Hezbollah

by Levitt, Matthew

  As a result of Iran and Hezbollah’s training program, the Special Groups quickly became one of the most pressing security challenges in Iraq. “Unchecked,” General Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee in April 2008, “the special groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq.”122 Over time, Hezbollah provided the Iraqi insurgents “with the training, tactics and technology to conduct kidnappings, small unit tactical operations, and employ sophisticated improvised explosive devices (IEDs), incorporating lessons learned from operations in Southern Lebanon,” according to an April 2010 Pentagon report.123 In Iraq, Shi’a militants were now far better trained in the specialized capabilities needed to carry out daring kidnapping and assassination attacks targeting coalition forces. It would not take long before Hezbollah operatives would begin directing Iraqi militants in the execution of exactly such operations.

  Directing Attacks Targeting Coalition Forces

  A 2009 report on Hezbollah’s IJO (also known as the External Services Organization, or ESO) by the Australian attorney general is most interesting for its conclusion that Hezbollah’s activities in Iraq went much further than simply training Iraqi Shi’a militants tied to Iran: “Hizballah has established an insurgent capability in Iraq, engaging in assassinations, kidnappings and bombings. The Hizballah units have been set up with the encouragement and resources of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards al Qods Brigades. Hizballah has also established a special training cell known as Unit 3800 (previously known as Unit 2800) specifically to train Shia fighters prior to action in Iraq.”124 The Australian report provides no details regarding the assassinations, kidnappings, and bombings it attributes to Hezbollah in Iraq. But the US military also uncovered evidence, albeit limited, suggesting Hezbollah may have run operations of its own in Iraq. A US intelligence report includes the assessment of an Iraqi militant who believed one of his Hezbollah trainers in Iran seemed to have previously been involved in covert activities in Iraq. Paraphrasing the Iraqi militant’s statement, the intelligence report relayed the detainee’s information:

  [Redacted] is the Lebanese Hezbollah trainer in charge of the training camp [Detainee] attended in Iran…. [Detainee] thinks [redacted] has operated in Iraq because [redacted] always used to talk about how Iraqi food is not good and how the Iraqis do not have good water. [Redacted] would drop hints like this to let the trainees know that [redacted] has worked in Iraq. [Redacted] was one of the more respectful of the LH [Lebanese Hezbollah] trainers, and appeared to demonstrate some knowledge of Iraqi culture. [Redacted] would say things about Iraq in a way that let the trainees know that [redacted] has been to Iraq before. There are two kinds of LH, the kind you see on television, and the secret underground kind. All the trainers in Iran were the secret LH. If [redacted] was in Iraq it would not be for a trip, [redacted] would only go to do secret LH work. [Redacted] spoke Iraqi dialect very well but it was still apparent that [redacted] was Lebanese.125

  Nor were the Australians and Americans alone in their concern over Hezbollah operational activities in Iraq targeting their soldiers. British forces had a particular interest in Hezbollah activity in Iraq, beyond the fact that the area of southern Iraq under their control, and the city of Basra in particular, was a hotbed of Iraqi Shi’a extremist activity and a ratline for travel to training camps in Iran and Lebanon. In particular, while British officials first viewed the evidence skeptically, they ultimately concluded that “British soldiers were being killed by Shia special groups at a depressing and, it appeared, rising rate.”126 Then, on May 29, 2007, Hezbollah-trained Iraqi militants kidnapped five British citizens in a brazen attack on the Iraqi Ministry of Finance.

