Hezbollah (2 page)

So over the course of several years I interviewed officials and collected reports from all over the world. I met with journalists, academics, and current and former government officials—policymakers, intelligence officials, law enforcement officers, analysts, and more—everywhere from Australia to Germany and from Jordan to Singapore. My travels took me from the Los Angeles garment district to the salon of
a Kuwaiti intellectual, and from a Belgian steakhouse to innumerable coffeehouses and government offices. I interviewed former undercover agents in the most unlikely places, and when a face-to-face meeting could not be arranged I conducted interviews over the phone.

The tale of international intrigue that poured forth from these meetings amazed me at first, though over time I grew accustomed to scribbling pages and pages of notes that knew no geographic bounds. In one instance a couple of investigators mapped out a case that involved petty crime and massive fraud, radical ideology and nationalistic fervor, all interwoven with arms procurement, document forgery, counterfeiting, and fundraising schemes. More astounding still were the stops in that one story: from the United States to Argentina, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Paraguay, Slovakia, and Syria.

Most interviews led to several others, over the course of which I methodically bounced ideas off people who came from a wide array of backgrounds, and ultimately I sifted through the vast amounts of raw material to form the contents of this book. A great deal of information I collected did not make the cut. From time to time, interviews are cited directly in the notes. But the greatest value of the interviews was in confirming material from the many reports, investigations, declassified intelligence assessments, and other documents I collected along the way and which are more commonly cited here.

This book benefits from extensive field research, including hundreds of interviews; primary source material, including newly released documents, declassified intelligence, court documents, and official reports; and supplementary material which I worked hard to vet and confirm from press reports and the existing academic and other literature. The documents I collected include declassified reports from the CIA and FBI, the Canadian Integrated Threat Assessment Centre (ITAC), the Israeli Shin Bet and Mossad, and agencies of the governments of Argentina, Chile, Germany, the Philippines, and Singapore, among others. The documents include case files from local law enforcement agencies, congressional testimonies, press releases, government affidavits and reports, and much more.

Because of the sensitivity of the subject matter, and since many of the people I interviewed were current or former government officials, many of these interviews were conducted on a not-for-attribution basis. “Anonymous sourcing is widely recognized as necessary when researching clandestine militant groups,” as a colleague put it in the introduction to his own study.
³
But the necessary practice makes the vetting of materials and exploitation of as much publicly citable material as possible all the more important. To that end, I used each interview not only as an opportunity to collect new information but also to vet and confirm information I obtained in other interviews or documents. What I write here is based on this research, not any special knowledge of my own. I direct the reader to the notes for further information on the source of information for any given fact or statement. It should be assumed that persons or entities accused of illicit conduct of any kind within the documents I cite dispute those charges. But with the source information provided here, readers can and should draw their own conclusions.

The book is structured along geographic and loosely chronological tracks. It opens with Hezbollah’s birth and its first forays into violence targeting Western interests, first at home in Lebanon and then abroad. It then follows the trajectory of Hezbollah’s operations abroad, first in Europe and the Middle East, then South America and Southeast Asia. Hezbollah’s activities in North America pre–September 11 come next, moving to the Persian Gulf where the group played a role in the bombing of a US military barracks building in Saudi Arabia. The book then takes a look at the Hezbollah unit dedicated to supporting Palestinian militant groups, at Hezbollah’s activities in Africa, and at the group’s activities in post–Saddam Iraq. A chapter on Hezbollah’s activities in North America post–September 11 follows, taking advantage of the significant amount of information gleaned from investigations of Hezbollah in the United States and Canada over the past few years. The book concludes with a look at Hezbollah’s role in Iran’s shadow war with the West, including plots targeting civilians around the world.

This book is not intended to be the final word on Hezbollah’s global reach, nor does it pretend to be a comprehensive study of Hezbollah’s worldwide presence and capabilities. This book is, however, the first study of its kind focused specifically on Hezbollah’s clandestine activities worldwide. I look forward to the conversation that follows.

