I nod, unsurprised. The Iran-Contra leak had smelled fishy to me since I learned about it. Sabra clearly had been furthering somebody’s agenda by publishing that story, and Lebanon’s local media is for the most part a collection of competing propaganda outlets. Each major political party has its own newspapers and TV stations, so unbiased journalism is generally a rare commodity in Beirut. Also, the country has always been notoriously easy for intelligence agencies to penetrate, and no more so than during the war. But for whom would Sabra allegedly be spying? The reporter seems to think it’s Syria, and I’d read quite a bit about Ash-Shiraa’s supposed ties to the Syrian regime.
After some more searching, I finally give up and go home. A few days later, my cell phone rings. I pick it up and a man asks for me in Arabic. “Yes, I’m Sulome,” I reply. “Who may I ask is speaking?”
“This is Hassan Sabra,” the man replies. “My secretary said you wanted to interview me about Irangate.”
Taken aback, I schedule a meeting with him for the following week. I hire a translator because Sabra speaks very little English, and I don’t trust my Arabic for an in-depth political interview. I had asked Sabra for detailed directions to the Ash-Shiraa office in Hamra, so we make it on time. The building is one of the shadiest setups I have ever seen. Thuggish young men loiter around the entrance, which is unmarked. The whole place has an air of menace about it.
“What a creepy establishment,” I murmur under my breath.
“Oh, don’t be scared,” the translator tells me with concern, thinking I was anxious about going inside.
I burst out laughing. “Don’t worry about me,” I reply. I’ve made an effort to look respectable but super feminine to catch Sabra off guard with my questions. I guess my ploy is working, because the translator obviously seems to think I’m an idiot.
When we ask which floor is the Ash-Shiraa office, one of the sinister-looking young men barks at me suspiciously: “Who are you looking for?”
“Mr. Hassan Sabra,” I reply. He confers with his cohorts while we wait, makes a phone call, and finally we’re allowed upstairs, where the secretary greets us cheerfully and ushers us in to see the boss. Sabra is a round, soft-spoken man in his fifties or early sixties. He politely serves us coffee as we settle in. I’m doing my best little-girl-lost routine, and I even catch the translator rolling her eyes at my cluelessness.
“What is your book about?” Sabra asks.
“I’m studying the civil war, and I found your name while researching Irangate,” I reply through the translator. “My first question is about being a Lebanese journalist during the war. What was it like? It must have been very difficult.”
“I went through very hard circumstances, and almost died many times,” Sabra says somberly. “I was shot twice. You can see here, where one bullet went in, and here, where it came out the other side. Here is where the other one went in.” He shows me some vicious-looking scars.
“Why did someone try to kill you?” I ask. “Was it because of something you wrote?”
“It was because I’ve always been against the Syrian regime, and particularly Iran,” Sabra responds. “But I was with Khomeini during his trip from Paris to Tehran, in the same plane. Back then, Khomeini didn’t have the policy against Lebanon yet, and he was just supposed to have a revolution in Iran against the shah. I was supportive of this until the Iran-Iraq War, when Iran started interfering in the politics in Lebanon. Their slogans and speeches were not Arab at all. They were trying to take the Shia out of the Lebanese context. I’m Shia and I’m Lebanese, but I’m Lebanese before being Shia. So why would I be under the umbrella of Iran? I have my own identity. That was when they tried to assassinate me.”
Hezbollah is often accused of placing Iran’s interests over those of Lebanon. Today, the group’s involvement in the Syrian civil war—most likely at the behest of Iran—demonstrates that the argument is not without merit. Hezbollah officially entered the war on Bashar al-Assad’s side in May 2013. By all accounts, they’ve aided him in decimating his own country and slaughtering the Syrian people, thus seriously damaging Hezbollah’s credibility as a resistance movement. Following the group’s decision to publicly announce their involvement, Hezbollah’s popularity in Lebanon took a huge hit.
Although the rise of the Islamic State has since helped boost public opinion of Hezbollah’s efforts in Syria—because ISIS is seen by many Lebanese as a more immediate threat to their country than Assad’s regime, and Hezbollah the country’s primary defender against the violent jihadi group—there is truth to the accusation that Hezbollah answers to Iran, not the Lebanese people.
