Hezbollah Read online

  Although Hezbollah failed to secure the release of the Kuwait 17, the group did successfully push Western forces out of Lebanon. The lesson both Hezbollah and Iran appear to have learned from the experience is that terrorism works. Hit hard enough, they surmised, and America would pick up and run. Pointing to the withdrawal of American and French forces from Lebanon in the wake of the Beirut bombings, Osama bin Laden would later come to the same conclusion.174

  Lebanon’s foreign hostage crisis ended when Iran—in desperate need of foreign investment and improved relations with the West after the Iran-Iraq War—and Syria—aiming both to compensate for flagging Soviet support by wooing the United States and to solidify its control over Lebanon—pressured Hezbollah to accept a political and military agreement with Amal in January 1989.175 A September 1990 US intelligence report declared, “The hostages have been a major obstacle to ending Iran’s international isolation and attracting foreign investment.”176 And once the Kuwait 17 escaped from prison, Hezbollah agreed to facilitate the release of its remaining foreign hostages in return for being allowed to remain armed as a resistance movement in Lebanon despite calls for all Lebanese militia to disband under the 1989 Taif Agreement, which laid out the terms for ending the civil war in Lebanon.177

  By this time the CIA was concerned not only with Hezbollah’s ongoing plots targeting US interests in Beirut but also with its efforts to strike at US interests internationally. In December 1991, when the CIA assessed the presence of a series of threats to US interests in Beirut, it also reported on the possibility of Hezbollah attacks outside Lebanon. Apparently still sensitive today, that section of the report remains redacted in full in the declassified version.178 The concerns were clearly well placed, however, given Hezbollah’s track record of carrying out attacks not only in the Gulf but in Europe as well.

  Notes

  1. D. Peterson et al. v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Information and Security, United States District Court, District of Columbia, Docket No. CA 01-2684, March 17, 2003, pp. 24–25.

  2. Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 83; US Department of Defense, “Report of the DOD Commission on Beirut International Airport Terrorist Act, October 23, 1983,” December 20, 1983, 32.

  3. Geraghty, Peacekeepers at War, 92.

  4. Ibid., 95.

  5. US CIA, “Iranian Support for Terrorism in 1985.”

  6. US CIA, “Middle East Terrorism: The Threat and Possible US Responses.”

  7. Wright, Sacred Rage, 16; “Terrorist Attacks on Americans, 1979–1988: The Attacks, the Groups, and the U.S. Response,” PBS Frontline, 2001.

  8. Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 77.

  9. US CIA, “Lebanon: The Hizb Allah.”

  10. Kirit Radia, “Beirut U.S. Embassy Bombing 25 Years On,” ABC News, April 28, 2007; Wright, Sacred Rage, 70.

  11. Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 77; D. Peterson et al. v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, p. 17; Wright, Sacred Rage, 70.

  12. Geraghty, Peacekeepers at War, 101.

  13. Wright, Sacred Rage, 72.

  14. Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 83.

  15. US CIA, “Planning to Prosecute Shaykh for Bombing.”

  16. Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 80.

  17. US CIA, “Lebanon: Theology of Power.”

  18. Ibid.

  19. US CIA, “Lebanon: Hizballah at the Crossroads.”

  20. US CIA, “Lebanon: Theology of Power.”

  21. Ibid.

  22. Ibid.

  23. David Kenner, “The Sheikh Who Got Away,” Foreign Policy, July 6, 2010.

  24. US CIA, “Lebanon: Theology of Power.”

  25. US CIA, “Lebanon’s Khomeini: Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah.”

  26. US CIA, “Lebanon: Prospects for Islamic Fundamentalism,” 7.

  27. US CIA, “Lebanon: Hizballah at the Crossroads [redacted],” 23.

  28. US CIA, “Lebanon: Theology of Power.”

  29. Kenner, “Sheikh Who Got Away.”

  30. US CIA, “Lebanon: Theology of Power.”

  31. US CIA, “Lebanon: Prospects for Islamic Fundamentalism.”

  32. Ibid.

  33. US CIA, “Shia Extremists Taste Own Medicine.”

  34. Blanford, Warriors of God, 74.

  35. Woodward, Secret Wars of the CIA, 396; Richard Zoglin, Jay Peterzell, and Bruce van Voorst, “Did a Dead Man Tell No Tales?” Time, October 12, 1987, 23.

  36. George V. Lauder, letter to the editor, Washington Post, June 21, 1985.

  37. Vincent Cannistraro, interview by Target America, PBS Frontline, September 2001.

  38. US CIA, “Western Government Installations Targeted by Shia Terrorists.”

  39. Woodward, Secret Wars of the CIA, 397.

  40. US Department of the Treasury. “Specially Designated National List Changes,” January 10, 1995.

  41. Associated Press, “Treasury Acts against Hezbollah Financing,” Washington Times, July 25, 2007; Kenner, “Sheikh Who Got Away.”

