The devastating war in Gaza is now in its sixth month, and the figures are alarming: more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed. Almost one-third of the population is suffering catastrophic food insecurity and over two million (almost the entire population) have been displaced.

More than 9,000 Palestinians (including around 460 minors) have been imprisoned by Israel, and there are over 17,000 Palestinian children who have been separated from their parents. And most of the Israelis taken hostage by Hamas remain in Gaza.

As the war drags on, it threatens to spread to more countries. On April 1, Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing Iranian military officials.

Since the war began, Israel has been engaged in an undeclared war against the broader Axis of Resistance which aims to resist the United States and its allies in the region. The axis, made up of Iran and allied armed groups in the region, aims to support Palestinian groups in Gaza by engaging Israel on multiple fronts.

In Yemen, Ansarullah (commonly known as the Houthis) have launched a blockade of the Red Sea targeting Israeli-connected vessels. While Iran-backed militias in Iraq have launched attacks on American troops in the region. Most notable however is the involvement of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which has been directly engaging the Israeli military along the Israel-Lebanon border for months.

Al Jazeera English Video added by IC: “Hezbollah continues to exchange fire with the Israeli army across the border”

Who are Hezbollah?

Hezbollah was established on Feb. 16, 1985 during the Lebanese Civil War. The group was primarily founded in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and occupation of parts of the south, as well as the disappearance of religious leader Musa Al-Sadr in 1978.

Since then, Hezbollah has grown to become a state within a state, developing a complex religious and sociopolitical structure. Its political wing holds seats in the Lebanese parliament, and the group provides vital public services in many parts of the country, thereby consolidating its support base. Militarily, it has a powerful armed wing of around 100,000 fighters, outnumbering the official Lebanese army’s 84,000 soldiers.

After the civil war ended, Lebanese armed groups agreed to disarm as part of the peace process. However, Hezbollah did not, asserting that it will disarm when Israel is no longer a threat to Lebanon and when Palestinians are free.

Israel’s 2000 retreat from southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah’s willingness to confront it, has gained the group the support of many in Lebanon and the broader Arab world.

Some western countries like the United States, Canada and Australia classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, while the European Union has designated only its armed branch as such since 2013. This stems from Hezbollah’s alleged links to attacks on U.S. and other western targets in Lebanon, although it has always denied any involvement.

Border clashes

In his first speech after Oct. 7, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, stated the group had been engaging Israel since Oct. 8.

Hezbollah has deployed along the entire Lebanese-Israeli border, plunging southern Lebanon and northern Israel into a state of informal war.

The border deployment constitutes a violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war. While there have been skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah over the past 18 years, they have always been contained and Hezbollah had not deployed along the entire border since 2006.

The group is not the only party to have violated Resolution 1701. Israel has regularly violated it including by destroying infrastructure.

Officials from Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged threats, heightening fears of a more destructive war. On Jan. 8, 2024, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant threatened to “copy-paste” the destruction of Gaza onto Beirut if Hezbollah does not cease its attacks.

In a recent speech, Nasrallah labelled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “madman,” adding that Israel wants to wage war on Lebanon yet “can’t cope in Gaza.”

Nasrallah’s comments appear to be designed to indicate that any war in Lebanon could be just as disastrous for Israel. Hezbollah has the capability to target anywhere inside Israel with its missile arsenal.

Managing public perceptions

Lebanon is divided when it comes to support for Hezbollah. The country faces deep political and economic crises. The presidency has been vacant since 2022 amid political deadlock between political factions. Meanwhile, Lebanon faces an economic crisis that has pushed over 80 per cent of the population into poverty.

According to a November 2023 poll, 93 per cent of Lebanese Shiites had a positive opinion of Hezbollah, compared to only 34 per cent of Sunnis and 29 per cent of Christians. Support for Hamas was more widespread, with 79 per cent of Lebanese having positive opinions.

Since 2020, support for Hezbollah has strengthened among some Lebanese regardless of religious affiliations due to the welfare services it provides, however, that does not mean they agree with its politics or ideology.

The war creates more political instability, religious and social tensions, and further impacts the economy. As the economy and government services collapse, many Lebanese have turned to the humanitarian social services provided by Hezbollah.

This has maintained some stability and order amid the institutional disorder of the Lebanese state. Without these services, the system would risk further collapse, exacerbating the precariousness of the situation.

Pressure is mounting on Hezbollah to justify its strategy. To this end, Nasrallah has touted the impact of the group’s attacks, declaring that Israel was losing in the north. Over 200,000 Israelis have been displaced, with many refusing to return out of fear of Hezbollah attacks.

However, southern Lebanon is also paying a heavy price. Over 347 Lebanese have been killed by Israeli attacks, most of whom were Hezbollah members, but also over 50 civilians. According to the International Organization for Migration, almost 94,000 people have had to leave southern Lebanon to flee Israeli attacks.

The agricultural sector has suffered significant damage, with over 800 hectares of land damaged by Israeli bombings. This situation has a devastating impact on the economy of southern Lebanon where agriculture is a major industry.

Given this impact on civilian life, it is imperative to prioritize diplomatic solutions that end the violence, with special attention to securing food security and the agricultural sector in Lebanon. Simultaneously, efforts must be made to establish lasting peace among peoples exhausted by conflict.

Emilie El Khoury, Postdoctoral fellow at Queen’s University’s Centre for International Policy and Defence (CIDP), Queen’s University, Ontario

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

What struck me in their report is how unhappy the Middle East is. The only Middle Eastern country in the top twenty is Kuwait (for the first time in this cycle). Kuwait has oil wealth and is a compact country with lots of social interaction. The high score may reflect Kuwait’s lively labor movement. That sort of movement isn’t allowed in the other Gulf States. The United Arab Emirates came in at 22, and Saudi Arabia at 28.

These countries are all very wealthy and their people are very social and connected to clans and other group identities, including religious congregations.

But everyone else in the Middle East is way down the list.

As usual, Gallup found that the very happiest countries were Scandinavian lands shaped by social democratic policies. It turns out that a government safety net of the sort the Republican Party wants to get rid of actually is key to making people happy.

Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden take the top four spots. Israel, which also has a Labor socialist founding framework, is fifth. The Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Luxembourg fill out the top nine.

The Gallup researchers believe that a few major considerations affect well-being or happiness. They note, “Social interactions of all kinds … add to happiness, in addition to their effects flowing through increases in social support and reductions in loneliness.” My brief experience of being in Australia suggests to me that they are indeed very social and likely not very lonely on the whole. Positive emotions also equate to well-being and are much more important in determining it than negative emotions. The positive emotions include joy, gratitude, serenity, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and altruism, among others.

Benevolence, doing good to others, also adds to well-being. Interestingly, the Gallup researchers find that benevolence increased in COVID and its aftermath across the board.

They also factor in GDP per capita, that is, how poor or wealthy people are.

Gallup Video: “2024 World Happiness Report; Gallup CEO Jon Clifton”

Bahrain comes in at 62, which shows that oil wealth isn’t everything. It is deeply divided between a Sunni elite and a Shiite majority population, and that sectarian tension likely explains why it isn’t as happy as Kuwait. Kuwait is between a sixth and a third Shiite and also has a Sunni elite, but the Shiites are relatively well treated and the Emir depends on them to offset the power of Sunni fundamentalists. So it isn’t just sectarian difference that affects happiness but the way in which the rulers deal with it.

