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Islamic
Jihad
Also
Known As:
-
Hizballah
-Hezbollah
(Party of God)
-
Palestine
Islamic
Jihad
-
Revolutionary
Justice Organization
-
Organization
of the Oppressed on Earth
Formed
in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, this Lebanon-based
radical Shia group takes its ideological inspiration from the Iranian revolution
and the teachings of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. The Majlis al-Shura, or
Consultative Council, is the group's highest governing body and is led by
Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah. Hizballah is dedicated to liberating
Jerusalem and eliminating Israel, and has formally advocated ultimate
establishment of Islamic rule in Lebanon. Nonetheless, Hizballah has actively
participated in Lebanon's political system since 1992.
Strongly anti-Western and anti-Israeli. Closely allied with, and often directed
by Iran, but may have conducted operations that were not approved by Tehran.
The group is based in the Syrian capital,
Damascus, and receives substantial amounts of financial, training, weapons,
explosives, political, diplomatic, and organizational aid from Iran and Syria.
It also opposes pro-Western Arab
governments.
Six
countries, Australia, Israel, Canada, The Netherlands, The United States and the
United Kingdom, officially list Hezbollah, or its external security arm, as a
terrorist organization,
Sayyed
Hassan Nasrallah
Secretary
General of Hezbollah
Activities:
Known
or suspected to have been involved in numerous anti-US and anti-Israeli
terrorist attacks, including the suicide truck bombings of the US Embassy and US
Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the US Embassy annex in Beirut in 1984.
Three members of Hizballah, 'Imad Mughniyah, Hasan Izz-al-Din, and Ali Atwa,
are on the FBI's list of 22 Most Wanted Terrorists for the 1985 hijacking of
TWA Flight 847 during which a US Navy diver was murdered. Elements of the group
were responsible for the kidnapping and detention of Americans and other
Westerners in Lebanon in the 1980s. Hizballah also attacked the Israeli Embassy
in Argentina in 1992 and the Israeli cultural center in Buenos Aires in 1994. In
2000, Hizballah operatives captured three Israeli soldiers in the Shab'a Farms
and kidnapped an Israeli noncombatant.
Hizballah
also provides guidance and financial and operational support for Palestinian
extremist groups engaged in terrorist operations in Israel and the occupied
territories.
In
2004, Hizballah launched an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that left Lebanese
airspace and flew over the Israeli town of Nahariya before crashing into
Lebanese territorial waters. Ten days prior to the event, the Hizballah
Secretary General said Hizballah would come up with new measures to counter
Israeli Air Force violations of Lebanese airspace. Hizballah also continued
launching small scale attacks across the Israeli border, resulting in the deaths
of several Israeli soldiers. In March 2004, Hizballah and HAMAS signed an
agreement to increase joint efforts to perpetrate attacks against Israel. In
late 2004, Hizballah's al-Manar television station, based in Beirut with an
estimated ten million viewers worldwide, was prohibited from broadcasting in
France. Al-Manar was placed on the Terrorist Exclusion List (TEL) in the United
States, which led to its removal from the program offerings of its main cable
service provider, and made it more difficult for al-Manar associates and
affiliates to operate in the United States.
On
February 12, 2008, Imad Mughnieh ,a senior member of the Hezbollah organization,
was killed by a car bomb in Damascus, Syria. He was suspected of planning
kidnappings, hijacking, and attacks in Beirut during the 1980s and '90s. He was
wanted by Interpol and the United States Government.
Interpol
wanted him in connection with his alleged participation in an attack on an
Argentine Israeli association in which 85 people were killed and almost 300
wounded.
The
United States believe he was responsible for the abduction of William Buckley,
the head of its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) office in Lebanon, who was
later found dead.
Washington also blamed him for masterminding the hijacking in 1985 of a TWA
plane during which a US serviceman was beaten, killed and thrown onto the tarmac
of Beirut airport.
Mughnieh was also linked by Washington to the bombing of the US Marine barracks
at Beirut airport in 1983, in which 241 American servicemen perished.
Strength
Several thousand supporters and a few hundred terrorist operatives.
Location/Area of Operation
Operates in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, and southern
Lebanon. Has established cells in Europe, Africa, South America, North America,
and Asia.
External Aid
Receives financial, training, weapons, explosives, political, diplomatic, and
organizational aid from Iran, and diplomatic, political, and logistical support
from Syria. Hizballah also receives funding from charitable donations and
business interests.
Statement of purpose from The
Hizbullah Press Office
Hizbullah is an Islamic freedom
fighting movement founded after the Israeli military seizure of Lebanon in 1982,
which resulted in immediate formation of the Islamic resistance units for the
liberation of the occupied territories and for the expulsion of the aggressive
Israelis forces.
In addition to shouldering the
burden of resisting the Israelis occupation as it is stated by the international
Bill of Human Rights, Hizbullah is also concerned about the presentation of
Islam which addresses the mind, and reasons. Hizbullah is concerned about
Presenting Islam that is confident of its fundamentals, its highly civilized
understanding of Man, life and the universe, Islam as being self-assured about
its capability to achieve the basis of right and justice. We are anxious to
present Islam as being open hearted to all nations their various political and
cultural trends and their mumerous experiences, away from subjection or
bewilderment. We are anxious to present Islam as being the guardian for human
rights defining choices, adopting convictions and expressing them, socially. We
opt for the formation of political pressure in education, pedagogy, medical case
and other social benefits announced in the Bill of Human Rights. We are anxious
to define the priorities for our cultural project that utilizes persuasiveness
and polarization through the civilized and the human methods confirmed by the
Bill of the Human Rights. Away from evidence force, and coercion. We are anxious
to offer a model of performance in struggling targeting the enemy that
represents a challenge for the existence of the whole nation along with its
regimes and people. We also circumvent conflicts that do not serve the main aim,
fighting the enemy, or that could create discord at the front, which is to be
unified around the common interests. The hope is to rid of the pressuring
threats pactised by the foreign zionist entity which has been thrust upon the
Islamic and the Arab contemporany nation . It should be clear that the kind of
Islam we want is a civilized endeavour that rejects injustice, humiliation,
slavery, subjugation , colonism and blackmail while we stretch out our arms for
communication among nations on the basis of mutual respect . The Islam we mean
is the religion that never accepts control or delegation by others for the sake
of manipulating the rights and the interests of the nation . The Islam we mean
is the religion that recommends communication among civilization and rejects
devisive collision between those civilizations. An Islam that believes in
cultural communication among nations and refuses setting up barriers and
embargos and sees that it is our right to remove those barriers by the
diplomatic means, however, when others intend to launch wars against it,
Hizbullah finds it a natural right to defend itself representing the supporters
the their achievements .
Islam that we understand is a
message that aims at establishing justice, security, peace and rights for all
people no matter what nation, race or religion they belong. We don't have any
complex toward others, but we feel the responsibility toward them, to make them
understand the essence of our religion away from obligation and fanaticism.
We don't seek the application of
Islam by force or violence but by peaceful political action, which gives the
opportunity for the majority in any society to adopt or rejectit. If Islam
becomes the choice of the majority then we will apply it, if not, we will
continue to coexist and discuss till we reach correct beliefs.
We hereby affirm that our Islam
rejects violence as a method to gain Power, and this should be the formula for
the nonislamists as well.
Source:
United States Department of State, CIA
Factbook,Yale Law school
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