Latest in Hezbollah
U.S. policy has focused narrowly on countering Hezbollah. The Biden administration should turn to the systemic problems of the country’s politics.
A special tribunal finally ruled in the case about the bombing that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. What did the judges find and what happens next?
A Defense Department linguist, Mariam Thompson, was charged today by federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia with transmitting sensitive classified national defense information to a foreign national with apparent connections to Hezbollah. The affidavit filed in support of a criminal complaint alleges that the information transmitted by Thomas included classified information regarding the true names of active human assets.
Qassim Soleimani's death has prompted questions about Iran’s ability to retaliate against the U.S. outside the Middle East. Iran and Hezbollah have spent the past several decades establishing international bases of operations—particularly in Latin America and Western Africa.
American law enforcement efforts have become increasingly multifaceted as the government attempts to combat the continuing ingenuity and sophistication of transnational organized criminal groups. Since the publication of the first post in this series, the U.S. government has announced several significant actions taken against transnational organized crime groups.
Editor’s Note: Minor powers, rebel groups, and other organizations often act as proxies for more powerful states or groups, which use them to fight (or commit) terrorism, counter rival regimes, or otherwise advance their interests. Despite the prevalence and importance of proxy war, it is often misunderstood. Assaf Moghadam of IDC Herzliya and Michel Wyss of the Swiss Armed Forces' Military Academy identify five myths about proxy war and offer more sophisticated ways for us to understand it.
Daniel Byman
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Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah spar regularly, and Hezbollah’s intervention in the Syrian civil war expanded their conflict’s front line. In the years since the war began in 2011, Israel has attacked Hezbollah weapons depots and forces in Syria, and Hezbollah boasts that it shot down an Israeli F-16 jet. A senior U.S.
Editor's Note: Last week, Tamara Cofman Wittes co-chaired an international election observation mission in Lebanon for the National Democratic Institute (she serves on NDI’s board, but the views laid out below are her own, not NDI’s).
As U.S. Opens Embassy in Jerusalem, Israeli Forces Kill 60 Demonstrators in Gaza
An expose in Politico by Josh Meyer entitled “The secret backstory of how the Obama administration let Hezbollah off the hook” makes a damning charge: “In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.” Beyond securing a nuclear deal, the article argues, some Obama administration officials—including John Brennan, the CIA director wh