  The operation began just before noon that Monday, when a convoy of SUVs of the type used by the Iraqi government pulled into the compound. In a flash, gunmen wearing Iraqi police uniforms abducted the five British civilians from the ministry—a technology consultant and his civilian security guards—without firing a shot.127 The assault utilized the precise type of training Hezbollah had already been providing Iraqi Shi’a militants, so accusations of Hezbollah’s supervision of the attack by two Iraqi parliamentarians came as little surprise.128 In time, evidence would emerge strongly indicating that the hostages were quickly secreted across the border into Iran, where they were held in Qods Force facilities.129

  Peter Moore, the British technology consultant, was reportedly targeted—according to a year-long investigation by the Guardian newspaper—because he was installing software specifically engineered to track the billions of dollars in international aid and oil revenue flowing through Iraqi government coffers. The investigation determined that a vast amount of international aid was being diverted to Iran’s militant proxies in Iraq, prompting the operatives to kidnap Moore before the software installation was complete. According to a former IRGC member, Qods Force operatives participated in the raid itself.130 “This was not a conventional kidnapping,” an individual involved in the early investigation into the attack commented. “We were dealing with people who were obviously killers.” The British embassy received a package with five fingers with a note saying the fingers belonged to the five British hostages. DNA testing proved the claim untrue, but the case clearly wore on British decision makers.131 Ultimately, Moore was released after 946 days in captivity in exchange for Qais Khazali, the Shi’a militant leader who was detained in the same raid as Hezbollah’s Ali Moussa Daqduq.

  In July 2008, the British government extended its proscription of Hezbollah’s ESO (IJO) to include “the military wing of Hezbollah in its entirety, including the Jihad Council and all units reporting to it including the Hizballah External Security Organisation [ESO].” The explanatory memorandum to the proscription order, which underpins the action, stressed Hezbollah’s “provision of training and logistical and financial support to terrorist groups in Iraq and Palestine.” Prime Minister Gordon Brown emphasized that the broadened proscription order was issued “solely on the grounds of new evidence of its involvement in terrorism in Iraq and the occupied Palestinian territories.”132 Some of that evidence, it appears, centered on operations directed and supported by Hezbollah targeting British forces and civilians in Iraq, as in the May 2007 attack on the Iraqi Finance Ministry.

  At the time of the British designation, senior US government officials met with their French counterparts in an effort to convince Paris to either issue its own proscription order banning Hezbollah or, at a minimum, signal to Iran and Hezbollah that any Hezbollah operational activity beyond Lebanon’s borders would lead France to ban the group. France declined to do so, citing the group’s status as an elected political party in Lebanon, much to the frustration of US officials.133 Hezbollah had long ago been designated as a terrorist group in the United States, but in October 2007, the Treasury Department designated the IRGC Qods Force as a terrorist group as well. Aside from the Qods Force’s support to Palestinian terrorist groups and the Taliban, Treasury noted that the group “provides lethal support in the form of weapons, training, funding, and guidance to select groups of Iraqi Shi’a militants who target and kill Coalition and Iraqi forces and innocent Iraqi civilians.” The May 2007 Finance Ministry attack likely ranks among the events that contributed to the decision to designate the Qods Force. But that event did not occur in isolation. It followed the no-less-daring and bold January 20, 2007, attack on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala and the March 20, 2007, British Special Forces raid that led to the arrest of Hezbollah operative Ali Moussa Daqduq—along with the Khazali brothers—in Basra.

  The Capture of Ali Musa Daqduq

  In the world of counterinsurgency special operations, the material seized in each raid feeds the intelligence machine, which churns out further leads and targets. Not only are suspects detained and questioned, but everything from documents, cell phones, and computers to receipts, scraps of paper, and other “pocket litter” are seized and culled for actionable intelligence. It was just such a cycle of executing raid
s, processing intelligence, and executing more raids that led British Special Forces to raid a location in Basra, Iraq, looking for the Khazali brothers. This, plus “a lot of exploitation of human intelligence in southern Iraq over a period of eighteen months,” enabled British forces to track militants’ movement along key ratlines and pinpoint key locations along the way. When specific information surfaced about the Khazalis’ whereabouts, an operation was quickly crafted to raid their location on the night of March 20, 2007.134

