At the time, domestic Lebanese considerations also limited Hezbollah’s willingness to engage in terrorist activities abroad. Hezbollah first entered Lebanese politics in 1992, when it won twelve of 128 seats in Parliament.29 Following the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, Hezbollah participated in the 2005 general election. This time the party won all twenty-three parliamentary seats representing southern Lebanon, despite rising criticism from the populace from 2002 to 2004 over Hezbollah’s activities in the absence of an Israeli occupation as a foil.30 In 2009, Hezbollah’s political bloc was invited to participate in Saad Hariri’s national unity cabinet, an arrangement that lasted until 2011, when the Hezbollah ministers resigned, effectively collapsing the government, over the coming indictments of four Hezbollah members for Rafiq Hariri’s assassination issued by the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague.31
Even after the ministers’ resignation, the new government was dominated by Hezbollah and its coalition partners, making it the de facto ruling party in Lebanon. Western analysts see Hezbollah’s emergence as a political player in Lebanon as another factor constraining its operational activities abroad. The repercussions of being implicated in a terrorist strike increased exponentially for a Hezbollah governing coalition, both in terms of the cost to its domestic standing and grassroots support and the possibility of a direct reprisal attack against not just the group’s interests but the state’s as well.32 But the consequence was not a complete withdrawal from terrorist activity but a decision for the group’s terrorist networks to operate at a greater length from the political party its parent organization had become. As a result, the Australian government noted, the IJO was encouraged to “become among the best organized terrorist networks in the world.”33
In the wake of the July 2006 war, Hassan Nasrallah conceded that if he had known that Hezbollah’s kidnapping two Israeli soldiers from across the border would lead to war, he would not have authorized the action.34 Six months later he was more defensive still: “It could be that I made a mistake, only God doesn’t make mistakes, and for that I apologized before the Lebanese nation and for that we paid a very heavy price in blood.” Still, he maintained, “We do not hesitate to bring our boys into our just struggle.”35 After the war, Hezbollah was supremely focused on rebuilding Lebanon’s destroyed infrastructure and Hezbollah’s own fractured grassroots support.36
Local criticism arose once more in May 2008, after Hezbollah briefly seized control of part of West Beirut, turning the weapons purportedly maintained to “resist” Israel against fellow Lebanese and contributing, according to a senior US intelligence official, “to a dramatic increase in sectarian tensions.”37 Uninterested in opening up new fronts where it was unprepared to battle, Hezbollah reportedly made a “strategic decision” to avoid confrontation with the United States, US counterterrorism officials reported. The decision included two caveats, however: First, Hezbollah could still consider such an attack if Iran were threatened.38 Second, the group would continue supporting other militant groups’ efforts abroad, including Palestinian, Iraqi, and even Somali terrorist groups. US counterterrorism officials would later note that following the July 2006 war, Hezbollah engaged in “an increasingly aggressive terrorist campaign.” This campaign, they added, was probably accelerated by the February 2008 assassination of Imad Mughniyeh.39
The US government’s reaction was straightforward: “The world is a better place without this man in it. He was a coldblooded killer, a mass murderer and a terrorist responsible for countless innocent lives lost,” the State Department spokesman said. “One way or another he was brought to justice.”40 But Mughniyeh’s assassination led to the resurgence of activity by Hezbollah’s international operations arm, which will no doubt regain its former potency in time—especially when paired with Iranian intelligence and Qods Force operatives. But as the IJO—now under the command of Mustapha Badreddine and Talal Hamiyeh—first set out to avenge Mughniyeh’s death, Operation Radwan experienced a series of setbacks, which ultimately led both Iran and Hezbollah to reassess how they would each, separately and together, prosecute a three-tiered shadow war targeting Israeli, Jewish, American, Gulf, and sometimes British interests worldwide.