But Sabra’s insistence that he was motivated by patriotism and refused to throw in his lot with Iranian radicalism makes about zero sense to me. Sabra claimed in that crucial Iran-Contra story that the people who leaked the information about the arms deals to him were his close friends and associates of Mehdi Hashemi, a Shia cleric and former official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Council (IRGC), Iran’s elite fighting force. Sabra also discussed his connections with Hashemi in a Washington Post article shortly after the story broke.
Hashemi was reportedly a maniacal fundamentalist committed to exporting the Islamic revolution to other nations through terrorism, and has been cited as the founder and sponsor of the Islamic Jihad Organization, the group that kidnapped my father. He was a protégé of Hussein-Ali Montazeri, at the time widely viewed as Khomeini’s likely successor. Hashemi was once an influential member of the IRGC and for a time headed its Office of Liberation Movements (OLM), which was tasked with nurturing Iran’s relationship with Shia in other Middle Eastern countries, including Lebanon.
As such, Hashemi would have been involved with helping to mobilize Lebanese Shia. It’s also quite clear that Hezbollah was an IRGC project from the outset. A contingent of the Revolutionary Guard was dispatched to Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley in the early eighties, where it set about training the discontented Shia to fight against the Israelis.
But a U.S. Library of Congress report I found online explains that while Hashemi was with the IRGC’s Office of Liberation Movements, he was constantly at odds with Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which preferred that the Islamic revolution be exported to Lebanon through education and example rather than terrorism. The OLM was removed from the IRGC’s jurisdiction in 1984 and absorbed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Apparently frustrated by the Iranian government’s lack of zeal, Hashemi resigned his position and formed his own enterprise, the Office for Global Revolution (OGR), which was nominally part of Montazeri’s staff but acted independently in what appears to have been at least somewhat of a rogue operation.
Everything I can find about Hashemi indicates that he formed the Islamic Jihad sometime during the early eighties. This most likely occurred around the same time that the IRGC came to Lebanon with the mission of training the future Hezbollah fighters. Hashemi’s point man with the IJO was Ali-Reza Asgari, an IRGC brigadier general also involved in training Hezbollah. Before arriving in Lebanon, though, Asgari traveled to Syria in July 1982, where he requested the help of Bashar al-Assad’s father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad, with establishing a “network” in Lebanon. It’s widely assumed that the network he referred to was Hezbollah, but considering the ongoing conflict between Hashemi and the Foreign Ministry, it makes sense that Hashemi would have seized an opportunity to nurture his own group—one with which he was free to play out his fantasy of exporting the revolution through terrorism.
I’d say there’s a good chance the IJO was a pet project of Hashemi’s—one that wasn’t well received by others in the Iranian government. Regardless, Hashemi seems to have continued pursuing his own agenda until he was actually arrested by Khomeini in October 1986, just before the Iran-Contra story was leaked to Sabra. His alleged crimes included treason and a number of other offenses that were made public before his death, including setting up secret networks in Iran and founding extremist terrorist groups.
But i
t’s also likely Hashemi was arrested because he had been voicing his displeasure with the arms-for-hostages deals, which were being negotiated by moderates like Akbar Rafsanjani, speaker of Parliament at the time. Since Hashemi had most likely ordered that the hostages be taken in the first place, he probably didn’t appreciate seeing his plan hijacked (no pun intended) and turned into leverage with which to normalize relations with America. He’d supposedly been threatening to go public with the arms deals before he was imprisoned. We know that Hashemi’s cohorts leaked Iran-Contra to Sabra following the arrest, and the rest is history.
This appears to offer a solution to the puzzle of whether the Iranian government had much influence over the kidnappers. At the time, Iran was plagued by factionalism—rival groups were all jockeying to lead the direction of the still-new Islamic republic. It makes sense that one of these factions, led by Hashemi, would have engineered the kidnappings and bombings to further its own radical interests, while others in the government, led by Rafsanjani, were trying to change Iran’s relationship with the West.
