Intelligence: July 18, 2002

Archives

One reason for Iran's inclusion in the "Axis of Evil" is long time Iranian support for the Hizbollah organization in Lebanon. It was Hizbollah that blew up the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, killing over 200 marines. The U.S. has not forgotten that, nor the several Americans who were kidnapped by Hizbollah in the 1980s. Hizbollah has long worked with Palestinian terror organizations and in the last nine months has been sending operatives into Palestinian territory to help with the terror offensive against Israeli civilians. But this has backfired, as Israeli invasions of Palestinian territory has led to the capture of as many as a dozen Hizbollah members. At least three were turned over to the United States because of al Qaeda connections, and U.S. intelligence agents have been able to sit in on the Israeli interrogation of other captured Hizbollah men. While these guys are not very talkative, there have never before been so many Hizbollah operatives available for interrogation. The seriousness of this situation can be seen by the sudden willingness of Hizbollah to trade a captured Israeli (and the bodies of other Israelis) for some or all of the Hizbollah captives. 

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close