Provides a close-up look at the terrorist group Hezbollah, the so-called "party of God," discussing its training, organization, goals, and capabilities to conduct terrorist operations throughout the United States through the use of sleeper cells, and examines efforts to combat Hezbollah on the homefront. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.
"Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God is the most-compreshensive examination of Hezbollah's covert activities beyond Lebanon's borders, including its financial and logistical support networks and its criminal and terrorist operations worldwide. Originally published in 2013, this paperback edition includes a new preface and epilogue by the author to update us on Hezbollah's activities in recent years, particularly in supporting the Assad regime in Syria's civil war and the latest crossborder fighting between Hezbollah and Israel after October 7, 2023. Hezbollah-which translates as "Party of God"-is a multifaceted organization: It is a powerful political party in Lebanon, a Shia Islam religious and social movement, Lebanon's largest militia, a close ally of Iran and Hamas, and a terrorist organization. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including declassified government documents, court records, and personal interviews with intelligence and law enforcement officials around the world, Matthew Levitt examines Hezbollah's beginnings, its first violent forays in Lebanon, and then its terrorist activities and criminal enterprises abroad in Europe, the Middle East, South America, Southeast Asia, Africa, and finally in North America. Levitt also describes Hezbollah's unit dedicated to supporting Palestinian militant groups and Hezbollah's involvement in training and supporting insurgents who fought US troops in post-Saddam Iraq. The book concludes with a look at Hezbollah's integral, ongoing role in Iran's shadow war with Israel and the West, including plots targeting civilians around the world. Levitt shows convincingly that Hezbollah's willingness to use violence at home and abroad, its global reach, and its proxy-patron relationship with the Iranian regime remains a serious international concern. Hezbollah is an important book for scholars, policymakers, students, and the general public interested in international security, terrorism, international criminal organizations, and Middle East studies"--
This anthology covers Small Wars Journal writings on Iranian and Hezbollah hybrid warfare activities around the world. Writings date from 2007 to 2015, including coverage on the nuclear deal, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) and Qods Force global movements, and Hezbollah’s expanding influence as Iran’s proxy. This anthology is meant to support the U.S. security debate on a post-nuclear deal Iran and an increasing Hezbollah presence in Middle East affairs as well as Latin America. This volume is composed of sixty chapters divided into four sections on Iran’s military capabilities and nuclear ambitions, Hezbollah’s global operations, Iranian and Hezbollah influence in Middle Eastern security affairs and their activities in Latin America. Also included is a foreword by Jason Rivera, an afterword by Dr. Luis Fleischman, a postscript by Dr. John P. Sullivan, an acronym listing, chapter notes, suggested readings following each section, and short biographies of the fifty-three contributors showcased in this work.
Find out how Daniel foresaw the rise of America as the world's only superpower, the events of 9/11/01, and a soon coming showdown in the Middle East with Iran.
Argues that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard poses a danger to the economy and well-being of the United States, citing its previous operations in the Middle East and Asia.
On July 12, 2006, Israel went to war with Hezbollah in response to the killing and capture of Israeli soldiers along the southern Lebanese border. Believed at the time by many in the West to be an overreaction to a relatively minor border incident resulted in hundreds of civilian deaths in Lebanon, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border, and the deaths of dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians. More important to Israeli nation security, the war exposed basic flaws in Israel’s national security assumptions, and defense strategy. This study reveals that Israel went to war without having clearly defined its critical political, diplomatic, or military goals and objectives. In the years immediately prior to the beginning of the war the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) rejected the long proven principles of war in favor of a novel, incoherent, and confusing doctrine. The war revealed the debilitating impact of a long counterinsurgency campaign on training, and traditional combined arms capabilities. Finally, despite the superb performance of the Israeli Air Force (IAF), airpower and technology proved to be inconclusive and a poor substitute for well-trained resolute maneuver forces directly engaging enemy forces.
It is convenient to think that bad guys are drumming up money for their activities far away and in shady back alleys, but the violent non-state actors (VNSAs) of the world are hiding in plain sight. They peddle knockoff sneakers, pass the hat at ethnic festivals, take a cut of untaxed booze sales, swindle senior citizens with bogus phone calls about needing bail in Mexico, and run money through mainstream banks to buy up rental properties (just to name a few). On a grand scale, their behavior erodes rule of law, creates moral injuries from corruption, and emboldens bad actors to steal and back violent tactics with impunity. Blood Money analyzes the ways in which VNSAs find money for their operations and sustainment, from controlling a valuable commodity to harnessing the grievances of a networked diaspora, and it looks at the channels through which they can flip the positives of globalization into flat, fast, and frictionless movement of people, funds, and materials needed to terrorize and coerce their opponents. Author Margaret Sankey highlights the mundane and everyday nature of these tactics, occurring under our noses online, in legitimate marketplaces, and with the aegis of intelligence services and national governments. While reforms attempt to curtail these options, their utility and efficacy as tools of finance have proved inadequate for sovereign states. VNSAs' defiance of rules and their capable adaptation and innovation make them extremely difficult to pin down or prosecute. Many security publications stress legislation and enforcement or frame illicit finance as a military or police problem. With Blood Money, Sankey points out the many ways VNSAs evade law enforcement, and she offers options for involving consumers and activists in exercising agency and choices in how they apply their money and where it goes. Blood Money also provides context for whole-of-government approaches to attacking underlying supports for illicit financing channels. How these groups finance themselves is key to understanding how they function and what actions might be taken to derail their plans or dismantle their structure.
A concise yet comprehensive overview of Hamas and Hezbollah. Hezbollah and Hamas are major players in Middle Eastern politics and have a growing involvement in global events. Despite their strikingly different beginnings, they share a common denominator—an adversary in Israel. Hezbollah and Hamas draws from primary interviews and documents coupled with a thorough review of current scholarship. This is a portrait of the organizations’ roots, histories, ideologies, relationships, tactics, political outlooks, and futures. Joshua L. Gleis and Benedetta Berti present organization charts, maps, and a case study of the TriBorder Area in South America, which frequently serves as an operational center for terrorist groups. Recognizing that these two groups are increasingly relevant to U.S. national security, Gleis and Berti provide a comparative analysis of their histories and political missions that moves beyond reductionist portrayals of the organizations' military operations.
Today, National Security is embroiled in the unknown, the uncertain, the unseen, and the unexpected. In the twenty-first century, failed states, rogue states, ethnic militias, and radical extremists produce transnational actors involved in global conflicts. During the 1980s, Iran used Hizballah as a surrogate terrorist organization. This was an excellent example of the transition from the traditional state-centered paradigm ordered around conventional strength between rival states to a new type of warfare practiced today. The model created from this research shows many of the conditions, activities, and events necessary to create a state-sponsored terrorist group and provides the reader with indicators that such a group is being formed. Surrogate Terrorists explores some of the analytic methodology used to understand terrorism, insurgency, asymmetric warfare, and state practice of denial and deception. It closes with examples of state-sponsored surrogate terrorist groups' centers of gravity that can be exploited.