Featuring Matthew Levitt
CFR.org
To read this interview on our website, go to:
http://washin.st/ZdlY0G
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Dr. Levitt and CFR.org consulting editor Bernard Gwertzman discuss
Hezbollah's preparations for Assad's fall, its ever-closer ties with
Iran, and its expanding terrorist and militant activities inside and
outside Lebanon.
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In recent days, U.S. and Mideast officials have reported that Iran and
Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group, are making military preparations
for the sectarian chaos likely to engulf a post-Assad Syria.
Counterterrorism expert Matthew Levitt says that Hezbollah has closely
aligned itself with Iran's Quds Force, an elite paramilitary group
linked directly to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while fighting alongside the
Assad regime. In recent years, the partnership between Hezbollah and
Iran has tightened to the point that the group's allegiance to Khamenei
is paramount, he says. "What we see now is that Hezbollah is going to do
things today that are in Iran's interest even if they expressly run
counter to the interests of Lebanon and Hezbollah's own interest there."
GWERTZMAN: Israeli warplanes recently bombed a truck convoy in Syria,
reportedly carrying antiaircraft missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Why
would Syria be shipping weapons to Lebanon instead of the other way
around?
LEVITT: Hezbollah has long stockpiled weapons in Syria, and the Assad
government has long provided some of these weapons to Hezbollah. In
addition, Iran has often supplied weapons to Hezbollah through Syria. As
events in Syria turn worse for the Bashar al-Assad regime, Hezbollah is
going to -- as we've already seen -- try to move as much of its weapons
to safer ground as possible. Some of its stockpiles [are] in Lebanon
where it has dug caves into mountains.
Both sides of this conflict, the more radical Sunni extremists embedded
with the rebels and the Shiite extremists aligned with Hezbollah and
Iran, are setting up militias who will be loyal to them after the fall
of the Assad regime. What we're seeing is the stockpiling of weapons for
that second phase of conflict.
GWERTZMAN: So you think Hezbollah now has come to the conclusion that Assad is not long for the world?
LEVITT: They came to that conclusion a little while ago. They want to
set things up so they are positioned to continue to have influence in
Syria even after Assad is gone and a Sunni majority remains.
GWERTZMAN: How has Hezbollah been helping out Syria in this civil war?
LEVITT: There's a tremendous amount of evidence that Hezbollah has been
aiding the regime, especially with training. There are also reports of
snipers trying to hold key pieces of territory, especially along the
border with Lebanon.
Hezbollah was designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. government in
1997; it's on the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist
Organizations and on the Treasury Department's list of global terrorist
entities. It was re-listed by Treasury just a couple of months ago for
its support of the Assad regime and for undermining security and
stability in Syria. When the State Department released that designation,
it included -- as State and Treasury always do in these press
statements -- a little bit of declassified intelligence. One of the
snippets that almost nobody's picked up on was that the individual
responsible for overseeing Hezbollah's activities in Syria is Hassan
Nasrallah himself, the group's long-time leader.
GWERTZMAN: Is Hezbollah still a jihadist group?
LEVITT: It still is, but Hezbollah is multiple things: Hezbollah is one
of the dominant political parties in Lebanon, as well as a social and
religious movement, catering first and foremost to Lebanon's Shiite
community. The group is also Lebanon's largest militia. After the 1989
Taif Accords, which ended Lebanon's civil war, the group was rebranded
as a kind of an Islamic resistance.
People tend to misunderstand the relationship between Hezbollah and
Iran, which has changed over time but is now extremely close. The U.S.
intelligence community has publicly described this as a "strategic
partnership." But people don't fully appreciate Hezbollah's ideological
commitment to the concept of "velayat-e faqih," or guardianship of the
jurists, which holds that a Shiite Islamic cleric should also serve as
supreme head of government. For Hezbollah, this means the Iranian
leadership is also their leader -- not for every foot soldier, but for
Hezbollah's senior leaders absolutely.