  42. US CIA, “Lebanon: Theology of Power.”

  43. Australia, Attorney General’s Department, “Hizballah External Security Organisation,” Listing of Terrorism Organisations, November 8, 2010; Borzou Daragahi and Sebastian Rotella, “Hezbollah Warlord Was an Enigma,” Los Angeles Times, August 31, 2008; Simon McGregor-Wood, “U.S. Wanted Terror Suspect Killed in Syria,” ABC News, February 13, 2008.

  44. Barton Gellman, “West Pursues Terror Camp’s Possible Link to Saudi Bombing of U.S. Troops,” Washington Post, December 1, 1996.

  45. Jeffrey Goldberg, “In the Party of God: Hezbollah Sets Up Operations in South America and the United States,” The New Yorker, October 28, 2002.

  46. James Risen, “Before bin Laden, One of the World’s Most Feared Men,” New York Times, February 14, 2008; Baer, See No Evil; Tim Llewellyn, “Imad Mughniyeh: Hizbullah Chief High on the US-Israeli Hitlist,” Guardian (London), February 13, 2008.

  47. Buenos Aires, Argentina Judicial Branch, AMIA Indictment, Office of the National Federal Court No. 17, Criminal and Correctional Matters No. 9, Case No. 1156, March 5, 2003 (hereafter cited as AMIA indictment).

  48. US CIA, “Lebanon: Prospects for Islamic Fundamentalism.”

  49. Elisabeth Smick, “Profile: Imad Mugniyah,” Council on Foreign Relations, February 13, 2008.

  50. Goldberg, “In the Party of God: Hezbollah Sets Up Operations.”

  51. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 68.

  52. US CIA, “Inching toward a Hostage Release.”

  53. Smick, “Profile: Imad Mugniyah.”

  54. Ibid.

  55. US CIA, “Lebanon: Hizballah at the Crossroads.”

  56. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 71, 85–86.

  57. Ibid.

  58. AMIA indictment; Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 69.

  59. Edward Cody, “Lebanese Suspect in Past Attacks on U.S Makes FBI List,” Washington Post, October 31, 2001; Blanford, Warriors of God, 76; Jacobsen, Hostage, 250; Diaz and Newman, Lightning Out of Lebanon, 68.

  60. Cody, “Lebanese Suspect in Past Attacks”; Diaz and Newman, Lightning Out of Lebanon, 68.

  61. Diaz and Newman, Lightning Out of Lebanon, 68.

  62. Cody, “Lebanese Suspect in Past Attacks”; US CIA, “Inching toward a Hostage Release.”

  63. McGregor-Wood, “U.S. Wanted Terror Suspect Killed in Syria”; Caroline B. Glick, “Hizbullah Mastermind’s True Legacy,” Jewish World Review, February 15, 2008.

  64. James Risen, “U.S. Traces Iran’s Ties to Terror through a Lebanese,” New York Times, January 17, 2002.

  65. US CIA, “Hizballah Terrorist Plans against U.S. Interests.”

  66. D. Peterson et al. v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, p. 53.

  67. Ibid., 55.

  68. US CIA, “Hizballah Terrorist Plans against U.S. Interests.”

  69. Peterson v. Islamic Republic of Iran, Memorandum Opinion, pp. 6–7.

  70.
Ibid., 6–7; Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 82.

  71. Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 83.

  72. Wright, Sacred Rage, 88.

  73. Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 82–83.

  74. US Department of Defense, “Report of the DOD Commission on Beirut International Airport Terrorist Act, October 23, 1983,” December 20, 1983.

  75. US Department of State, “Department Statement, Sept. 20, 1984,” US Department of State Bulletin, November 1984; “1984: US Embassy Blast Kills 20,” BBC News (On This Day), September 20, 1984.

  76. Wright, Sacred Rage, 107–8.

  77. Ibid., 108.

  78. Ibid.

  79. Ibid., 110.

  80. D. Peterson et al. v. The Islamic Republic of Iran, p. 17.

  81. Ibid., 18; “Iran ‘Liable’ for Beirut Bomb,” BBC News, May 31, 2003.

  82. Peterson v. Islamic Republic of Iran, Memorandum Opinion, p. 4.

  83. Ibid.

  84. Norton, Hezbollah: Short History, 34.

  85. Ibid., 73.

  86. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 64–65.

  87. US CIA, “Inching toward a Hostage Release.”

  88. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 64.