Libya, which is more or less a failed state after the people rose up to overthrow dictator Moammar Gaddafi, nevertheless comes in at 66. There is some oil wealth when the militias allow its export, and despite the east-west political divide, people are able to live full lives in cities like Benghazi and Tripoli. Maybe the overhang of getting rid of a hated dictator is still a source of happiness for them.

Algeria, a dictatorship and oil state, is 85. The petroleum wealth is not as great as in the Gulf by any means, and is monopolized by the country’s elite.

Iraq, an oil state, is 92. Like Bahrain, it suffers from ethnic and sectarian divides. It is something of a failed state after the American overthrow of its government.

Iran, another oil state, is 100. Its petroleum sales are interfered with by the US except with regard to China, so its income is much more limited than other Gulf oil states. The government is dictatorial and young people seem impatient with its attempt to regiment their lives, as witnessed in the recent anti-veiling protests.

The State of Palestine is 103, which is actually not bad given that they are deeply unhappy with being occupied by Israel. This ranking certainly plummeted after the current Israeli total war on Gaza began.

Morocco is 107. It is relatively poor, in fact poorer than some countries that rank themselves much lower on the happiness scale.

Tunisia is one of the wealthier countries in Africa and much better off than Morocco, but it comes in at 115. In the past few years all the democratic gains made during and after the Arab Spring have been reversed by horrid dictator Qais Saied. People seem to be pretty unhappy at now living in a seedy police state.

Jordan is both poor and undemocratic, and is ranked 125.

Egypt is desperately poor and its government since 2014 has been a military junta in business suits that brooks not the slightest dissent. It is 127. The hopes of the Arab Spring are now ashes.

Yemen is 133. One of the poorest countries in the world, it suffered from being attacked by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates from 2015 until 2021. So it is war torn and poverty-stricken.

Lebanon ranks almost at the bottom at 142. Its economy is better than Yemen’s but its government is hopelessly corrupt and its negligence caused the country’s major port to be blown up, plunging the country into economic crisis. It is wracked by sectarianism. If hope is a major positive emotion that leads to feelings of happiness, it is in short supply there.

Some countries are too much of a basket case to be included, like Syria, where I expect people are pretty miserable after the civil war. Likewise Sudan, which is now in civil strife and where hundreds of thousands may starve.

Poverty, dictatorship, disappointment in political setbacks, and sectarianism all seem to play a part in making the Middle East miserable. The role of the United States in supporting the dictatorships in Egypt and elsewhere, or in supporting wars, has been sinister and certainly has added significantly to the misery. For no group in the region is this more true than for the Palestinians.

In October 2022, Lebanon and Israel signed a maritime border agreement brokered by the U.S., a move interpreted as the beginning of normalizing relations between two countries technically at war.

The next step would have been the settlement of the long-running land border dispute.

But then came the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s response in bombing Gaza. The following day, Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Lebanon’s political party and militant group Hezbollah, announced the faction had “entered the battle,” effectively dragging Lebanon into fresh, intensified fighting with Israel.

Since then, near-daily tit-for-tat strikes have seen Hezbollah fighters fire missiles into northern Israel and Israel Defense Forces responding in kind.

As a scholar who researches evolving issues in Lebanon and the Middle East, I worry that as regional violence escalates, the long simmering conflict between Israel and Lebanon is heading toward an unavoidable full-blown war. In such circumstances, hopes for a land settlement to accompany the historic maritime deal look, for now at least, dead in the water.

Lebanese–Israeli relations

For over 75 years, Israel’s border with Lebanon has been a source of conflict. Following the proclamation of the state of Israel in 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled or fled their land; many ended up as refugees in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

In 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization was created and began to operate cells and recruit members from the Palestinian refugee camps in those three countries. In 1970, the PLO was expelled from Jordan.

It moved its headquarters into Lebanon, and by the mid-1970s over 20,000 PLO fighters were in Lebanon launching attacks on Israel. Their armed presence divided Lebanese public opinion between those who wanted to make peace with Israel and those who wanted to defend the Palestinian cause.

On April 13, 1975, violence erupted over the issue of Palestinian armed presence in Lebanon, and the country descended into chaos.

It resulted in a messy civil war in which Palestinian insurgents in Lebanon fought the country’s Christian population while also continuing to fire rockets into Israel. Lebanon thus became an unstable political and security threat to Israel.

TRT World Video: “Gaza conflict reignites Israel-Lebanon tensions

In 1982, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon launched Operation Peace for Galilee. On June 6 of that year, Israel Defense Forces invaded Lebanon with the intent to eliminate PLO fighters. Nearly 18,000 people were killed and another 30,000 wounded during the invasion.

The Lebanese authorities called for help, and a multinational peacekeeping force composed of American, French, British and Italian troops arrived in August 1982. Its mission was to evacuate PLO fighters out of Lebanon into Tunisia.

But on Sept. 14, Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel was assassinated. In retaliation, the Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia entered the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila and killed over 2,000 civilians. Evidence suggests Israel played a role in these massacres and was indirectly responsible for them.

Israel officially retreated from Beirut in September 1982, but it occupied southern Lebanon until 2000.

It was during this Israeli occupation that Hezbollah, a Shiite political party in Lebanon and militant organization backed by Iran, was born. Hezbollah and the IDF have been engaged in fierce fighting ever since, including a 1996 war known as Operation Grapes of Wrath, in which an estimated 200 were killed.

Land and maritime border disputes

Much of the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel takes place along a border that has been contested since the creation of Israel. Matters became more complicated with the occupation of the Golan Heights – a former Syrian territory that borders Israel and Lebanon and was taken by Israeli forces during the 1967 Six-Day War.

In the past, there have been attempts to settle land disputes. In 1949, Israel and Lebanon signed the general armistice agreement, which adopted the boundaries of the mandatory territories of Palestine and Lebanon. This agreement continues to exist on paper.

In May 1983, Israel and Lebanon signed an agreement calling for the establishment of peaceful diplomatic relations between the two states. However, after the assassination of Gemayel and the Sabra and Shatila massacres, the agreement was not implemented.

Following the IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, a “Blue Line” was established by the U.N. It is not a real border but rather an imagined line separating the two states and monitored by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.

Although the Blue Line acts as a buffer zone between Lebanon and Israel, it does not offer an accurate drawing of land boundaries and does not solve the issue of a key source of contention: the disputed Shebaa Farms.

Located between Israel, Syria and southern Lebanon, the Shebaa Farms have been contested lands for over two decades. While Lebanon and Hezbollah claim that it is Lebanese territory, Israel asserts that it is part of the Golan Heights, which it continues to occupy.

After appointing cartographers, the United Nations declared the Shebaa Farms Syrian territory captured by Israel in 1967.

In 2011, Syrian leader Bashar Assad recognized that the Shebaa Farms are Syrian, refuting Hezbollah’s claim over this land and Israel’s jurisdiction in the occupied Golan Heights.

Meanwhile, efforts led by the U.S. began to look at the issue of Lebanon and Israel’s disputed maritime boundary, starting in earnest in 2010.

The discovery of the Leviathan field, the largest gas reservoir in the Mediterranean, made it urgent to address the question of the maritime borders. With gas exploitation and economic growth a possibility, it was deemed important to lower security risks for investors.

In 2022, Amos Hochstein, the American envoy for energy affairs, met separately at the Blue Line with Israeli and Lebanese officials. Hezbollah was involved in the negotiations and gave the green light for the deal to be sealed. In October of that year, the U.N. was notified of the new Israeli and Lebanese maritime borders.

It came amid other signs of a lessening in tensions between Israel and Arab states. In September 2020, the United Arab Emirates signed the Abraham Accords in which it recognized Israeli statehood. Soon after, Sudan and Bahrain followed suit.