So what we see now is that Hezbollah is going to do things today that
are in Iran's interest even if they expressly run counter to the
interests of Lebanon and Hezbollah's own interest there. At the end of
the day, the group's commitment to Iran trumps its identity as a
Lebanese political movement. Part of that has to do with the
assassination of Imad Mughniyeh in 2008, who led Hezbollah's military
wing.
GWERTZMAN: What was the fallout there?
LEVITT: Mughniyeh led Hezbollah and is believed to have had close ties
with the Iranian Quds force. Because of that, Iran had tremendous faith
in him. If he was told to do something by Iran, he could hold them off a
little bit. But his successors, his cousin Mustafa Badre al-Dine in
particular, are nowhere near Mughniyeh in stature, so Iran doesn't have
the same trust in him. Therefore, the strategic partnership has become
even closer.
If you look at Hezbollah's attacks against Israeli tourists worldwide,
there's no way they can be described as in Lebanon's interests in any
way. Look back at Hezbollah's support of Shiite militants in Iraq during
the Iraq war; look now today to Hezbollah helping to ferry Iranian
weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen; look just recently to Hezbollah's
flying a drone near the Israeli nuclear reactor in Dimona. None of this
is in Lebanon's interest.
GWERTZMAN: And this bombing in Bulgaria?
LEVITT: The Bulgarians recently concluded that Hezbollah operatives
carried out the July 2012 bus bombing in Burgas. A week before the
Burgas bombing, an individual Hezbollah operative with dual
Lebanese-Swedish citizenship was arrested in Cyprus for carrying out
surveillance on Israeli flights and tourists. Six months earlier, [there
was] another Hezbollah plot targeting an Israeli tour bus on its way to
Bulgaria for a skiing trip -- an attack that was thwarted.
So the Bulgarian investigation is only the first shoe to drop in Europe.
There's a tremendous amount of activity going on and none of it can be
described as being in Lebanon's interests, or in the interest of
Hezbollah's political aspirations in Lebanon.
GWERTZMAN: What's going on in Lebanon? Is Beirut a thriving city now? How evident is Hezbollah's presence?
LEVITT: Beirut isn't a thriving city; it's a divided city. The signs of
Hezbollah are all over the place, especially where the group is
dominant, like south of the airport. There's a lot of tension because
Hezbollah has recently been accused of doing things that are not in
Lebanon's interest. Just last week, a Hezbollah member was arrested for
the July 2012 attempted assassination of Bourus Harb, a member of
parliament; and the group has also been implicated in the killing of
Wissam al-Hassan a few months later. Moreover, Hezbollah operatives,
including Mustafa Badre al-Dine, stand accused by the UN Special
Tribunal for Lebanon at The Hague of assassinating former prime minister
Rafik Hariri, who was the de facto leader of the Sunni community.
GWERTZMAN: Does the United States have any role to play in combating Hezbollah?
LEVITT: Without question the U.S. has a role to play, especially when it
has partners that are willing to work with it. That means pressing the
Europeans to take Hezbollah more seriously. The European Union
designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist group would be a shot across the
bow, telling the group that it needs to make a choice to be either
political or militant. It would also empower European countries to do
more to prevent the travel of Hezbollah operatives to Europe, which
Hezbollah treats as its near abroad, and to raise funds there, which
Hezbollah does today hand over fist.
White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan made an excellent
point speaking in Ireland last October, where he said one of the reasons
Washington wants the Europeans to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist
group is that some European countries cannot or will not open
counterterrorism investigations into the group until this distinction is
made.
But it's not just an American or European effort: the Yemenis right now
are tremendously concerned about recent arms shipments from Iran that
they have seized destined for Houthi rebels. The Yemenis have said
there's evidence that Hezbollah is involved. And we see Hezbollah's
activities elsewhere as well. Some of the Shiite militant groups that
Hezbollah trained to fight coalition forces in Iraq have now turned up
in Syria, fighting alongside Hezbollah and supporting the Assad regime.
So, there's a lot that can be done to a) counter Hezbollah's actual
terrorist operations, and b) frustrate the group's ability to procure
weapons and fundraise worldwide.
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Matthew Levitt directs the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute.
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