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The Lebanese Shi'ite resistance movement, Hizbullah, is going through a remarkable political and ideological transformation. Hizbullah was founded in 1978 by various sectors of Lebanese Shi'ite clergy and cadres, and with Iranian backing as an Islamic movement protesting against social and political conditions. Over the years 1984/85 to 1991, Hizbullah became a full-fledged social movement in the sense of having a broad overall organization, structure, and ideology aiming at social change and social justice, as it claimed. Starting in 1992, it became a mainstream political party working within the narrow confines of its pragmatic political program. The line of argument in this dissertation is that Hizbullah has been adjusting its identity in the three previously mentioned stages by shifting emphasis among its three components: (1) from propagating an exclusivist religious ideology (2) to a more encompassing political ideology, and (3) to a down-to-earth political program. De Libanese Shi'itische verzetsbeweging Hizbullah ondergaat een opzienbarende politieke en ideologische transformatie. Ten tijde van de stichting in 1978, door Libanese geestelijken en leiders en met Iranese steun, was Hizbullah vooral een islamitische beweging die zich verzette tegen sociale en politieke omstandigheden. Gaandeweg ontwikkelde de beweging zich tot een 'volwassen' sociale beweging, met een solide organisatie, structuur en ideologie, gericht op sociale verandering en rechtvaardigheid. Vanaf 1992 manifesteert Hizbullah zich als politieke partij. Deze publicatie schetst een veranderende identiteit door een verschuivende nadruk: van exclusivistische religieuze ideologie, via een ruimere politieke ideologie tot een pragmatisch politiek programma.

In September 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrest of Alexei (Ali) Saab, a naturalized American citizen from Lebanon, on charges of marriage fraud and material support to the designated terrorist group Hezbollah. Saab reportedly served as an operative of Hezbollah’s external terrorist operations wing, the Islamic Jihad Organization (also known as the External Security Organization or Unit 910). In this role, he carried out surveillance of potential target locations in several American cities to “prepare for potential future attacks against the United States.”[1] Saab’s case came on the heels of two others in the United States, including the conviction of Ali Kourani for engaging in similar preoperational surveillance for Hezbollah and an apparent plea-bargain for Samer el-Debek who was dispatched on Hezbollah missions abroad. Just a few years earlier, in 2012 and 2015, two Hezbollah operatives had been arrested in Cyprus. One was arrested for carrying out surveillance of Israeli tourists and other targets in Larnaca and Limassol, while the other was stockpiling ammonium nitrate for the production of explosives. Law enforcement officials learned much about Hezbollah’s covert operations from these cases, including details being made public for the first time in this article. Taken together, these cases - along with those involving operatives in Thailand and Peru - illustrate Hezbollah’s external operations modus operandi, senior handlers, communications techniques, travel patterns, terrorist training, and offer even limited information about the pay scale for Hezbollah operatives. Publicly disclosing such information breaks the “golden rule” of Hezbollah’s Unit 910, as expressed to Kourani by his Hezbollah handler: “The less you know about the unit, the better.”[2]

There is little in the open literature concerning the intelligence and security apparatus of the Hizballah organization. Understanding Hizballah's security organ is essential in comprehending its emergence as one of the most successful liberation and terrorist organizations in the Near East.

Lebanon is most often depicted as a 'weak state' lacking territorial sovereignty and thus fostering the proliferation of violent non-state actors that generate political instability and regional insecurity. In contrast, this essay explores the dynamics of security politics in Lebanon since 2005 through the lens of hybrid sovereignty. It shows how an assemblage of state and non-state actors has been able to navigate between rival understandings of insecurity, producing at times shared, but still contested, understandings which have sustained a system of plural governance over security that has been able to respond to a shifting geography of threats.