  89. US CIA, “Western Hostages in Lebanon.”

  90. Qassem, Hizbullah: Story from Within, 232–33.

  91. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 62.

  92. Ariel Merari et al., “INTER: International Terrorism in 1987,” JCSS Project on Low Intensity Warfare, Jerusalem Post, 1988, 36; Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 64.

  93. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 63.

  94. Ariel Merari et al., “INTER 85: A Review of International Terrorism in 1985,” Project on Terrorism, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Jerusalem Post, 1986, 5.

  95. Ibid., 62–69.

  96. US CIA, “Beirut: Terrorist Mecca.”

  97. “An Open Letter: The Hezbollah Program,” Jerusalem Quarterly 48 (Fall 1988): 3.

  98. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 60.

  99. “Open Letter: The Hezbollah Program,” 1.

  100. Jacobsen, Hostage, 290.

  101. US CIA, “Release of US Hostages in Lebanon,” 3.

  102. US CIA, “Iran and the U.S. Hostages in Lebanon.”

  103. US CIA, “Playing Politics with Western Hostages.”

  104. Merari et al., “INTER: International Terrorism in 1987,” 36.

  105. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 6.

  106. Jacobsen, Hostage, 53.

  107. Shaked and Dishon, Middle East Contemporary Survey, 405.

  108. Judith Miller, “Driver in Embassy Bombing Identified as Pro-Iranian Iraqi,” New York Times, December 17, 1983; Shaked and Dishon, Middle East Contemporary Survey, 405.

  109. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 117.

  110. US CIA, “Iranian Support for International Terrorism.”

  111. Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 129.

  112. Wright, Sacred Rage, 112.

  113. Ibid., 113.

  114. Ibid., 122.

  115. Shaked and Dishon, Middle East Contemporary Survey, 407; Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 91.

  116. Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 54.

  117. Associated Press, “12 Iraqis and Lebanese Accused in U.S. Embassy Blast in Kuwait,” December 19, 1983; Miller, “Driver in Embassy Bombing.”

  118. Wright, Sacred Rage, 124.

  119. Al-Musawi, whose Islamic Amal ultimately merged with other radical Lebanese Shi’ite groups to form Hezbollah, had been suspected of organizing the October 1983 attacks on the American and French Multinational Force barracks in Beirut. See Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 91; Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 80.

  120. The Prosecutor Special Tribunal for Lebanon v. Mustafa Amine Badreddine, Salim Jamil Ayy Ash, Hussein Hassan Oneissi & Assad Hassan Sabra, Case No. STL-11-01IIfPTJ, June 10, 2011, p. 4.

  121. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 91.

  122. Wright, Sacred Rage, 124–25.

  123. Ibid., 125.

  124. “Iran Denies Kuwait Blast Role,” New York Times, December 14, 1983.

  125. Wright, Sacred Rage, 125.

  126. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 92.

  127. US CIA, “Iran and the U.S. Hostages in Lebanon.”

  128. US CIA, “Wild, Wild West Beirut.”

  129. Ibid.

  130. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 86–108.

  131. US CIA, “Western Hostages in Lebanon.”

  132. Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 118.

  133. “William Francis Buckley,” Arlington National Cemetery website, last modified April 23, 2006.

  134. Cannistraro, interview, PBS Frontline.

  135. US CIA, “Lebanon: Hizb Allah.”

  136. Cannistraro, interview, PBS Frontline.

  137. US CIA, “New Rash of Kidnappings.”

  138. US CIA, “Lebanon: ‘Islamic Jihad’ Goes Public.”

  139. Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 118.

  140. Gordon Thomas, “William Buckley: The Spy Who Never Came in from the Cold,” Canada Free Press, October 25, 2006.

  141. Jacobsen, Hostage, 51–52.

  142. Thomas, “William Buckley.”

  143. James Sturcke, “Car Bomb Kills Hizbullah Chief in Syria,” Guardian (London), February 13, 2008.

  144. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 2.

  145. Jacobsen, Hostage, 54.

  146. Israel, Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, “Hezbollah (part 1): Profile of the Lebanese Shiite Terrorist Organization of Global Reach Sponsored by Iran and Supported by Syria,” June 2003; Ariel Merari et al., “INTER 85: A Review of International Terrorism in 1985,” 98; Ariel Merari et al., “INTER: International Terrorism in 1987,” 54.

  147. Ibid.

  148. Davies and Tomlinson, Spycraft Manual, 108.

  149. Ibid.; Fisk, Pity the Nation, 613.

  150. Ariel Merari et al., “INTER 85: A Review of International Terrorism in 1985,” 99.

  151. Fisk, Pity the Nation, 613.

  152. Woodward, Secret Wars of the CIA, 416.

  153. James S. Robbins, “Holding Us Hostage Speaking Their Language,” National Review Online, April 12, 2004.

  154. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland, “Islamic Liberation Organization,” 2012.