A Los Angeles Times story from November 14, 1986, reports that the hostages were believed to have been taken by Hashemi’s group of radicals, against the wishes of moderates like Rafsanjani, who had promised the U.S. government he would put an end to the kidnappings. As the L.A. Times put it, “The hostages have become pawns in Iran’s tortuous political infighting between Islamic radicals and moderates.” Following the Iran-Contra leak, Hashemi was executed in September 1987; soon after, Montazeri lost favor with Khomeini.
In any case, Hashemi is literally the last person you’d expect a supposedly moderate Lebanese nationalist and opposer of Iranian meddling to ally himself with. I need to unravel this.
“Why was Hashemi arrested?” I ask.
“They don’t need that much information in Iran,” Sabra says evasively. “If you say hello in the wrong way, they arrest you for betrayal.”
I’m trying to find a way to ask about the allegations that Sabra is foreign intelligence. “I know at this point, nobody knew who was working for whom, and a lot of journalists were being accused of spying,” I venture. “This was a big problem for everyone who was working here at the time, and after Irangate, it must have been a problem for you. I imagine that was difficult. How did you handle it?”
“No one else in Lebanon published the Irangate story because they didn’t want trouble with Iran,” Sabra replies. “I was the only one who published it. The Iranians accused me of being a spy for the U.S. The day that Mehdi Hashemi was sentenced to death, they tried to assassinate me.”
I nod, looking impressed. “Another thing,” I interject, dropping the innocent act. I’m looking forward to seeing his reaction to this. “I know Ash-Shiraa received many videos and pictures of the hostages. My father is Terry Anderson, and that’s why I’m writing this book.”
Sabra gives a little jump, then collects himself. “Please, send him my regards,” he says hesitatingly. “I’m sorry if what I wrote made him be imprisoned longer . . . Reagan said several times that they were very close to sealing a deal to release all the hostages, but because Ash-Shiraa would write about these deals before they happened, they had to cancel them at the last minute.
“I would always think to myself that these people, it’s not their fault,” Sabra continues, all kindly concern. “They’re only innocent people. They just happen to be hostages, and they are the victims of American and Iranian politics. I felt really sorry, but sometimes when you do your job, some people have to get hurt.”
Bullshit, I think. News articles from the eighties citing Ash-Shiraa referred to it as a publication with ties to radical elements in Iran and Hashemi in particular. Ash-Shiraa also seems to have been the source of much inside information regarding the hostages; it’s quoted constantly throughout the crisis. If Sabra was allied with Hashemi, the man who founded the Islamic Jihad, and he essentially served as the IJO’s media mouthpiece, he bears a lot more responsibility for my father’s captivity than he’s admitting.
“I’m a journalist, don’t worry,” I respond sweetly. “I understand. But you obviously had some sort of channel to the Islamic Jihad. Why did you receive all those photos and videos?”
“I had a good relationship with Hashemi, Montazeri, and other people in Iran,” Sabra replies, fumbling. “Also with Hezbollah at the time, and they were behind this. Actually all of Iran was behind this. I used to have a good relationship with Hezbollah. It doesn’t exist anymore, but back then I had a good relationship with them. They all wanted to give a good picture against extremism to the world. I’m a very moderate man, and against extremism as well. But in reality, Hezbollah is a very extremist party.”
This is becoming more and more nonsensical. Why would Hezbollah, an Iranian-sponsored operation, trust this man, who outspokenly hated the Iranian government and dealt it a severe political blow by leaking Iran-Contra? And if Sabra is so moderate, why was he working with Hashemi, by all accounts a foaming-at-the-mouth radical?
It’s beginning to look like the Iranians who sponsored Hezbollah may not have been the same people who created the Islamic Jihad. That would make sense, given the postrevolutionary factionalism of Iranian politics at the time. It would also explain why the Rafsanjani-led Iranians who participated in Iran-Contra with the approval of Khomeini had so much trouble convincing the IJO to release all the hostages. In an old New York Times interview with the enigmatic Ghorbanifar, he claimed that Iranian officials actually had to seize Reverend Weir from his captors by force. Of course, Ghorbanifar is not necessarily a reliable source, but that would explain all the analytic speculation by historians and journalists over why the official, government-sanctioned Iranians working with the United States on the arms deals had so little power over the hostage-takers.