Moving forward

The maritime border agreement carried a potential for peace in the region, a deal that would, potentially, benefit both Lebanon and Israel.

The next step would have been drawing land boundaries. In fact, Hochstein had already held preliminary discussions over 13 land border points, including the Shebaa Farms, and had explicitly said that the U.S. is ready to help mediate between the two countries.

Hamas’ terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and the ongoing Israeli war in Gaza have, however, derailed the process.

It is hard to envision a land border deal in such circumstances, especially after the January 2024 assassination of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut and Hezbollah’s vow to avenge the death.

The final nail in the coffin looks to be Saudi Arabia’s statement on Feb. 7, 2024, that it can have no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized with the 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as its capital.

It has ended hopes, for now at least, that Saudi Arabia will follow the UAE’s lead and normalize diplomatic relations with Israel.

The U.S. is still desperately trying to keep the land deal alive. Recently, Hochstein visited Lebanon and met with anti-Hezbollah parties in an attempt to end hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel and move forward with a land agreement.

One voice often neglected in all this is that of the Lebanese public. Many Lebanese have expressed their opposition to war. In one recent poll, a majority agreed that what the country needed was domestic and economic reforms more than involvement in foreign policy issues. A historic land deal accompanying the maritime settlement may have gone some way to achieve those goals. Instead, the danger now is a full-scale war that will scuttle any negotiations.

Mireille Rebeiz, Chair of Middle East Studies & Associate Professor of Francophone & Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Dickinson College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

( RFE/RL ) – Iran’s so-called axis of resistance is a loose network of proxies, Tehran-backed militant groups, and an allied state actor.

The network is a key element of Tehran’s strategy of deterrence against perceived threats from the United States, regional rivals, and primarily Israel.

Active in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, the axis gives Iran the ability to hit its enemies outside its own borders while allowing it to maintain a position of plausible deniability, experts say.

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has played a key role in establishing some of the groups in the axis. Other members have been co-opted by Tehran over the years.

Iran has maintained that around dozen separate groups that comprise the axis act independently.

Tehran’s level of influence over each member varies. But the goals pursued by each group broadly align with Iran’s own strategic aims, which makes direct control unnecessary, according to experts.

Lebanon’s Hizballah

Hizballah was established in 1982 in response to Israel’s invasion that year of Lebanon, which was embroiled in a devastating civil war.

The Shi’ite political and military organization was created by the Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the elite branch of the country’s armed forces.

Danny Citrinowicz, a research fellow at the Iran Program at the Israel-based Institute for National Security Studies, said Tehran’s aim was to unite Lebanon’s various Shi’ite political organizations and militias under one organization.

Since it was formed, Hizballah has received significant financial and political assistance from Iran, a Shi’a-majority country. That backing has made the group a major political and military force in Lebanon.

“Iran sees the organization as the main factor that will deter Israel or the U.S. from going to war against Iran and works tirelessly to build the organization’s power,” Citrinowicz said.

Hizballah has around 40,000 fighters, according to the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence. The State Department said Iran has armed and trained Hizballah fighters and injected hundreds of millions of dollars in the group.

Photo by أخٌ‌في‌الله on Unsplash

The State Department in 2010 described Hizballah as “the most technically capable terrorist group in the world.”

Citrinowicz said Iran may not dictate orders to the organization but Tehran “profoundly influences” its decision-making process.

He described Hizballah, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, not as a proxy but “an Iranian partner managing Tehran’s Middle East strategy.”

Led by Hassan Nasrallah, Hizballah has developed close ties with other Iranian proxies and Tehran-backed militant groups, helping to train and arm their fighters.

Citrinowicz said Tehran “almost depends” on the Lebanese group to oversee its relations with other groups in the axis of resistance.

Hamas

Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, has had a complex relationship with Iran.

Founded in 1987 during the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, Hamas is an offshoot of the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political organization established in Egypt in the 1920s.

Hamas’s political chief is Ismail Haniyeh, who lives in Qatar. Its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, is commanded by Yahya Sinwar, who is believed to be based in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is estimated to have around 20,000 fighters.

For years, Iran provided limited material support to Hamas, a Sunni militant group. Tehran ramped up its financial and military support to the Palestinian group after it gained power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.

But Tehran reduced its support to Hamas after a major disagreement over the civil war in Syria. When the conflict broke out in 2011, Iran backed the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Hamas, however, supported the rebels seeking to oust Assad.

Nevertheless, experts said the sides overcame their differences because, ultimately, they seek the same goal: Israel’s destruction.

“[But] this does not mean that Iran is deeply aware of all the actions of Hamas,” Citrinowicz said.

After Hamas militants launched a multipronged attack on Israel in October that killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, Iran denied it was involved in planning the assault. U.S. intelligence has indicated that Iranian leaders were surprised by Hamas’s attack.

Seyed Ali Alavi, a lecturer in Middle Eastern and Iranian Studies at SOAS University of London, said Iran’s support to Hamas is largely “confined to rhetorical and moral support and limited financial aid.” He said Qatar and Turkey, Hamas’s “organic” allies, have provided significantly more financial help to the Palestinian group.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad

With around 1,000 members, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is the smaller of the two main militant groups based in the Gaza Strip and the closest to Iran.

Founded in 1981, the Sunni militant group’s creation was inspired by Iran’s Islamic Revolution two years earlier. Given Tehran’s ambition of establishing a foothold in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Iran has provided the group with substantial financial backing and arms, experts say.

The PIJ, led by Ziyad al-Nakhalah, is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.

“Today, there is no Palestinian terrorist organization that is closer to Iran than this organization,” Citrinowicz said. “In fact, it relies mainly on Iran.”

Citrinowicz said there is no doubt that Tehran’s “ability to influence [the PIJ] is very significant.”

Iraqi Shi’ite Militias

Iran supports a host of Shi’ite militias in neighboring Iraq, some of which were founded by the IRGC and “defer to Iranian instructions,” said Gregory Brew, a U.S.-based Iran analyst with the Eurasia Group.

But Tehran’s influence over the militias has waned since the U.S. assassination in 2020 of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, who was seen as the architect of the axis of resistance and held great influence over its members.

“The dynamic within these militias, particularly regarding their relationship with Iran, underwent a notable shift following the assassination of Qassem Soleimani,” said Hamidreza Azizi, a fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

The U.S. drone strike that targeted Soleimani also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella organization of mostly Shi’ite Iran-backed armed groups that has been a part of the Iraqi Army since 2016.

Muhandis was also the leader of Kata’ib Hizballah, which was established in 2007 and is one of the most powerful members of the PMF. Other prominent groups in the umbrella include Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Harakat al-Nujaba, Kata’ib Seyyed al-Shuhada, and the Badr Organization. Kata’ib Hizballah has been designated as a terrorist entity by the United States.

Following the deaths of Soleimani and al-Muhandis, Kata’ib Hizballah and other militias “began to assert more autonomy, at times acting in ways that could potentially compromise Iran’s interests,” said Azizi.

Many of the Iran-backed groups that form the PMF are also part of the so-called Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which rose to prominence in November 2023. The group has been responsible for launching scores of attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria since Israel launched its war against Hamas in Gaza.

“It’s important to note that while several militias within the PMF operate as Iran’s proxies, this is not a universal trait across the board,” Azizi said.

Azizi said the extent of Iran’s control over the PMF can fluctuate based on the political conditions in Iraq and the individual dynamics within each militia.