Reassessing Hezbollah’s Place in Iran’s Arsenal
Once Nasrallah promised an “open war” to avenge Mughniyeh’s assassination, Israeli officials quickly took preventive action against what they deemed the three most likely scenarios: an attack on current or former senior Israeli officials traveling abroad; an attack on an Israeli embassy or other diplomatic mission abroad; or an attack targeting a location affiliated with a Jewish community abroad, such as the 1994 AMIA bombing. They knew better than to ignore Nasrallah’s warning.
But however committed Hezbollah was to carrying out such attacks, the IJO was simply not up to the task. For one thing, Hezbollah leaders had actively pared down the IJO’s global networks of operatives following the September 11 attacks. And the “strategic partnership” it had shared with Iran for the past decade or so appears to have focused on funding, training, and arming Hezbollah’s increasingly effective standing militia, not on its cadre of international terrorists.41 And so not only did Hezbollah lack the resources and capability to carry out a successful operation abroad, it also no longer had Mughniyeh around to quarterback operations.
Tightened security in the post–September 11 world also meant Hezbollah opted to operate in nations with comparatively lax security rather than vigilant Western nations. But even then, in places like Azerbaijan, Egypt, and Turkey, and even with significant support from Qods Force agents, Hezbollah suffered a series of embarrassing failures. First came the May 2008 fiasco in Baku, which led to the quiet release of Qods Force personnel but the public prosecution of two Hezbollah operatives. Operations were soon foiled in Egypt and Turkey too, as well as attempts to kidnap Israelis in Europe and Africa.
The foiled attack in Turkey in September 2009 was a watershed event for Hezbollah operational planners and their Iranian sponsors. Despite the massive logistical support Qods Force operatives provided for that plot, Hezbollah operatives still failed to successfully execute the attack. And by late 2009, Iran’s interest in Hezbollah’s operational prowess focused less on local issues like avenging Mughniyeh’s death and more on the much larger issue of combatting threats to its nascent nuclear program. In April 2006, fifty centrifuges were destroyed at the Natanz nuclear facility when equipment—apparently tampered with by intelligence services—malfunctioned.42 In January 2007, suspected Iranian nuclear scientist Ardeshir Hosseinpour died under mysterious circumstances, sparking speculation he was assassinated.43 A few weeks later, reports emerged that Gen. Ali-Reza Asgari, a former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) official who worked with Hezbollah in Lebanon and later served as deputy defense minister, had disappeared—possibly defected—in Turkey.44 In 2009, Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri disappeared while on pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, by some accounts defecting and others being kidnapped.45 Then, in January 2010, a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle killed Iranian physics professor Masoud Ali Mohammadi outside his Tehran home.46
According to Israeli intelligence officials, furious Iranian leaders reached two conclusions after Mohammadi’s death: (1) Hezbollah’s IJO had to revitalize its operational capabilities, and (2) the IRGC would no longer rely solely on Hezbollah to carry out terrorist attacks abroad—it would now deploy Qods Force operatives to do so on their own, not just as logisticians supporting Hezbollah hit men.47 Even more than the loss of its scientists, Tehran sought to address its damaged prestige—the image of an Iran so weak it could not even protect its own scientists at home could not stand.