1.
US Department of the Treasury, “Hizballah External Security Organisation.” Attorney General’s Department, Australian Government, May 16, 2009 (document last modified November 8, 2010).

2.
Hamilton, “Hezbollah’s Global Reach.”

3.
Tankel,
Storming the World Stage
, 7.

FOR A WHILE
, the two Hezbollah operatives sat in their car, scoping out the Israeli embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan. Concentrating on their stakeout, the operatives were unaware that police were watching them watch the building. When the operatives finally realized they were under surveillance, they pulled into traffic, but not quite quickly enough, and were caught fleeing the scene. Police inspected their car, where they found explosives, binoculars, cameras, pistols with silencers, and pictures from earlier surveillance runs. Police arrested the two Lebanese men, later identified as Ali Karaki and Ali Najem Aladine, raided several safe houses, and arrested four local militants recruited by Karaki and Aladine to work for them.
¹

Working closely with Iranian intelligence agents and local operatives—some Islamist extremists, others criminals—the Hezbollah operatives had methodically planned a series of spectacular terrorist operations for spring 2008. The planned attacks reportedly included multiple and simultaneous car bombings around the Israeli and US embassies, kidnapping the Israeli ambassador, and blowing up a radar tower.
²
None of this was to take place in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based, or in Israel, the primary target of Hezbollah’s ire, but some 900 miles away, in the remote capital of Azerbaijan, just north of Iran.

Hezbollah operatives had been caught plotting in Azerbaijan before. In fall 2001 six suspects reportedly tied to Hezbollah were arrested near the Iranian border.
³
Over the next few years Azerbaijani authorities exposed several cells tied to Iran that were said to be plotting attacks against Israeli or other Western targets there. In 2006 fifteen Azeris were accused of plotting attacks against Israeli and Western targets, reportedly after receiving training and direction from Iran. As a result of the increased surveillance tied to that case, police uncovered the 2008 plot when local militants were found to be in contact with Karaki, described as a “veteran of Hezbollah’s external operations unit,” and Aladine, a “lower ranking explosives expert.” Using Iranian passports and staying in luxury hotels, the two traveled among Azerbaijan, Iran, and Lebanon in early 2008. Together they recruited a network of local operatives, several of whom eluded arrest—along with some other Lebanese and Iranian suspects—by driving south across the border into Iran.
⁴

The investigation determined that the men received orders from Hezbollah’s international terrorist wing, alternatively known as the Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO) or the External Security Organization (ESO). Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) provided the explosives and other support, including facilitating the foreign cell members’ entry into Azerbaijan on Iranian passports.
⁵

In their plots focused on the Israeli and US embassies, the suspects intended to park as many as four cars filled with explosives near the sites and detonate them simultaneously. The location of the Israeli embassy in the Hyatt Tower, a complex that also housed the Thai and Japanese embassies, apparently did not dissuade the plotters from going forward. Once arrested, Karaki and Aladine were detained for more than a year before they were charged in June 2009 with treason, revealing secret information abroad, espionage, preparing acts of terrorism, drug trafficking, and arms smuggling.
⁶

During the trial Ali Karaki, identified as the cell leader, admitted that he had served as Hezbollah’s representative in Iran since 2003, earning $900 a month. In Iran, Karaki also worked with tour groups that gathered near Tehran’s al-Nabi mosque, where he was approached by someone from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and ultimately put on its payroll as well. Among his responsibilities, Karaki admitted, were collecting information on the Jewish Cultural Center in Baku and investigating Iranians (presumably Iranian Jews) suspected of “help[ing] Israel.”
⁷

Karaki and Aladine were reportedly tasked with the operation by Hezbollah officials in Lebanon before traveling to Iran, where IRGC agents helped them cross the border into Azerbaijan in 2007. During their multiple visits to Baku in 2007 and early 2008, they first recruited local operatives and then conducted surveillance of potential targets. One such target was the Qabala radar station, which is leased by the Azeris to Russia and manned by Russian personnel—a seemingly odd target for Hezbollah or Iran.
⁸

But Hezbollah and Iran had a reason to keep their eye on the radar station. To begin with, it is likely that the original operational concept had been limited to surveillance alone, just in case either party ever needed to carry out a future attack. Also, Russia had offered to staff the radar station jointly with the United States in lieu of deploying the US missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia made the offer in June 2007, not long before the surveillance began.
⁹
Hezbollah and Iran did decide to operationalize at least the part of the plot focused on the Israeli embassy and ambassador, however, in reaction to the February 2008 assassination in Damascus of Hezbollah’s chief of external operations, Imad Mughniyeh.