The strength of each group within the PMF varies widely, with some containing as few as 100 members and others, such as Kata’ib Hizballah, boasting around 10,000 fighters.

Syrian State And Pro-Government Militias

Besides Iran, Syria is the only state that is a member of the axis of resistance.

“The relationship between Iran and the Assad regime in Syria is a strategic alliance where Iran’s influence is substantial but not absolute, indicating a balance between dependency and partnership,” said Azizi.

The decades-long alliance stems from Damascus’s support for Tehran during the devastating 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

When Assad’s rule was challenged during the Syrian civil war, the IRGC entered the fray in 2013 to ensure he held on to power.

Hundreds of IRGC commander and officers, who Iran refers to as “military advisers,” are believed to be present in Syria. Tehran has also built up a large network of militias, consisting mostly of Afghans and Pakistanis, in Syria.

Azizi said these militias have given Iran “a profound influence on the country’s affairs,” although not outright control over Syria.

“The Assad regime maintains its strategic independence, making decisions that serve its national interests and those of its allies,” he said.

The Fatemiyun Brigade, comprised of Afghan fighters, and the Zainabiyun Brigade, which is made up of Pakistani fighters, make up the bulk of Iran’s proxies in Syria.

“They are essentially units in the IRGC, under direct control,” said Brew.

The Afghan and Pakistani militias played a key role in fighting rebel groups opposed to Assad during the civil war. There have been reports that Iran has not only granted citizenship to Afghan fighters and their families but also facilitated Syrian citizenship for them.

The Fatemiyun Brigade, the larger of the two, is believed to have several thousand fighters in Syria. The Zainabiyun Brigade is estimated to have less than 1,000 fighters.

Yemen’s Huthi Rebels

The Huthis first emerged as a movement in the 1980s in response to the growing religious influence of neighboring Saudi Arabia, a Sunni kingdom.

In 2015, the Shi’ite militia toppled the internationally recognized, Saudi-backed government of Yemen. That triggered a brutal, yearslong Saudi-led war against the rebels.

With an estimated 200,000 fighters, the Huthis control most of the northwest of the country, including the capital, Sanaa, and are in charge of much of the Red Sea coast.

The Huthis’ disdain for Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional foe, and Israel made it a natural ally of Tehran, experts say. But it was only around 2015 that Iran began providing the group with training through the Quds Force and Hizballah. Tehran has also supplied weapons to the group, though shipments are regularly intercepted by the United States.

“The Huthis…appear to have considerable autonomy and Tehran exercises only limited control, though there does appear to be [a] clear alignment of interests,” said Brew.

Since Israel launched its war in Gaza, the Huthis have attacked international commercial vessels in the Red Sea and fired ballistic missiles at several U.S. warships.

In response, the United States and its allies have launched air strikes against the Huthis’ military infrastructure. Washington has also re-designated the Huthis as a terrorist organization.

Copyright (c)2024 RFE/RL, Inc. Used with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1250 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 450, Washington DC 20036.

Via RFE/RL

“On 24 February 2022, while travelling to Lebanon to visit his great-aunt Maria in Lebanon, Ibrahim al-Marashi’s thoughts were with his friend Maria in Ukraine on the first day of the Russian invasion.”

By Ibrahim Al-Marashi | –

( The New Arab ) – As my plane descends into Istanbul airport, from the window I scan the horizon towards the direction of Ukraine, now a warzone. It is 24 February 2022.

While I travel to Zahle in Lebanon to meet one Maria, to bring her medicine and money to keep her alive, I perform the fatiha prayer for another Maria, my friend in Kyiv, to be protected and kept alive.

I make a nidhr, a promise to Sayyida Khawla, the deceased daughter of our revered Imam Hussein that I will visit her shrine in the neighbouring Lebanese town of Baalbek, if Ukrainian Maria survives.

The Maria I am visiting is my grandmother’s older sister, whose family were refugees after World War I, leaving Mardin, in today’s Turkey, to Lebanon. While I was on the plane moving east, I knew Maria in Kyiv was a refugee in the making, and that she would eventually flee to the west.

This tale of two Marias is one of the greater Mediterranean, the sea in the “Middle of the Earth,” flowing into the Black and Red Seas and the terrain surrounding them.

“While I travel to Zahle in Lebanon to meet one Maria, to bring her medicine and money to keep her alive, I perform the fatiha prayer for another Maria, my friend in Kyiv, to be protected and kept alive”

These lands and waters which have witnessed waves of refugees, due to conflicts which compel and coerce. A history of displacement over distance, from antiquity’s Sea Peoples to Syrian refugees.

On Thursday, 24 February 2022, both Maria Marchenko and I are preparing for trips to or away from an airport.

At 5am Maria Marchenko is jolted from her sleep. A barrage of ballistic missiles bombarded Kyiv airport, close to where she lives. Airports around the capital city were targeted that day to prevent Ukrainian planes from taking off, while Moscow sought to secure them as staging grounds for the assault on the capital.

At the same time, it is 6am in Madrid. I am packing for my trip to Lebanon in a few hours to visit Maria Shakir, delivering her the pain reliever Panadol and US dollars, both in short supply there due to an economic crisis.

Istanbul, where I am making my transit, is relatively close to the war zone and I wonder if flights might be cancelled. That would devastate Lebanese Maria. She is 98 and hasn’t seen me in 13 years.

While I’m packing my bag the morning of my flight because I am a procrastinator, Maria hadn’t packed because she did not believe that war would erupt. She thought if she did pack her bag in advance for such a scenario, war would then inevitably occur.

I had prepared my Madrid apartment for Maria, her mother and father in case they needed to flee here. I had arranged fresh linens for them, turning my apartment into a haven to accommodate three potential refugees.

During the morning of the 24th both Maria and I pack warm clothing. There is a winter storm in Zahle, in the high mountains of Lebanon. Maria will be going to a bomb shelter, well below the ground in a freezing metro station.

We collect our documents, laptops, and chargers. Maria packs something I have no need to: photos of family and friends, to preserve their memories unsure if she would see them again.

I shut the teal window blinds on my balcony. On top of the entrance to the convent in front of my house, a dove representing the Holy Spirit flies above the representation of Mary. For her namesake in Ukraine, it is not a dove that flies above her head, but rather enemy aircraft.

 

 

Driving to the airport, I dial Maria in vain. The first leg of my journey is to Istanbul, a four-hour journey where I won’t be able to make calls. At this point, I am not sure if the telecommunication lines have been hit, or even if Maria is still alive.

As I am about to board the plane and turn off my phone, she picks up. When I ask about her, she holds back her tears. Her parents live in Okhtyrka, in the Sumy region, 30 miles from the border and now the front lines. Nonetheless, she declares her wish for peace, with no malice or cynicism in her voice. I remind her that they have a home in Madrid.

I place my KN-94 mask snuggly on. And a surgical mask on top of that. I am so grateful the seat next to me is empty. I have yet to catch Covid and feared how I would fare with this virus in Lebanon, having heard stories about the abysmal conditions of health care as a result of the economic crisis. My grandfather survived a pandemic by moving to Lebanon in the late 1940s. I do not want to repeat history.

For the next four hours I will be dodging viruses. I fret that this plane will also have to dodge missiles as we approach Istanbul airport, close to the Black Sea, where warships are bombarding Ukraine with cruise missiles, according to the news.

Istanbul airport is unusually empty. I look at the screen for the gate to my connecting flight to Lebanon, noticing a list of cancelled flights that were destined for Ukraine and Russia.

I turn on my phone. No messages from Ukrainian Maria, but Lebanese Maria sends me pictures of the dishes she has prepared for my arrival via Whatsapp – hummus with olive oil and sesame seeds and falafel.