  155. US Department of Justice, FBI, “International Radical Fundamentalism.”

  156. John Kohan, Johanna McGeary, and Barry Hillenbrand, “Horror aboard Flight 221,” Time, December 17, 1984.

  157. Wright, Sacred Rage, 134.

  158. Kohan, McGeary, and Hillenbrand, “Horror aboard Flight 221.”

  159. Evan Duncan, “Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Official Personnel Abroad, 1982–84: Iran,” US Department of State Bulletin, April 1985.

  160. Wright, Sacred Rage, 136.

  161. Ibid.

  162. Paul Wilkinson, “Hezbollah: A Critical Appraisal,” Jane’s Intelligence Review (August 1993): 369.

  163. Wright, Sacred Rage, 140.

  164. “Facts for Your Files: A Chronology of U.S. Middle East Relations,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 17, 1984.

  165. Duncan, “Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Official Personnel Abroad.”

  166. Shaked and Rabinovich, Middle East Contemporary Survey, 404.

  167. US CIA, “Lebanon: ‘Islamic Jihad’ Goes Public.”

  168. “1988: Hijackers Free 25 Hostages,” BBC News (On This Day), April 5 1988.

  169. Associated Press, “Hijacked Plane in Cyprus After 7 Hours of Air Terror,” Los Angeles Times, April 8, 1988.

  170. Associated Press, “Chronology of Events in Hijacking of Kuwait Airways Flight 422 with AM-Hijack Bjt,” AP News Archive, April 12, 1988.

  171. Sam Allis Larnaca and David S. Jackson, “Terrorism Nightmare on Flight 422,” Time, April 25, 1988.

  172. Times Wire Serv
ices, “Hijackers Free Hostages, End 16-Day Ordeal,” Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1988.

  173. Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, 129.

  174. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 9/11 Commission Report, released July 22, 2004, 48.

  175. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 125.

  176. US CIA, “Keenan’s Release a Victory,” 5.

  177. Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon, 105.

  178. US CIA, “Hizballah Terrorist Plans against U.S. Interests.”

  3

  Hezbollah’s European Debut

  “WE’VE GOT A HIJACK,” flight engineer Christian Zimmermann told the captain, John Testrake, as he reached for the cockpit fire ax by the bulkhead door. Who knew what weapons the hijackers had, or what weapons the crew might be able to use? Either way, Zimmermann thought, better to hide the ax. TWA flight 847 had just taken off from Athens on a short flight to Rome, with continuing service to the United States. But the routine trip became a terrifying, 8,500-mile journey around the Mediterranean aimed at securing the release of Lebanese Shi’a militants from Israeli and other jails. The hijacking also introduced the world to its mastermind, Imad Mughniyeh, who was famously photographed leaning out the cockpit window over Captain Testrake with his gun pointed at the tarmac.1

  As soon as the flight engineer turned off the seat belt sign, the hijackers rushed the cockpit door. The flight crew first heard banging from the main cabin, then heavy pounding on the cockpit door. The door’s bottom panel was kicked out, flying into the cockpit. The hijackers kicked lead flight attendant Uli Derickson in the chest and held a gun to her head while screaming, “Come to die! Americans die!” Derickson called the captain on the intercom: “We’re being roughed up back here! Please open the door!” As Zimmermann unlocked the door, two hijackers stormed in, one gripping an automatic pistol and the other a couple of hand grenades, and demanded the plane head for Algeria. As he planned a new course for Algeria, the captain mused to himself how “they were well-groomed, average-looking guys who didn’t look like they could be hijackers or killers.”2

  Aware they were vastly outnumbered, the two hijackers, later identified as Hezbollah operatives Mohammad Ali Hamadi and Hasan Izz al-Din, quickly established authority and control over the 153 passengers and crew. They burst in and out of the cockpit and ran up and down the aisles hitting passengers on the head, Hamadi holding the gun and Izz al-Din the grenades. Some crew members were pistol-whipped by Hamadi, while Izz al-Din took to pulling the pins out of his grenades and playing with them nervously. In an effort to reduce threats to the hijackers, men were seated by the windows and women and children moved to aisle seats. The area near the cockpit was cleared of passengers, who were crammed into the back of the aircraft, where passengers now sat four across in each three-seat row. They were instructed to sit silently with heads down and hands clasped over their heads. Those who made a noise or complained were beaten. Such precautions were wise; members of the crew and several US military officers on board each considered confronting the hijackers but thought better of it. At one point the pilot even considered flying the plane to Tel Aviv and landing before the hijackers realized what he had done.3