Middle East. Understanding Hezbollah's emergence as a prototypical hybrid terrorist organization is key to understanding global and local jihad movements. NotesU.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), "Hybrid Warfare" (briefing to the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, 10 September 2010). GAO-10-1036-R. Available at http://www.gao.gov/assets/100/97053.pdf (accessed 10 November 2010); Dr. Russell W. Glenn, "Thoughts on 'Hybrid' Conflict," Small Wars Journal (2009). Available at http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/188-glenn.pdf (accessed 30 March 2009); Frank G. Hoffman, "Hybrid vs. Compound War. The Janus Choice: Defining Today's Multifaceted Conflict," Armed Forces Journal (2009). Available at http://.armedforcesjournal.com/2009/10/4198658/ (accessed 5 November 2009); Lieutenant General James N. Mattis, USMC, and Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hoffman, USMCR (Ret.), "Future Warfare: The Rise of Hybrid Wars," US Naval Institute Proceedings Magazine 132 (2005). Available at http://milnewstbay.pbworks.com/f/MattisFourBlockWarUSNINov2005.pdf (accessed 13 January 2006)."Multi-modal activities can be conducted by separate units, or even by the same unit, but are generally operationally and tactically directed and coordinated within the main battlespace to achieve synergistic effects in the physical and psychological dimensions of conflict." Frank Hoffman, "Hybrid Warfare and Challenges," Joint Force Quarterly 52 (1st Quarter 2009). Available at http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/jfqhoffman.pdf (accessed 15 November 2009).GAO, "Hybrid Warfare"; Jim Kouri, "War on Terrorism: Defining 'Hybrid Warfare,'" Canada Free Press, 16 September 2010. Available at http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/27758 (accessed 17 September 2010).GAO, "Hybrid Warfare."Hoffman, "Hybrid Warfare and Challenges."Ibid.Boaz Ganor, "The Hybrid Terrorist Organization and Incitement," Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), 1 November 2012. Available at http://jcpa.org/article/the-hybrid-terrorist-organization-and-incitement/ (accessed 15 November 2012).For additional information on the Muslim Brotherhood, please see: Richard Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010); and Lorenzo Vidino, The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010).Sayyid Qutb and A. B. Al-Mehri (eds.), Milestones: Ma'alim fi'lTareeq (Birmingham, England: Maktabah Booksellers and Publishers, 2006). Available at http://www.kalamullah.com/Books/Milestones%20Special%20Edition.pdf (accessed 13 June 2009).Eitan Azani, Hezbollah: The Story of the Party of God; From Revolution to Institutionalization (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). "An Open Letter: The Hezbollah Program," The Jerusalem Quarterly, 48 (Fall 1988). Available at http://www.ict.org.il/Articles/tabid/66/Articlsid/4/Default.aspx (accessed 25 September 2011).Traditionally, the vanguard are those who are placed in leading battlefield positions."An Open Letter."Ibid.Ibid.Doug McAdam and David A. Snow, "Conditions of Organization: Facilitative Contexts," in Social Movements, ed. Doug McAdam and David A. Snow (Oxford: Roxbury Publishing Company, 1997), p. 80.Ibid., pp. 90–91.Wadah Sharara, Dawlat Hizb Allah, Lubnan Mujtami'an Islamiyyan (Beirut, 1998), 13–19. Sharara quotes Amir Tahiri regarding the centrality of religious institutions in the dissemination of the Islamic message.Al-Diyar, 6 November 1990.A hassaniyya is an Islamic institution for the study of religion. Sharara, Dawlat Hizb Allah, Lubnan Mujtami'an Islamiyyan, pp. 85–92; 129–135.Sharara notes that many of the 250 religious seminary graduates of 1986 became involved in military activities in Lebanon and elsewhere. Ibid., pp. 134; 154–155; 162–165.Isan Al-A'zi, Hezbollah: Min Alhilm Alideology Ila Wakai'a Alsiasia (Beirut, 1998), pp. 21–25; and Sharara, Dawlat Hizb Allah, Lubnan Mujtami'an Islamiyyan, pp. 1–8.Al-Watan, 26 October 1984.Sharara, Dawlat Hizb Allah, Lubnan Mujtami'an Islamiyyan, pp. 195–198; Martin Kramer, ed., The Islamism Debate (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1997), pp. 33–34; Judith Harik, The Public and the Social