She is 98-years old yet knows how to send gifs and emojis. When I confirm I am boarding the plane, she sends a gif of a woman from the Sixties with a bra that fires sparks, like bullets. When I leave her a voice message that the flight to Lebanon is scheduled to leave on time, she sends me an animated image of Jesus Christ.

Five hours later, drenched and exhausted, I arrived at a first-floor apartment in Zahle. Maria is elated. I collapse on her sofa. She hugs me, and screams “tu’burni” or “you will bury me,” which is a term of endearment, but I dread the thought of her passing. She is so short that even sitting on the sofa our eyeline is equal.

While she prepares the food, I recline on the sofa, made out of a wooden frame, yet the cushions are made with thick grey blankets, stamped with the logo of “UNHCR,” the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, while a stuffed teddy bear and cheetah rest behind me.

 

I am too embarrassed to ask whether her or a resourceful furniture maker had reappropriated them from the nearby camps housing Syrian refugees.

She brings out her folded table and I eat right there.

“My Maria in Zahle frets when she learns that the grain supply from Ukraine will be interrupted, increasing the price of bread in Lebanon. It’s fortunate I have arrived with US dollars to help her adjust to this crisis”

While I am in the most comfortable setting, my second home, Ukrainian Maria’s second home is underneath the earth, a cold, underground bomb shelter. While I have a sumptuous Lebanese feast, Maria in Kyiv occasionally comes up for air, to find soup during the ephemeral lull of security, until the sirens call her back.

I asked Maria in Zahle to turn on the TV so I can find news about Maria in Kyiv. My Maria in Zahle frets when she learns that the grain supply from Ukraine will be interrupted, increasing the price of bread in Lebanon. It’s fortunate I have arrived with US dollars to help her adjust to this crisis.

On top of the TV set, on the wooden bookshelf, there are three separate depictions of the Virgin Mary and a drawn image of Jesus holding his hand to his heart, while what seems like laser rays of red and blue are coming out of his chest.

During the late 1940s, my grandfather contracted tuberculosis, the Covid-19 of its time. He had to leave his home, Najaf, in the dusty Iraqi desert to recover in the clean mountain air of Zahle. He probably bemoaned his fate, but there he met my grandmother, a Christian refugee from Mardin.

If it were not for refugees and pandemics my mother would not be born, and I would not exist.

I often question why God let my grandmother die at such a young age, when my mom was barely five years old. For most of my life I did not know Maria Shakir even existed. It was only as an adult I travelled to Zahle trying to find my grandmother’s family, eventually finding Maria.

Maria and my entire grandmother’s family are Syriac Orthodox Christian. The country of Lebanon tore itself apart because its Muslims and Christians could not see what unites them, and instead focused on the narcissism of small differences, plunging the country into a civil war that lasted from 1975 to 1991.

Yet this Shi’a Muslim flew across the Mediterranean to help his Christian great-aunt, bringing her money, medicine, and his love.

 

But in Ukraine that same day, the invaders that day could only focus on hate, in their minds, dark, vacuous caverns where only enmity and evil exist, and another set of small differences. Maria in Ukraine became another victim in this cycle.

On the other wall by the TV was an image of Mar Elias Shakir III etched in silver. The Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox church. Maria’s uncle. My great-uncle. I make another nidhr to him: “If you help Maria, she is Orthodox like you, get out of Ukraine safely, I will visit your shrine in Kerala, India.”

During dinner, when I tell my great-aunt Maria about my visit to the shrine of Sayyida Khawla, she informs me that Our Lady of Bechouat, the site of a Marian apparition, is only ten minutes away from Baalbek.

She tells me this, not to pay a visit as a pilgrim. In fact, rarely do our religious differences ever come up in conversation. My aunt Maria also worships another religion: gastronomy.

She tells me that a woman in Bechouat has a café next to the Marian shrine and where I could eat saj, a Lebanese flat bread cooked on an open circular grill, complemented with thyme or cheese. Of course, her saj is not as good as Maria’s, she reminds me, but I should try it still since I will need to eat lunch.

On Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, I arrive at the Sayyida Khawla shrine. I approach the shrine, with a gilded minaret and dome, interspersed with turquoise ceramic tiles and white Arabic calligraphy. I pass a pointed arch and enter the main hall, and look up at the dome, a pattern of the top in the shape of a star, a representation of heaven in perfect geometrical symmetry.

Not a single space is unadorned, illuminated with beams of light, with walls and ceilings made up of alternating panels of gold and silver, shimmering, shining, sparkling, with crystals glittering, glimmering, mesmerising.

“Rarely do our religious differences ever come up in conversation. My aunt Maria also worships another religion: gastronomy”

I approach the above ground tomb. Khawla was another person displaced by conflict, a refugee of sorts, more akin to a prisoner of war. Khawla was the daughter of Imam Hussein and great granddaughter of Prophet Muhammad. Hussein, the prophet’s son-in-law, and most of his family were massacred in Karbala, in today’s Iraq, in 681 by a political rival, Yazid, based in Damascus.

During a long and arduous journey, the few members of Hussein’s surviving family were taken as prisoners of war across the desert from what is Iraq to Damascus. Khawla died in Baalbek. Zayn al-Abidin, Hussein’s only surviving son, and Khawla’s brother, planted a small branch to mark her grave. Over the years, that branch turned into a massive cypress tree, which is in the middle of the shrine, making it 1,400-years-old.

I sit on a carpet of alternating floral designs of red, black, and white, in front of her tomb. Technically Khawla is like my Khala Maria, my great-aunt, albeit older by more than a millennium and a half.

 

I pray. For the health of my family, that my sister gives birth to a healthy baby, and that I get some message from Maria in Ukraine that she is safe.

Afterwards, I am on my way to Our Lady of Bechouat, the site of a Marian apparition, because maybe there Ukrainian Maria’s text will also appear.

The church has a bell tower, an exact resemblance to the minaret of the Shi’a shrine, but the entire complex is constructed of monochromatic, soft beige stones, in comparison with the explosion of colour in Sayyida Khawla. While the Shi’a shrine has a single tree, this complex is covered in sprawling olive trees.

It was here that in 1741, a wooden Byzantine icon of the Virgin was discovered in a cave and a church was built above it. Bechouat then became a pilgrimage site after a miracle occurred there for a paralyzed Christian man. The Marian apparition, however, occurred later, in front of the eyes of a Muslim child. Since then, I learned it has become a site of pilgrimage for both Christians and Muslims.

It’s fitting it became a site sacred to both Christians and Muslims. In the structure housing the statue, there is a painting of the Virgin Mary, standing on top of a crescent moon.

The crescent moon, along with a star, is a symbol associated with Islam. However, it was originally a Christian symbol representing the Virgin. The crescent moon had long been a symbol of fertility in the Middle East from pagan times, and the star stood in for Mary. It was only in 1453, when the Ottoman Muslims conquered Constantinople, that they appropriated the flag.

“It’s fitting it became a site sacred to both Christians and Muslims”

Within the span of a few hours in this narrow sliver of land known as the Bekaa Valley, settled by Phoenicians and Romans, known for its hashish, I visited two sites dedicated not just to Christianity and Islam, but the divine feminine: Our Lady of Baalbek, Khawla, and Our Lady of Bechouat, Mary.

The Lebanese often boast about how they can ski in the mountains and be able to go to the beach and dip into the water within the span of an hour. I was more impressed that within the span of an hour I could visit these two shrines, one Shi’a and the other Catholic.