Much finger-pointing ensued between Hezbollah and the Qods Force regarding where the blame lay for the two years of failed operations, culminating in the botched attack in Turkey and then another failed plot in Jordan in January 2010. Humiliated, and under Nasrallah’s instructions, Badreddine and Hamiyeh “und
ertook a massive operational reevaluation in January 2010, which led to big changes within the IJO over a period of a little over six months.” During this period, IJO operations were put on hold and major personnel changes made. New operatives were recruited from the elite of Hezbollah’s military wing for intelligence and operational training, while existing IJO operatives were moved into new positions. At the same time, the IJO invested in the development of capabilities and tradecraft that had withered on the vine since the 2001 decision to rein in operations.48
As part of its IJO shakeup, Hezbollah engaged in detailed talks with Iranian officials to lay out Hezbollah’s role in Iran’s larger plan for a coordinated shadow war targeting Israeli, American, British, and Gulf state interests. The coordinated plan, it was decided, would assign responsibility for specific types of attacks to Hezbollah or the Qods Force. These would include operations intended to achieve several different goals, including taking revenge for Mughniyeh’s assassination, retaliating for attacks on Iran’s nuclear program, and establishing a deterrent threat by convincing Western powers that an attack on Iran would result in—among other things—asymmetric terrorist attacks worldwide.49
To this end, Iranian decision makers settled on a campaign of violence based on three threat streams: targeting Israeli tourists, formal government targets (diplomats, retired officials), and targets broadly representative of Israel or the Jewish community (community leaders, prominent Israeli companies). It assigned the task of targeting Israeli tourists—a soft target—to Hezbollah, and maintained for the Qods Force operations targeting Israeli, American, British or Gulf states’ interests. The latter would be carried out by a new Special External Operations Unit known as Unit 400.50
Iran’s Three-Tiered Terror Campaign
At first, Iran’s new terrorism strategy, and the IJO’s overhaul, seemed to have little effect. In March and September 2010, authorities disrupted undisclosed Qods Force plots in Azerbaijan and Turkey, respectively.51 In May 2010, Kuwaiti authorities arrested Kuwaiti, Lebanese, and other individuals on suspicion of spying, monitoring US military interests, and possessing explosives for attacks.52
Meanwhile, Hezbollah fared no better. Itching to prove their rejuvenated operational capabilities, IJO leaders reportedly pressed Nasrallah to allow them to carry out an attack abroad.53 In April 2011, the Israeli Counterterrorism Bureau issued an advisory for Passover holiday travel to countries in the Mediterranean Basin and the Far East, warning of Iranian and Hezbollah plots.54 In fact, the warning was a planned leak by Israeli intelligence aimed at exposing and therefore frustrating a budding Hezbollah plot to target Israeli tourists in Cyprus.55 Officials went public not only with the travel warning but with details about the Hezbollah operatives involved. Under instructions from Nasrallah and Qods Force leader Qassem Soleimani, Hezbollah IJO chief Talal Hamiyeh was plotting the attacks with a small group of trusted lieutenants, Israeli officials told the press. These included Hamiyeh’s “right-hand man and bodyguard, Ahmed Faid,” as well as “explosives engineer Ali Najam al-Din and bomb assembly expert Malik Ovayad.” False documents were reportedly produced by Majd al-Zakur, also known as the Forger, while logistics support came from Lebanese and Turkish businessmen.56
Given Hezbollah’s role in the new three-tiered arrangement, Nasrallah was clearly uncomfortable with the notion that people might mistake Hezbollah attacks against Israeli tourists as the best the group could muster to avenge Mughniyeh’s death. A few days after media reports exposed the Cyprus plot, Nasrallah gave an interview to a Kuwaiti newspaper underscoring Hezbollah’s continued commitment to carry out an operation of equal standing to avenge the death of the IJO commander. The point was not retaliation for retaliation’s sake, he stressed: “Had we wanted to, we could have retaliated by killing Israeli tourists in this or that country.”57 But that was not Hezbollah’s calculus. Attacks on Israeli tourists were something different—the IJO’s part in Iran’s shadow war—a threat stream of its own, distinct from Operation Radwan.