Services of the Lebanese Militias (Oxford: Center for Lebanese Studies, September 1994), p. 24.Al-A'zi, Hezbollah, pp. 53–63.The Taif Accord was meant to end the Lebanese civil war; it outlined changes in the Lebanese political system and Lebanon–Syria relations.Al-Shara, 17 March 1986. Cited in Shimon Shapira, "Iranian Policy in Lebanon 1959–1989," unpublished doctoral thesis, 1994.Nicolas Blanford, Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah's Thirty Year Struggle Against Israel (New York: Random House, 2011), pp. 100–101.Nizar A. Hamze, In the Path of Hizbullah (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2004), pp. 44–74.Azani, Hezbollah, p. 55.From an interview with Abu Habib, the head of the Al-Shahid Association in Lebanon, Al-'Ahad, 17 February 1987.Harik, The Public and the Social Services of the Lebanese Militias, pp. 25–26; Kramer, ed., The Islamism Debate, pp. 26–27; 61.See an announcement of the Islamic Health Authority from Al-'Ahad, 1 August 1989, in Nizar Hamze, "Lebanon's Hizbullah: From Islamic Revolution to Parliamentary Accommodation," Third World Quarterly 14(2) (1993), p. 239; Sharara, Dawlat Hizb Allah, Lubnan Mujtami'an Islamiyyan, p. 343.Al-'Ahad, 10 October 1987.Al-Safir, 4 October 1987; Al-Hakika, 4 September 1987.Al-Safir, 24 September 1987; Al-Masira, 19 September 1987. See also the appeal of a school principal to the Lebanese Ministry of Education and the Ministry's response, that the principal must follow Hezbollah's dictates (e.g., find separate structures for boys and girls), Al-Nahar Al-Arabi wal-Dawli, 12 October 1987.In this context, see the opening ceremony of the Al-Iman ["Faith"] School in the town of Brital in the Bekaa Valley, which was attended by Hezbollah leaders and the Iranian ambassador. The school, run by Hezbollah, was built with Iranian funds Al-Nahar, 13 October 1987.Al-'Ahad, 23 December 1987 and Al-Nahar, 14 January 1988. Cited in Shapira, "Iranian Policy in Lebanon 1959–1989."Sharara notes that lessons were held for young Islamists on political and military topics in the hassaniyyas adjacent to mosques, while religious classes were held at the mosques. Community announcements were broadcast over mosque loudspeakers. Hezbollah's flag was flown over the mosques affiliated with it. Sharara, Dawlat Hizb Allah, Lubnan Mujtami'an Islamiyyan, pp. 203–205; 233–234.Hala Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 42. Sharara expanded on this, claiming that the ideological organ of the Lebanese Muslim Student Union, Al-Muntalaq, and other newspapers such as Lebanon's Al-Mujahid and Iran's Al-Wahda Al-Islamiyya and Kihan Al-Arabi, were part of the written communications system that served Hezbollah and the Iranians. Sharara, Dawlat Hizb Allah, Lubnan Mujtami'an Islamiyyan, pp. 241–246.Evicting foreigners from Lebanon and redressing the oppression of Shi'ites were goals promoted by Hezbollah that won broad consensus from the Shi'ite community. In fact, Hezbollah was no different from its Shi'ite rivals (Amal, and traditional political actors) in this regard. However, Hezbollah chose a strategy of resistance—that is, the use of violence—to achieve these goals and, as early as 1984, claimed the withdrawal of the Multinational Force from Beirut as a success.Edgar O'Ballance, Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism, 1979–1995: The Iranian Connection (New York: New York University Press, 1997), pp. 64–68; Kramer, ed., The Islamism Debate, pp. 36–38.O'Ballance, Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism, 1979–1995, p. 71.For an interview with Musawi see Al-'Ahad, 19 October 1987. See also Magnus Ranstorp's comment that in the late 1980s, the Islamic Resistance numbered 300–400 "hard core" activists and an additional 1,500 armed sympathizers. The Islamic Resistance was orchestrated by local commanders, headed by Abbas Musawi, with Iranian assistance. Ranstorp, Hizb'Allah in Lebanon (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997), pp. 66–67.See an interview with Abbas Al-Musawi in Al-Wahda Al-Islamiyya, 4 December 1987.See also an interview with the person responsible for the Islamic Resistance in Jabal Amal after an attack on an IDF outpost in Alman, Al-'Ahad, 2 May 1987. Regarding