In the span of an hour I could pray for protection, asking one holy Maria to protect both my Syriac Orthodox great-aunt Maria and my Ukrainian Orthodox Maria.

A few days later Ukrainian Maria eventually arrived in Parma, Italy, to stay with her aunt. Her parents remained in Okhtyrka, defending their home.

 

Maria was safe. And now I had to fulfil a promise before the year ended that I would travel to India, to visit the shrine of my great-uncle, and thank him for the favour.

Ibrahim Al-Marashi is an associate professor of history at California State University San Marcos. He is co-author of Iraq’s Armed Forces: An Analytical History and The Modern History of Iraq.

Follow him on Twitter: @ialmarashi

Have questions or comments? Email us at: editorial-english@newarab.com

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff, or the author’s employer, or Informed Comment.

Reprinted from The New Arab with the author’s permission.

Israel’s Defense Minister called the Palestinians of Gaza “human animals” when he announced a “complete siege” of Gaza after the horrid Hamas terrorist attack of October 7.

Galant’s willingness to destroy most of the homes in northern Gaza and to displace over a million people, leaving them cold, hungry, thirsty and increasingly victims of disease, surely was enhanced by his conviction that he is dealing with animals rather than human beings. Some might defend him, saying that he only called Hamas “human animals.” But if that were true, why is he treating all Palestinians in Gaza worse than dogs?

The Nazi dehumanization of Jews is notorious. They called them rats, lice, cockroaches, foxes, vultures

Such language proliferates in times of tension and war. The impulse to it should be resisted by ethical persons, and even just by normal non-psychopathic human beings.

Prominent New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, alas, fell victim to the seductions of such language in his Friday column. He openly said that he approaches the Middle East at times from the perspective of the Warner Brothers’ Animal Planet channel.

Friedman actually wants a two-state solution and so wants something for Palestinians more than what they now have, and he is hated by the Israeli far right (which is increasingly the Israeli mainstream) for these stances. So it is unfortunate that he deployed the language of insects for Iran and Hamas members. He might defend himself by pointing out that he called the United States an “old lion” of which no one in the region is afraid any more, or that he caricatured Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as a lemur. But in his column, the old lion and the lemur are not depicted as vicious or disgusting.

The Majority Report with Sam Seder Video: “Journalist Gives Heartbreaking Report From Gaza As Explosions Ring Out Around Her”

The three-time Pulitzer prize-winner compares Iran to a parasitoid wasp that lays its eggs in caterpillars. He says that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps is like the wasp, and the caterpillars are Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Iraqi Shiite militias, and Yemen’s Helpers of God (Houthis).

How does this language add to understanding? If he is saying that Iran has fostered Shiite militias in nearby countries on the model of its Revolutionary Guards, this is true.

But why would Lebanese be interested in Iranian training, weapons and monetary support?

In 1947-1948 Zionist militias ethnically cleansed over half of Palestinians, expelling them from their homes and farms and forcing some of them to Lebanon, where they dwelled in camps. As a liberal Zionist, I presume that Friedman applauds this ethnic cleansing, though the liberal part of the equation makes him sympathetic to Palestinians getting a state on 22% of the land of the British Mandate of Palestine, all of which was promised to the Palestinians by the British White Paper of 1939.

By the 1970s some of the younger generation were radicalized and formed armed bands to strike across the border into Israel. Many lived in south Lebanon among the Shiite population there. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, ostensibly to deal with the Palestinian attacks but actually to reshape Lebanese politics and install a far right wing Christian puppet government. The 1982 invasion left about 50,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians dead. Then the Israelis occupied about 10% of Lebanese soil for 18 years, subjecting the southern, largely Shiite population to their military rule in alliance with an artificially created Christian militia. Some Shiites, determined to resist the latest Israeli land-grab, formed Hezbollah in 1984 and began a long struggle to get the Israelis back out of their country. By 2000, they had succeeded.

No one in Lebanon, however, trusted the Israelis to cease attempting to dominate Lebanon, and so the rest of the Lebanese appointed Hezbollah as the border guards of the south.

Israel created Hezbollah by its occupation of Lebanon and its attempt to control it.

So Iranian influence in southern Lebanon is not a “natural” phenomenon of “injecting eggs.” It is a political alliance by the poor and the weak seeking a patron to help protect them from a serial predator.

If the Israelis had permitted a Palestinian state to emerge in the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians in Lebanon would have moved there. They told me so enthusiastically when I interviewed them in 2008. Then the whole history of Israel interventions in Lebanon would have been obviated and perhaps Hezbollah would never have been formed.

Likewise, several of the Iraqi Shiite militias were formed in response to the US occupation of that country for which Friedman was among the foremost cheerleaders. When the US occupation led to the formation of ISIL (ISIS, Daesh), the Shiite militias were the only force that could take it on in 2014-2015, and the US gave them air support at Amerli and Tikrit.

Had Bush, with Friedman cheering him on, not invaded Iraq, any Shiite militias in that country would be small and covert, as they were in the 1990s.

Then the Houthis in Yemen are rural Zaydi Shiites who reacted against Saudi dominance of their country and their region. The Saudis were trying to convert them to Wahhabism and were buying the Yemeni government to allow them to extend their influence. The Zaydis minded, and some in the north rebelled.

Mr. Friedman told us that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who bombed Yemen for seven years, further radicalizing the Houthis and driving them into Iran’s arms, is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Then he compared Hamas to a trap-door spider because it took hostages.

But we all know how the Palestinians in Gaza turned to Hamas and in what conditions the Israelis have kept the Palestinians of Gaza — virtually as prisoners in a concentration camp. 70% of the families in Gaza are refugees from southern Israel, from which the Zionists expelled them.

So the biggest problem with Friedman’s glib column isn’t even its racism. It is the illusion of explanation created by the use of insects as metaphors for human beings. By sidestepping imperialism, settler colonialism, and capitalist exploitation, by ignoring social class and history, Friedman can skate away with his facile sociobiology, having elucidated nothing, having understood nothing . . .

and having sidestepped the ways in which his own commitments, to liberal Zionism, exploitative forms of leveling capitalism, and to American imperialism in places like Iraq, created the mess he now dismisses as a nature documentary.

The Party of God Brigades were founded by Abu Mehdi al-Muhandis. The organization is not related to the Hezbollah in Lebanon, though the two have a collegial relationship. Al-Muhandis was assassinated by President Donald Trump on January 3, 2020 along with the Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani. Ever since, the Brigades have sought to force out of Iraq the remaining 2500 US troops there and to force out of Syria the remaining 900 US troops stationed in that country. US troops were put into those two countries by the Obama administration during the fight against the ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) terrorist organization, 2014-2018. In those years, the US was often de facto allied with Shiite militias such as the PGB and with their sponsor, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. In 2018, Trump destroyed the Iran nuclear deal of 2015 and placed a “maximum pressure” economic siege on the Iranian economy. That and his assassination of Soleimani and al-Muhandis set Iran and its allies, the Shiite militias of the Middle East, on an increasingly belligerent footing.

The Party of God Brigades and other Iraqi Shiite militias have launched around 150 attacks on bases housing US troops since the Gaza conflict broke out on October 7.

Al-Zaman [The Times of Baghdad] printed the communique it received from the God’s Party Brigades:

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

“Leave is given to those who fight because they were wronged — surely God is able to help them .” [Qur’an 22:39].