In May 2011, Iranian agents shot and killed a Saudi diplomat in Karachi, Pakistan, foreshadowing a plot already under way targeting the Saudi ambassador to Washington, DC.58 Ten days afterward, Qods Force and Hezbollah operatives carried out a far more complex operation targeting an Israeli diplomat in Turkey. Around 9:00 AM on May 26, 2011, a bomb exploded at a bus stop near one of Istanbul’s upscale shopping centers, wounding eight people.59 Placed underneath a bridge and secured to an electric bike, the bomb was structured to inflict maximum damage.60 Turkish authorities originally assumed the attack was the work of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), intended to impact upcoming Turkish parliamentary elections.61 Within weeks, however, investigators determined the attack was a botched Hezbollah–Qods Force assassination attempt targeting the Turkish-born Israeli consul-general to Istanbul, Moshe Kimhi. According to Corriere della Sera, the Italian paper that broke the story, Qods Force operatives cased the area, recording Kimhi’s routine, before Hezbollah operatives were called in to place the explosive along a route the diplomat was known to take. Intended as retribution for the assassination of Mohammadi, the Iranian physicist, the bombing injured random Turkish civilians instead.62
Within weeks the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague would indict the four Hezbollah operatives, including Mustapha Badreddine, for the February 2005 murder of the former Lebanese prime minister. Closer to home, Hezbollah operatives carried out two attacks that wounded French peacekeepers—six civilians and three soldiers—assigned to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon’s (UNIFIL) mission in southern Lebanon, according to the State Department.63 But the plot targeting the Saudi ambassador to Washington, then under way, was the most brazen of all.
On October 11, 2011, US attorney general Eric Holder announced that charges were filed in New York against a dual US-Iranian citizen and a Qods Force commander for their alleged roles in a plot to murder the Saudi ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir. The plot developed quickly over just a few months, starting in spring 2011 and culminating with the arrest of Manssor Arbabsiar, the Iranian-American man, in September. According to the Justice Department, Arbabsiar told a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) confidential source posing as an associate of a Mexican drug cartel that “his associates in Iran had discussed a number of violent missions for [the source] and his associates to perform, including the murder of the Ambassador.”64
An opportunistic plot that fell into the lap of Qods Force planners just as they decided to unleash Unit 400 to attack the West, the scheme arose from an encounter between the dejected Iranian-American and a cousin working for the Qods Force, while the former visited family in Iran. Arbabsiar sent about $100,000 in wire transfers as a down payment for the assassination, which was deposited in an FBI undercover account he thought belonged to the assassin. At a meeting in Mexico in July, the DEA source raised the possibility that innocent bystanders might be killed in a lunchtime attack at a downtown restaurant. But Arbabsiar was clear on the instructions from his Qods Force handlers: “They want that guy [the ambassador] done [killed], if the hundred go with him f**k ’em.” Later, after Arbabsiar was arrested and reportedly confessed to his role in the plot, he called Gholam Shakuri, the Qods Force commander (and his cousin), at the direction of law enforcement. With agents listening, Shakuri again confirmed that the plot should go forward and as soon as possible. “Just do it quickly. It’s late,” he said.65 In October 2012, Arbabsiar pleaded guilty to charges related to murder-for-hire and conspiring to commit an act of international terrorism.66
Interestingly, the plot seems to have been launched shortly after a Saudi-led military intervention in Bahrain against Shiite protesters, which Iran objected to loudly but could not affect. According to a Saudi official, Shakuri was “an important Quds Force case officer who had helped organize militant Shiite protesters in Bahrain.” Also according to this account, “Shakuri was among the Iranians who met Hasan Mushaima, a radical Bahraini Shiite cleric, during a stopover in Beirut last February, w
hen Mushaima was on his way back home to lead protests in Bahrain.”67 Likely interpreted by Iran as the latest Western-backed salvo in a coordinated plot to hem in Iran, the Saudi intervention in Bahrain may have contributed to the calculus by which Iranian decision makers approved such an odd attack, involving the bombing of a popular Washington, DC, restaurant known to be frequented by US senators.
Signaling that US authorities had traced the plot to senior Iranian decision makers, the Treasury Department designated IRGC Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani as a global terrorist for his role overseeing the officers involved in the plot.68 British officials agreed, designating Soleimani and others involved in the plot themselves as well.69 This plot against the Saudi diplomat, director-general of the UK Security Service (MI5) Jonathan Evans explained in June 2012, was likely tied to senior Iranian leadership. The plot was the work of the IRGC, he noted, adding, “And of course the IRGC leads straight back to the Iranian leadership.”70 In the assessment by Director of National Intelligence Gen. James Clapper, the Arbabsiar plot “shows that some Iranian officials—probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime.”71
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