Three months later Karaki and Aladine were caught red-handed with explosives and weapons at the ready. In October 2009 the six defendants, including Karaki and Aladine, were convicted of preparing attacks targeting the Israeli and American embassies, as well as the radar station. The two Hezbollah operatives were sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
¹⁰
A few months later their families complained that they neither received Hezbollah stipends nor saw any effort to secure Karaki and Aladine’s
release. “Had Imad Mughniyeh been alive,” some grumbled, “he would not have treated the families in this indecent way.”
¹¹
Less than a year after their convictions, they were both released to Iran and repatriated home to Lebanon in a prisoner trade that secured the freedom of an Azeri scholar jailed in Iran.
¹²

Exiting a meeting with Syrian intelligence on the evening of February 12, 2008, Imad Mughniyeh—also known as Hajj Radwan—climbed into his Mitsubishi Pajero and was killed instantly when an explosive device, reportedly inserted into the driver’s seat headrest, went off, causing a massive explosion.
¹³
For years Mughniyeh had successfully evaded capture by international intelligence agencies (he reportedly altered his appearance with plastic surgery), so the assassination shocked Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria alike, leading officials from Syria’s various intelligence agencies to blame one another for the intelligence failure. Meanwhile both Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence lacked faith in a unilateral Syrian investigation and pressed to have their own officers included in the investigation.
¹⁴

According to media accounts, US diplomatic cables reported that the Saudi ambassador to Lebanon told US diplomats that Hezbollah suspected that Syria was behind the assassination. By this account the Iranian foreign minister, who personally attended Mughniyeh’s funeral, made the trip “to calm down Hezbollah and keep it from taking action against Syria.”
¹⁵
In time Iran and Hezbollah concluded that Israeli intelligence had carried out the attack, based on information gathered by Palestinian and Syrian recruits.
¹⁶
Hezbollah engaged in a counterintelligence investigation of its own, leading the group to terminate activities it feared may have been compromised and led to Mughniyeh’s identification (see
chapter 11
).

Hezbollah denied Mughniyeh’s existence altogether while he lived but openly embraced him in death.
¹⁷
A major street in Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs was renamed Imad Mughniyeh Avenue, complete with a memorial to the Hezbollah commander in the median.
¹⁸
Hezbollah posted a glowing memorial to Mughniyeh on its website, noting that the group’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, had posthumously awarded him the “exceptional title” Leader of the Two Victories, referring to Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000 and Hezbollah’s July 2006 war against Israel.
¹⁹
His tomb became a shrine, part of Hezbollah’s string of militant-themed tourist sites.
²⁰

From the outset there was little question that Hezbollah would seek to avenge Mughniyeh’s death. In a fiery eulogy delivered by video link from a secure location, Nasrallah spoke to the crowds gathered for the commander’s funeral. “Zionists,” he threatened, “if you want this sort of open war, then let the whole world hear, so be it!” In a pledge to his followers, Nasrallah promised, “The blood of Imad Mughniyeh will make them [Israel] withdraw from existence.”
²¹
Since its self-described “divine victory” against Israel in July 2006, Hezbollah had already begun to engage in what the National Counterterrorism Center would later describe as “an increasingly aggressive terrorist campaign”—likely a reference to both the group’s militant
actions at home targeting fellow Lebanese and its support to other militants abroad, especially in Iraq but also in Somalia (see
chapters 9
and
10
).
²²
Within weeks Hezbollah attempted the first of several plots—the foiled plot in Baku—intended to make good on Nasrallah’s threat.