FUNDAMENTALISM: Lebanon's Hezbollah Seen from Inside.
Lebanon's Hezbollah is a highly complex organization torn by infighting between factions. How to understand the inner workings of an Islamist fundamentalist organization that has become a key player in the Middle East and a trump card in the hands of Syria and Iran. Who are its leaders, what are its structures and how can its true impact be measured?

ESPIONAGE NETWORK DISMANTLED
Summary: An investigation led by col. Michel Rahbani from Lebanon's Direction du Renseignement Militaire (Military Intelligence Service) following the accidental explosion of a car carrying a bomb in the easte (...)
SOBHI TUFAILI
Summary: Sought by the police since violent clashes between his supporters and a Lebanese army unit on Jan. 30, sheikh Sobhi Tufaili is unlikely ever to be arrested. Although the Lebanese army is still surroun (...)
AMAL STRIKES BLOW TO SLA
Summary: The Lebanese Shi'ite movement Amal, which was drastically overhauled last June with the help of Syrian and Lebanese officers, claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on Jan. 14 at a crossing point be (...)
EMILE LAHOUD
Summary: Visiting Beirut on Dec. 16, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, Martin Indyk, surprised his Lebanese hosts by asking on the spot to meet with the army commander-in-chief, gen. (...)
PKK RECRUITS AND CALLS OFFENSIVE
Summary: Abdullah Ocalan's Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) decided at a meeting of its operational chiefs in Lebanon's Bekaa valley on Dec. 2 to launch an offensive against several big Turkish cities in conjuncti (...)
NASRALLAH SEEKS 3RD IRAN MANDATE
Summary: The secretary-general of Hezbollah's Lebanese wing, sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has just carried out his longest visit to Iran since he took over as boss of the fundamentalist movement. His aim was to wi (...)
AMERICAN PROPOSALS TO REPLACE BEIRUT AIRPORT
Summary: After negotiations that dragged on for years, the United States partially lifted the ban on Americans using Beirut airport in mid-August. The airport isn't considered safe because it lies in the area (...)
ANSAR ALLAH'S CLANDESTINE LEADERSHIP
Summary: According to a report drawn up by Lebanese intelligence, the former secretary-general of Hezbollah, sheikh Sobhi Tufaili, has moved to beef up his dissident Ansar Allah (God's Partizans) movement in Lebanon by creating a security service.
RIVAL TO HEZBOLLAH IN BEKAA VALLEY
Summary: Stripped of all power within Lebanon's Hezbollah movement since 1992, the organization's former secretary-general, sheikh Sobhi Tufaili, has launched a violent campaign in recent weeks both against the Lebanese government and the current boss of Hezbollah, his old arch-rival sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.
MAHER MAMMOUD
Summary: Sheikh Maher Hammoud, imam of the Al Quods mosque at Saida in southern Lebanon and one of the founding fathers of the pro-Iranian Lebanese Sunni movement, has officially announced his resignation from the Association of Moslem Ulemas.
NASRALLAH TOP DOG IN HEZBOLLAH
Summary: The secretary-general of the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has just informed the party leadership that the annual convention which is usually held in early March won't be staged this year.
TEHRAN UPS HEZBOLLAH'S ALLOWANCE
Summary: Hassan Nasrallah, secretary-general of the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah, attended gatherings of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's leading political and military body, in Tehran in early December.
CLASHES BETWEEN SUNNIS IN LEBANON
Summary: Angry clashes are breaking out between Sunni fundamentalist factions in Beirut, Tripoli and Saida as the trial of the alleged assassins of sheikh Nizar al Halabi (IN 282), leader of the Islamist Sunni association al Ahbash, unfolds in the Lebanese capital in a climate of extreme tension.
SCHMIDBAUER MEETS HEZBOLLAH
Summary: High-level sources in Lebanon have told Intelligence Newsletter that German chancellor Helmut Kohl's intelligence advisor, Bernd Schmidbauer, arrived in Beirut by private aircraft at the head of a large BND delegation on May 24.
SQUABBLE BETWEEN IRANIANS SPARKS DIPLOMATIC INCIDENT
Summary: The Iranian secret services triggered a major scandal last week in Beirut, prompting Lebanese president Elias Hraoui to state that "the Iranians have really got to close down their shops (dataqin) in Beirut.