  Members of the British Special Air Service (SAS) G Squadron stormed the Basra house where intelligence indicated the Khazalis were located, and they arrested the two brothers.135 To the SAS commandos’ surprise, they also encountered a middle-aged man who appeared to be deaf and mute. The man’s ability to uphold the cover story for several weeks indicates the professionalism of his counterintelligence and resistance-to-interrogation (R2I) training. But ultimately, faced with evidence seized at the time of his arrest—including false identification and documents linking him to Hezbollah—the middle-aged man admitted to being a Lebanese national and senior Hezbollah operative by the name of Ali Moussa Daqduq al-Musawi.136

  “Someone with a Lebanese background is going to speak with a very specific Lebanese dialect,” a US military spokesman noted, explaining why Daqduq pretended to be a deaf mute in an effort to conceal his affiliation with Hezbollah.137 A central element of R2I training typically involves teaching operatives that while everyone ultimately breaks down and provides information under interrogation, the ability to resist providing this information for the first few days is critical, allowing accomplices time to escape, cover their tracks, and regroup. Daqduq lasted several weeks before he disclosed his true identity to coalition forces, but the trove of materials confiscated at his arrest had already led analysts from the Basra raid back to Hezbollah and the Qods Force and straight to a string of attacks targeting British and US forces, including the attack on the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center.

  In early July 2007, Multi-National Forces–Iraq (MNF-I) held a press conference to announce, among other things, the capture two and a half months earlier of the Khazali brothers and Ali Moussa Daqduq. Aided by PowerPoint slides, the military spokesman described Daqduq as the commander of a Hezbollah special operations unit who “led Hezbollah operations in large areas of Lebanon” and had been a “Lebanese Hizballah senior leader since 1983.”138 As one of the early members of the group founded following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Daqduq, a member of the Musawi clan, would have had an inside track to Hezbollah’s Special Security Apparatus, of which the IJO would become a key component.139 By 2007, Daqduq had served in several high-level positions, including a stint as the coordinator of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s security detail. According to several reports, material seized at Daqduq’s arrest led authorities down a trail that ended at the front door of Imad Mughniyeh, who would be assassinated seven months after Daqduq’s capture. Although impossible to confirm, Daqduq may have been a member of Mughniyeh’s inner circle.140

  When Daqduq was captured in Iraq, he held multiple false identity cards but claimed—while still pretending to be deaf and mute—to be an Iraqi named Hamad Mohamed Jabarah Alami. In some of his false IDs he appeared wearing a black robe and turban, in others an open-collar dress shirt. His various ID cards featured his photograph and identified him as an employee of different Iraqi government agencies, including one for the Council of Ministers and another for the Ministry of Agriculture.141 Daqduq, however, was neither an Iraqi citizen nor an employee of the Iraqi government. Instead “he was in Iraq working as a surrogate for Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force operatives involved with special groups.”142

  Most damning for Daqduq and the Khazali brothers was the collection of detailed documents in Daqduq’s possession at the time they were captured. Daqduq, the documents revealed, was personally involved in violent operations in Iraq. For example, in his personal diary Daqduq recorded his involvement in a plot to kidnap a British soldier. “The operation is to infiltrate two brothers to the base to detain a British soldier in the first brigade from the bathrooms by drugging him,” Daqduq wrote.143 Daqduq noted meeting with Special Groups operatives who described the attack, which failed when Iraqi soldiers intervened. This was not the only attack targeting British forces in which he was involved—other documents refer to attacks on British bases at the Basra Palace and the Shatt al-Arab Hotel.144

  In another entry, Daqduq recorded meeting with Special Groups operatives who were involved in attacks targeting fellow Iraqis as well as coalition forces in Diyala province with IED bombings and small arms fire. He wrote about IED bombings in the first person, suggesting he was either personally involved in the attacks on the ground or, at a minimum, saw himself as integral to the plot: “Met with the brothers[,] the observers of Diyalah province and I listened regarding the operations…. We conducted eight explosive charge operations on both sides.”145