It’s an interesting prospect: Could Hezbollah and the Iranian government be telling part of the truth when they say they weren’t morally responsible for the IJO’s terrorism? I remember something Naim Qassem, now deputy secretary-general of Hezbollah, said to journalist Hala Jaber during an interview for her book Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance. She asked him if they were behind the kidnappings and bombings, and Qassem told her no. But Jaber pointed out that Hezbollah was powerful and influential enough at the time to have stopped the kidnappings whenever they chose. Instead, the militia allowed the IJO to operate in their neighborhoods freely.
“Should we have started a conflict with these groups for the sake of the Americans?” Qassem asked.
Harsh as that may be, it’s a valid point. If this theory is correct, Hezbollah—only just beginning to coalesce into a coherent movement itself—probably wasn’t privy to every detail of the political wrangling going on in Iran. Some Hezbollah leaders may have found the IJO’s methods distasteful, but they did share a religious ideology and a hatred of the West. So the Hezbollah leadership looked the other way and let the IJO continue its terror spree. They may even have aided or joined in the IJO’s efforts when they appeared to serve Hezbollah’s interests. There’s a possibility that Hezbollah may not have originally been taking direct orders to kidnap and kill civilians; but even if that’s so, I wouldn’t consider them entirely innocent either.
I’m losing patience with Sabra’s weaseling, and I have leads to follow up on.
“I’m really sorry to have to ask you this, because you’ve been so kind and welcoming, but to be frank, you’ve been accused of being intelligence,” I say flatly. “All kinds: Syrian, Israeli—every kind under the sun. What’s your reaction to these allegations?”
The translator is looking at me with her mouth open. I congratulate myself on that NYU acting degree.
“The conflict in the Arab world is not merciful, it’s very unethical,” Sabra complains, looking more and more cornered. “You can be a friend in the morning and then you become a secret agent for the enemy in the afternoon. It’s not merciful. Where’s the proof? These are just rumors and sayings of the people . . . I don’t live here anymo
re. I come here secretly. I’ve been living in Cairo since 2005. Until now, I receive threats and calls for murder.”
“Of course, that’s terrible, but I had to ask,” I say. “Thank you so much for speaking with me, Mr. Sabra. I’ll be in touch.”
“Wait, before you leave, can I please take a photograph with you?” Sabra asks hurriedly. “I always take pictures with my guests.”
Could this be any fucking weirder? But hey, it’s not like I’ve made a secret of my investigation; quite the opposite, in fact. I’m not certain how things like this work, but I have a feeling no one meets with ex-CIA agents in Washington and Hezbollah members in Lebanon without being noticed by spy agencies. I flash a cheesy grin at the camera while his secretary takes a photo of us, then leave with the translator, who respectfully whispers, “Well done,” in the elevator.
Two days later, the evening before I’m set to leave for New York, Sabra calls me and invites me to lunch. I imagine he wants to pump me for information and perhaps convince me of the purity of his motives, although who knows. He might have more sinister intentions, and I’m certainly not eager to find out.
“Thanks, Mr. Sabra, but I’m going home tomorrow,” I say politely.
I need to learn how the United States understood the relationship between Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad at the time my father was kidnapped. The American narrative that’s taken shape over time is that the Islamic Jihad was just a cover Hezbollah used to distance itself from the bombings and kidnappings. But my reporting is leading me to believe things may have been more complicated than that. Most importantly, there’s the question of Mehdi Hashemi and the clusterfuck of Iranian politics during the eighties. Was the Islamic Jihad spawned from a rogue operation within the still-fractious Iranian government, led by Hashemi? Did Hezbollah’s orders and the IJO’s instructions in fact come from different places? Is anyone in D.C. aware of this line of inquiry?
The Hostage's Daughter Page 12