Continuing our path of resisting the American occupation forces in Iraq and the region, and in response to the massacres of the Zionist entity against our people in Gaza, at dawn today, Sunday 1/28/2024, the fighters of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq attacked four enemy bases with unmanned aerial vehicles — three of them in Syria and they are Al-Shaddadi, al-Rukban and al-Tanf bases, and the fourth inside our occupied Palestinian lands, and it is the US Marines’ Zafulun Facility. The Islamic Resistance affirms that it will continue to destroy enemy compounds.

“Victory is only from God. God is Almighty, All-Wise.” [Qur’an 8:10].

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq
Sunday 16 Rajab 1445

God knows what Zafulun is, but apparently it is their term for the place that Tower 22 stands. It is interesting that the group views the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan as part of occupied Palestine. Palestine and the Transjordan were conquered by the British army during World War I and Britain subsequently ruled the West Bank and the rest of Palestine as a League of Nations Mandate, while giving charge of the Transjordan to the family of the Sharif Hussain, the Naqib or leading noble of Mecca, who claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad and his clan, the Banu Hashem. Hussain and his sons had supported the British against the Ottomans during WW I because the British lied to them and promised them an independent Arab state after the war. In any case, this Shiite militia appears to view the Hashemite Dynasty (King Abdullah II is a descendant of Sharif Hussain) as illegitimate.

In return, the highly capable and effective Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate, or GID, is even as we speak making plans to help track down and kill the PGB cadres behind this attack on Jordanian soil. Jordan will also have some harsh words for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani, who came to power with the support of the Shiite militias and is thought to be close to them.

Aljazeera English Video: “Three US service members killed in drone attack on US post in Jordan near Syria”

The Ma`refa site says that al-Muhandis was born in 1954 or 1955 in Basra, originally named Jamal Jaafar Muhammad Ali Al Ibrahim. He married an Iranian woman. In 1973 he was in Baghdad, where he entered the Technological University in the Engineering School, being graduated with an engineering degree in 1977. While working as an engineer he did further degrees in political science. He also took off some time to study at a Shiite seminary in Basra that was part of the establishment of Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim, the clerical leader of Iraq’s Shiites in the 1960s.

Right from the time he was in high school in the early 1970s, he joined the Da`wa Party. Some say that Da`wa, or “the Call,” was founded in 1958 to compete with the Communists and Baathists, who were appealing to Shiite youths. Baathism is a mixture of socialism and Arab nationalism with a strong secularist cast, and it instituted an authoritarian Stalinist-style one-party state in Iraq from 1968. The Da`wa party, in contrast, theorized a Shiite state as a believers’ paradise in opposition to the Communists’ workers paradise. Its leaders made room for consultative government.

In 1979, the Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran began radicalizing Iraqi Shiites. Saddam Hussein came to power in an internal Baath Party putsch in 1979. In 1980 he outlawed the Da`wa Party, executed its clerical leader Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, and made belonging to it a capital crime. For the past twenty years the post-Baath government has been finding mass graves in the Shiite south of Iraq, where the Baath secret police shot down suspected Da`wa members.

Al-Muhandis, his nom de guerre, which means “the engineer,” was forced to flee to Kuwait. There, he was part of a Da`wa cell that turned radical and committed acts of terrorism against the US and French embassies, given the hostility of those countries to the Islamic Republic. He then appears to have gone to Iran, where he left the Da`wa Party for the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), an even more radical organization founded by Iraqi expatriates in Tehran in 1982 at the suggestion of Khomeini. Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, the son of Muhsin al-Hakim, became the head of it in 1984. Thousands of Iraqi Shiites defected to Iran during the 1980s, and SCIRI organized them. Those who remained loyal to the Da`wa Party, who mostly rejected Khomeini’s vision of a clerically ruled Muslim state, tended to make their way to London instead. The Supreme Council developed a paramilitary branch, the Badr Corps, which was trained and funded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, and which carried out operations against Baath installations in Iraq. Al-Muhandis Joined the Badr Corps and rose to become one of its commanders.

The independent Shiite site al-Khanadeq in Lebanon says that the Party of God Brigades was founded by al-Muhandis in 2003 when the US, as I wrote about, invaded Iraq, with the aim of forcing the occupiers back out. He appears to have broken with the Badr Corps at that point and formed his own militia, primarily out of armed groups based in the Shiite holy city of Karbala (the Ali Akbar Brigades, the Karbala Brigades and the Abu al-Fadl Abbas Brigades). By 2007, they had begun jointly calling themselves the Party of God Brigades. They mounted some attacks on US bases. I also wrote about the role of the Shiite militias in that era

The organization became prominent in 2014 when Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called on Iraqi young men to rise up to defend the country from ISIL, which had taken Mosul, at a time when the Iraqi Army built by the Bush administration had collapsed. The Party of God Brigades and other Shiite militias armed themselves and went to fight, with training and support from the iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and Gen. Soleimani, against ISIL in Amerli and later in Tikrit and Fallujah. They helped ensure that ISIL was defeated. The militias developed political parties which got a fair-sized bloc of seats in parliament. In 2018 parliament recognized the Shiite militias or “Popular Mobilization Forces” as a formal part of the Iraqi military — a sort of national guard.

After 2018, when ISIL was rolled up, the US kept several thousand troops in Iraq for mop-up operations and to continue to train the new Iraqi army.

Israel is accused of committing covert ops against Iraqi Shiite militias inside Iraq, blowing up a weapons depot in 2019.

In Syria, the government of Bashar al-Assad initially faced a rebellion by civil society groups in 2011, but attacked the demonstrators militarily and turned the struggle into a civil war. It took on sectarian tones, since most rebels were Sunnis, while the elite of the government were Alawi Shiites. Lebanon’s Hezbollah came in on the side of Damascus, as did the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. The Party of God Brigades came up from Iraq along with some other Shiite militias. With help from the Russian air force, the Shiite militias defeated the Sunni rebels and drove their remnant into the far north Idlib province.

In the east of Syria, the US enlisted the YPG Syrian Kurdish militia as ground troops to defeat ISIL in Raqqa and Deir al-Zor provinces, with US air support. The US put in a small number of its own troops, embedded with the YPG. After ISIL was defeated, the US maintained a small military presence in Syria’s southeast. Again, they aimed to mop up ISIL and prevent it from reconstituting itself, and to lend continued support to the YPG in these largely Arab provinces. It is alleged that they also attempt to block Iranian activities, including shipments of weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, on behalf of Israel. Further, they may be helping the Kurds siphon off oil from fields in the southeast, denying the petroleum wealth to Damascus. If this latter charge is true, it is a war crime.

On January 3, 2020, Trump blew away al-Muhandis and Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport. Soleimani had just come on a civilian airliner with a diplomatic passport to negotiate better relations with Saudi Arabia via the good offices of then Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi.

The Party of God Brigades went to war with the US troops in the country, subjecting the Iraqi bases that housed them to rocket and drone strikes. The Iraqi parliament demanded that Abdul Mahdi find a way to kick US troops out of Iraq (he never did).

Since October 7, the Party of God Brigades’ secretary-general, Ahmad al-Hamidawi, has branded the US an equal partner in the Israeli war on Gaza and it and other Shiite militias have launched dozens of attacks on US bases. None had resulted in a fatality until Sunday.

In a historical irony, one of the reasons some Neocons around George W Bush wanted to invade Iraq was to stop it from being a danger to Israel. Over two decades later, the PGB hit a school in Eilat with a drone, and the US, having destroyed the secular Baath Party, is at war with political Shiism in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Maybe the problem is US policy in the region, and maybe no number of wars and conquests are going to reshape the Middle East in ways really favorable to that policy?