  The documents in Daqduq’s possession discussed a variety of attacks targeting coalition and Iraqi forces, including IED attacks, kidnapping plots, attacks on helicopters, and small arms assaults. As a master trainer, Daqduq played a hands-on role in preparing Special Groups operatives to execute attacks. A training manual he carried included very specific, tactical tips for successful operations. When conducting a rocket attack against a coalition convoy, for example, militants should (1) “Launch two rockets at the target and the third one for insurance”; (2) “Shoot the first and second vehicle”; (3) “Each vehicle shoots two rockets (four rockets for every vehicle)”; (4) “Secure the place using the weapon and shoot visible soldiers”; and (5) “Shoot single shots and don’t shoot on automatic.”146

  But what most grabbed the attention of senior coalition leadership was an “in-depth planning and lessons learned document” about the attack on the Karbala Provincial Coordination Center. The document laid bare the extensive preoperational surveillance, logistical preparation, and tactical drills that were carried out prior to the attack. Later both Daqduq and Khazali would concede “that senior leadership within the Qods Force knew of and supported planning for the eventual Karbala attack.” According to Daqduq, “the Iraqi special groups could not have conducted this complex operation without the support and direction of the Qods Force.” It was now clear that Qais Khazali had authorized the Karbala operation and Azhar al-Dulaymi led the assault team.147 “Dulaymi reportedly obtained his training from Hezbollah operatives near Qum, Iran, who were under the supervision of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force (IRGC-QF) officers in July 2006,” according to a US government report. After the Karbala attack, crime scene investigators found Dulaymi’s fingerprints on the getaway car.148 The role of senior Qods Force officials in planning and approving the attack was exposed as well. In September 2008, the US Treasury Department targeted Qods Force deputy commander Abdul Reza Shahlai for planning Special Groups attacks targeting coalition forces, including the Karbala attack.149

  Daqduq’s personal role in the attack, however, was unclear. He appeared to have played some role in the training and direction of the attack, but the details were sketchy. In late 2011, as US forces prepared to leave Iraq and detainees under US custody had to be turned over to Iraqi authorities, reports emerged that Daqduq—still being held by US authorities in Iraq as an enemy combatant—stood accused of “organizing” or “masterminding” the Karbala attack.150 Indications also suggested a concrete Hezbollah role. For one thing, the Treasury action targeting Qods Force General Shahlai seemed to suggest that his role in the Karbala attack went through Hezbollah. “As of May 2007,” Treasury noted, “Shahlai served as the final approving and coordinating authority for all Iran-based Lebanese Hezbollah training for JAM [Jaish al-Mahdi, or Mahdi Army] special groups to fight coalition forces in Iraq.” In summer 2006, Treasury added, Shahlai “instructed a senior Lebanese Hezbollah official to coordinate anti-aircraft rocket training for JAM special groups.”151 Daqduq,
we know from documents seized in his possession, specialized in just such training.152

  Then, in February 2012, the US government went public with news that the previous month the Obama administration had approved the filing of military commission charges against Daqduq, who was still in Iraqi custody. The eight-page charge sheet, issued secretly just days after Daqduq was turned over to Iraqi authorities, provided the basis for his possible extradition to the United States. According to press reports, Daqduq confessed under interrogation to his role in the Karbala attack.153 The military charge sheet accused Daqduq of murder, terrorism, and spying, among other charges, all related to his role in the attack. Not only did it accuse Daqduq of authoring the planning document for the operation and of maintaining—in both Iraq and Iran—a video clip of a US soldier kidnapped by insurgents and held by Khazali’s group and another of various ambush and rocket attacks, it also accused Daqduq of the murders of the five US soldiers in the attack and the wounding of several more.154 Whether the charge sheet meant that Daqduq pulled the trigger or orchestrated the attack was left unsaid. Either way, US authorities maintain he played a hands-on role in the murder of five American soldiers. In the words of one former CIA officer, Daqduq is “the worst of the worst. He has American blood on his hands. If released, he’ll go back to shedding more of it.”155 In May 2012, an Iraqi court dismissed the terrorism and false document charges against Daqduq. Six months later, Iraqi authorities freed him and transferred him to Lebanon.156