Hezbollah's efforts to create a territorial continuum between the Bekaa Valley and the south, see Al-Nahar, 13 August 1987.For the full interview with Al-Tawfali, see Al-I'lam, 16 May 1987.See the interview with Al-Musawi, Al-'Ahad, 19 October 1987.For more information on the conflict between Hezbollah and Syria surrounding the abduction of French hostages, see Al-Kabas, 31 August 1985. For the debacle between the late Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad and Hezbollah regarding the release of American hostages, see Al-Nahar (Lebanon), 7 July 1985.Kramer, ed., The Islamism Debate, p. 64. For an interview with Hussein Al-Musawi, founder of Amal Al-Islami (one of Hezbollah's sub-groups at that time), see Al-Majala, 20 November 1985. For an interview in which Fadlallah claims that Islamists do not see abduction as a policy tool, see Radio Beirut, 26 January 1985 and Al-Nahar Al-Arabi wal-Dawli, 1 July 1987.See Islamic Jihad's warning to the Reagan government not to embark on any military operation, Al-Nahar, 7 July 1987. The kidnappers pressured governments by appealing to the families of the hostages; for example, see an appeal to the families of the American hostages in the Washington Report. Available at http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/052785/850527008.html (accessed 14 September 2010).Ranstorp, Hizb'Allah in Lebanon, p. 1.Amal's criticism of the abductions are voiced by Nabih Beri in an interview with La Soyeuz, quoted in Al-Nahar, 24 August 1987. Fadlallah's position is explicated in Kramer, ed., The Islamism Debate, pp. 64–68.For an example of Hezbollah's denial of its involvement in abductions alongside its refusal to mediate hostage releases, see La Rue du Liban, 7–14 March 1987. See also Al-Nahar Al-Arabi wal-Dawli, 21 December 1987, and an interview with Hussein Al-Mussawi in Kihan Al-Arabi, 23 May 1987.As noted, Hezbollah flourished at the expense of its chief Shi'ite rival, the secular group Amal.Blanford, Warriors of God, pp. 78–80.Hamze, In the Path of Hizbullah, p. 78.Blanford, Warriors of God, pp. 79–86.Founded in 1975 by Musa Al-Sadr, Amal differed ideologically, in certain respects, from Hezbollah. For a full discussion of the movement's struggle with Hezbollah, see Azani, Hezbollah, p. 76 ff.Al-Watan Al-Arabi, 26 October 1984; Al-Nahar Al-Arabi wal-Dawli, 31 August 1987.See Al-Dustour, 4 May 1986. See also an interview with Hassan Hashem, Monday Morning, 30 March 1987.See an interview with Fadlallah, Al-Mustaqbal, 22 March 1986; an interview with Hussein Al-Musawi in Kihan Al-Arabi, 19 August 1986; Al-Halij, 1 March 1987; Al-Masira, 19 September 1987; and an interview with Daoud Daoud in Al-Nahar Al-Arabi wal-Dawli, 28 April 1987.See the interview with Daoud Daoud in Al-Nahar Al-Arabi wal-Dawli, 28 April 1987; see also Al-Shara'a, 20 July 1987.For example, on World Jerusalem Day. Sharara, Dawlat Hizb Allah, Lubnan Mujtami'an Islamiyyan, p. 454; Al-Nahar, 16 May 1985; Monday Morning, 20 July 1986. For an interview with Sheikh Hassan Fadlallah, see La Rue du Liban, 14 March 1987. See also a report in Al-'Ahad on hundreds of thousands of participants in the 'ashura procession organized by Hezbollah in Beirut in 1987. Even if Al-'Ahad's report is tendentious, and an exaggeration, it faithfully captures the growing influence of Hezbollah among the Shi'ites.Blanford, Warriors of God, pp. 132–133.Ibid., p. 81; Eitan Azani, "Hezbollah: From Revolutionary and Pan-Islamism to Pragmatism and Lebanonization," unpublished doctoral thesis, 2005, pp. 182–192.Hamze, "Lebanon's Hizbullah," pp. 321–337; Al-Safir, 15 November 1997.See the interview with Naim Qassem, Al-'Ahad, 7 August 1992.Naim Qassem, Hezbollah—Al-Manhag Al-Tajriba Al-Mustakbal (Beirut: Dar Al Hadi, 2002), pp. 267–273.Blanford, Warriors of God, pp. 100–101.Hamze, In the Path of Hizbullah, pp. 108–112.Radio Nur Beirut, 5 August 1992. Cited in Shimon Shapira, "Iranian Policy in Lebanon 1959–1989."Naim Qassem, Reuters, 21 August 1992.Interview with Hassan Nasrallah, Al-Balad, 22 October 1994.Interview with Hassan Nasrallah, Al-Tila'at, 29 November 1995.With the exception of minor differences arising from its arena of action and its relationship with the players in that arena.