NEW ALS DIASPORA
Summary: Fearing a sudden withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Christian military region of Jezzine in southern Lebanon many officers and intelligence chiefs of the South Lebanese Army (SLA) have been working to obtain visas to immigrate to a wide range of countries.
SHIITE FIGHT CROSSES ATLANTIC
Summary: The power-sharing arrangement that Damas and Tehran imposed in 1992 on the two Shiite movements in Lebanon, Amal and Hezbollah, has been crumbling in the wake of daily clashes between supporters of the two organizations in Beirut, the Bekaa valley and in southern Lebanon.
HOW CIA KIDNAPPERS WERE FOILED
Summary: An internal report by Lebanon's Sureté Générale (Al Amn al-Aam) drafted in July gives a detailed account of how an attempt by the CIA to kidnap sheikh Hassan Ezzeddine, the then head of Hezbollah's Foreign Operations Section, was foiled on Oct.
HEZBOLLAH'S TWO WINGS
Summary: Intelligence Newsletter has learned from well-informed Shi'ite sources in Beirut that Hezbollah has just disbanded its Foreign Operations Section headed by sheikh Hassan Ezzeddine and "controlled" by the second secretary at Iran's embassy in the Lebanese capital, Mohamed Reza Sahray.
NEW STRUCTURE FOR LEBANON'S HEZBOLLAH
Summary: Hezbollah, which held its fourth congress secretly last spring in the southern suburbs of Beirut (IN 260), has just put new structures in place in a bid to widen its political base. The movement's pol (...)
OFFICIAL CONTACTS BETWEEN SAUDI ARABIA AND HEZBOLLAH
Summary: Saudi Arabia's envoy to Lebanon, Ahmad al-Kuheimi, has just paid a high-profile visit to Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut where he met its secretary-general sheik Hassan Nassrallah and the head of its political bureau, Hussein Khalil.
HEZBOLLAH'S POLITICAL AND MILITARY BUILD-UP
Summary: Lebanon's Hezbollah is scheduled to hold its fourth congress in the southern suburbs of Beirut in the first week of April under tight guard and thick cloak of secrecy. Most of the decisions, however, (...)
HEZBOLLAH'S UNDERGROUND DEPOTS
Summary: The Hezbollah movement in Lebanon is reported to have received a lot of military hardware in recent months from Iran, including anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. The gear has been hidden in underg (...)
BREAKDOWN IN US-LEBANESE SECURITY TALK
Summary: Security talks between the U.S. and Lebanon in early February that were aimed at lifting the American ban on U.S. nationals travelling to Lebanon broke down because of strong American demands and the (...)
ISLAMIC JIHAD RECRUITING IN LEBANON
Summary: The Islamic Jihad movement, which claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks at Natanya north of Tel Aviv on Jan. 22, is increasingly digging in its heels in Palestinian camps in Lebanon. The allianc (...)
ABDEL HADI HAMADE
Summary: Wisely taking refuge in Iran after the kidnapping of sheik Mustapha al Dirani in May, 1994 by the Israelis, Abdel Hadi Hamade has just reappared officially in Lebanon. In his capacity as Hezbollah sec (...)
SECRET WAR IN LEBANON
Summary: Sources close to Lebanon's Sureté Générale don't believe for a moment that the Mossad ordered the attack on Dec. 24 that cost the life of a Hezbollah leader, Imad Mugnich, in the Beirut suburbs, as th (...)
MUSTAPHA AL-DIRANI'S DISCLOSURES
Summary: According to Intelligence Newsletter sources, the debriefing of the Believers Resistance chief Mustapha al-Dirani who was kidnapped by Israeli commandos in a helicopter swoop on Lebanon in May was completed in mid-November.
KIDNAP ATTEMPT FOILED
Summary: In all likelihood the CIA was behind an abortive attempt to kidnap Hassan Azzeddine, the man in charge of Hezbollah's international relations, in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Oct.30. After a brie (...)
HEZBOLLAH PREPARES ITS MEETING
Summary: Hezbollah secretary general sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has been strongly challenged during the past few months (I.N. n. 243). Nonetheless, he has counter-attacked with a campaign for re-election at the (...)