This article critically examines Hezbollah's presence in Colombia and evaluates whether it constitutes a strategic threat to the nation's security and defense. Through qualitative documentary analysis, the study explores the convergence of international terrorism and transnational organized crime and its impact on Colombia's internal conflict. It focuses on Hezbollah's involvement in drug trafficking, money laundering, and arms smuggling, highlighting the group's integration into local criminal networks and its potential to destabilize regional security. Drawing on open-source intelligence, official documents, and peer-reviewed literature, the research reveals that Colombian defense policies have largely failed to recognize Hezbollah as a significant threat. This institutional blind spot endangers both national and regional stability, especially given Hezbollah's ties to Venezuelan political actors and Colombian insurgent groups. The central research question asks to what extent Hezbollah's presence has influenced Colombia's national security and defense policy since 2001, and how the state has acknowledged-or neglected-this influence. The study hypothesizes that Hezbollah's role has been consistently underestimated due to a narrow view of terrorism as an external threat. As a result, Colombia's security strategies have remained inward-focused and insufficient to address the hybrid, transnational nature of contemporary non-state actors.

Israel finds itself in a trap: escalate or maintain the status quo; absent a political solution, it must develop capable threats that deter future Hamas attacks and dissuade Hezbollah and Tehran from providing the support Hamas requires to carry them out. This special commentary executes an analysis of Israels precarious position and, in doing so, confronts the larger question of how to avoid escalation when engaging with violent extremist organizations with clear but unverifiable state support. The analysis provides a clear picture of the problem and offers tentative, evidence-based solutions for evading escalation or an untenable status quo.

In the contemporary landscape of global security challenges, addressing the intricate dynamics of Counterterrorism and National Security is paramount. This paper emphasizes the pivotal role of Travel Intelligence (TRAVINT) in enhancing Counterterrorism (CT) strategy and improving security measures. Eventually, through a comparative analysis between theoretical frameworks and practical applications, supplemented by case studies of Hezbollah and Hamas, the study examines the significance of TRAVINT, in proactively identifying and preventing potential Terrorism and National Security.

The assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri represented a turning point in the modern history of Lebanon. The death of the tycoon, who reshaped Beirut following years of internal strife, has resulted in a major uprising that changed the face of Lebanon and rewrote its history. To many, his death remains a mystery which is expected to be solved by the UN-sponsored International Tribunal in charge of probing the Feb 14, 2005, murder. Lebanon, a country overwhelmed by its ongoing political crises, is in tension again in anticipation of the expected indictment. This article explores the main conspiracy theories regarding the background of the assassination. After presenting a number of uncontested facts, the article explores three scenarios which attribute responsibility respectively to Syria, Hezbollah and Israel.

The article explores Iran's \"Axis of Resistance,\" a regional coalition which includes Syria, and the militant radical groups Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi proIranian militias and Yemen’s Houthis, aimed at the annihilation of Israel and countering U.S./Western influence in the Middle East. Formed post-1979 Iranian Revolution, it supported Palestinian Islamist causes and regional defiance of American presence. The October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist massacre attack on Israel, followed by Hezbollah, Houthi and, for first time, direct Iranian missile attacks on Israel, and Israel’s subsequent Gaza offensive and retaliation against Iran and its proxies, exposed the Axis’s vulnerabilities. The 2024 collapse of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime, Hezbollah’s weakening in Lebanon, Hamas’ military demise, U.S and Western challenge of Houthi’s terrorist attacks against the international maritime lanes in the Red Sea, disrupted Iran’s strategy. On the backdrop of their diminished position, Iran and its proxies face now the pressure of President Trump’s strategy to change the regional dynamics, limit the impact of the Axis’s influence and achieve, by negotiation or military pressure, the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear project.

Previous research has shown that Sunni jihadist groups regard dreams as revelatory devices and thus consider them a key source of inspiration for their followers. This article broadens the existing literature by demonstrating that a similar phenomenon holds true for a different category of jihadists: the Shia jihadist group Lebanese Hezbollah. Using evidence drawn from pro-Hezbollah websites, I examine the ways in which the group’s online media apparatus strategically wields dream accounts to serve organizational goals. I contend that Hezbollah dream accounts serve primarily to reinforce one critical element of the group’s ideology: a belief in martyrdom.