From attacks by rebels in the Red Sea to raids in northern Israel and the Oct. 7, 2023, assault by Hamas, Western analysts have pointed a finger of blame toward Iran.

Regardless of how involved Tehran is directly in the planning and carrying out of such incidents, the accusations get at a broader truth: In Middle Eastern geopolitics, Iran’s strategy of aligning with violent nonstate actors – notably Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen – influences the regional balance of power.

As experts in Iran’s relationship with its network of proxies, we understand that Iran’s connection with each group is distinct yet interlinked, revealing Tehran’s regional objectives. From southern Lebanon to Gaza to Yemen, these alliances shape the political landscape and highlight the nature of influence and control in proxy warfare. It serves as a counterweight to Iran’s relatively limited conventional military capabilities, forming a key part of its foreign policy.

Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’

Managed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s paramilitary security service that answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, these regional groups form what Tehran has labeled the Axis of Resistance.

The relationship between the groups and Tehran is designed to serve as a balance against both U.S. influence in the region and that of Washington’s regional allies, including Israel and Saudi Arabia.

But to characterize the Axis of Resistance as straight proxies is slightly off. Rather, Iran’s approach – spanning Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and the Palestinian territories – is to extend its influence through strategic partnerships. While based on shared objectives and ideologies, these alliances allow varying degrees of autonomy. Iran provides resources and coordination, but each group maintains its own agenda and local support base, functioning more as partners than proxies. And the relationship between Iran and each member of this Axis of Resistance is unique.

Hezbollah: Iran’s pivotal partner

Established in the early 1980s, Hezbollah – a Shiite militant organization – emerged with direct assistance from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, primarily as a response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Aiming to establish an Iranian-influenced base on Israel’s border, Tehran provided training, financial support and weaponry, bolstering Hezbollah’s growth and capabilities.

Photo by أخٌ‌في‌الله on Unsplash

This collaboration has led to Hezbollah developing a sophisticated arsenal, including advanced drone technology, chemical weapons and expanded rocket capabilities.

As a result of its involvement in the Syrian civil war and ongoing hostilities with Israel, Hezbollah has professionalized its military. By deploying troops to support the Syrian government in line with Iran’s support for the regime, Hezbollah has transitioned from guerrilla tactics to more conventional warfare. Additionally, its ongoing conflict with Israel has sharpened its military strategy and capabilities. This helped elevate Hezbollah to a notable political and military role within Lebanon’s government, which has frequently aligned with Iran’s geopolitical interests.

This evolution has also enabled Hezbollah to become a mentor and supporter for other Iran-backed groups. Hezbollah has imparted its expertise in drone operations to organizations such as Fatemiyoun in Afghanistan, Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah and Houthi fighters.

The relationship between Tehran and Hezbollah has deepened over the years, evolving from mere assistance to a robust strategic alliance. The entities share goals, strategies and materials. The close relationship between Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s Khamenei further cements this alliance.

Despite Iran’s considerable influence, particularly in regional conflicts, Hezbollah retains autonomy in domestic Lebanese politics and its social services.

This Hezbollah-Iran alliance is arguably more significant than Iran’s relationship with other proxies and is instrumental in Tehran’s regional strategy. It not only extends Iran’s influence in the Middle East but also serves as a counterbalance to its adversaries, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Hamas: United against Israel

Emerging in the first intifada, or Palestinian uprising, of 1987, Hamas forged ties with Iran in the early 1990s. Despite the ideological differences – Hamas is predominantly Sunni Islamist, while Iran is a hard-line Shiite regime – they found common ground in their opposition to Israel and a shared vision for Palestinian liberation.

Iran’s backing of Hamas includes financial aid, military training and, crucially, the supply of rocket technology. This funding has escalated Hamas’ operational capabilities, enabling the development of a more sophisticated and far-reaching rocket arsenal.

Iran’s support has shifted the balance in Hamas’ conflict with Israel, demonstrating Iran’s influential role in regional power dynamics.

The alignment between Iran and Hamas, however, has fluctuated. In 2012, differences over the Syrian civil war introduced a rift in their relationship. Hamas’ tacit support for Sunni rebels in Syria was at odds with Iran’s allegiance to the Assad regime, leading to a temporary withdrawal of Iranian support.

However, this strain was not permanent. In subsequent years, the Iran-Hamas relationship was realigned and reinforced, evidenced by Iran’s resumption of substantial military aid. The sophisticated planning and execution of the Oct. 7 attack showed how Hamas has been able to improve its military capacity with a helping hand from Iran.

Nonetheless, the group maintains a degree of political and strategic independence, primarily focusing on Palestinian interests.

This dynamic reflects Iran’s broader regional strategy: to empower allied groups in extending its reach, while granting them autonomy to pursue specific agendas.

Houthis: Strategic ally against Saudi Arabia

Emerging in the 1990s in Yemen as a Zaidi Shia Islamist group, the Houthi movement initially focused on religious and cultural revivalism before progressively becoming engaged in Yemen’s political and military arenas.

Fueled by grievances against the central government and foreign interference in Yemen, the group shifted to an armed rebellion. This evolution was marked by growing confrontations with the Yemeni government and involvement in a wider regional conflict against a coalition led by Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia. This set the stage for their alliance with Tehran.

The Houthis’ alignment with Iran was spurred by shared religious beliefs as well as opposition to both Saudi Arabia and the U.S.

The collaboration with Iran gained momentum following the Houthis’ capture of Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014 – a move that is believed to have triggered an escalation in Iranian support.

Support from Tehran came in the shape of sophisticated weaponry, military training and financial aid, and it has substantially enhanced the Houthis’ missile and drone capabilities. The Houthis have utilized this growing capability to challenge Saudi Arabia and, more recently, Israel

Empowered by Iranian support, the Houthis have expanded their operations to include assaults on U.S. and other international vessels in the Red Sea.

Despite the depth of Iranian support, the Houthis retain a level of autonomy, specifically in local Yemeni politics. While Iran’s influence is notable, it does not translate into outright control. Instead, the Houthis are positioned more as strategic allies within Iran’s regional agenda rather than mere proxies.

Iran’s expanding influence

Iran’s proxy network, which extends to groups in Iraq, Syria and beyond, is a key part of Tehran’s strategy to expand its influence and confront that of Washington and its allies.

These partnerships, though seldom involving absolute control, also demonstrate Iran’s adeptness in navigating geopolitical landscapes. The Axis of Resistance allows Iran to adapt its strategy to shifting regional dynamics. For example, positioning Hamas under the Revolutionary Guard’s guidance fits a strategy to confront Israel as regional dynamics shift toward normalization between Israel and Arab states.

France 24 English Video: “Amid US strikes, Yemen rebels bask in praise, international limelight”

Such partnerships also pose a challenge to Iran’s adversaries. Deterring these proxy groups requires navigating a complex web of relationships, interests and ongoing conflicts. And this complexity, coupled with Iran’s pivotal role, has reshaped the Middle East’s geopolitical landscape, signaling a period of heightened tensions with broad international implications.

Sara Harmouch, PhD Candidate, American University and Nakissa Jahanbani, Assistant Professor at the Combating Terrorism Center, United States Military Academy West Point

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

(The Conversation) – Sadly, 2023 has been a violent one on the global stage. War broke out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, leading to the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and hundreds of Israelis, including many children on both sides. And the bitter war between Russia and Ukraine continued with no end in sight.

As a result of the focus on these two conflicts, other countries have dropped off the radar for many people. Some of these nations have been dealing with simmering unrest, however, which could erupt in 2024 and seize the global spotlight.

So, where should we be watching in the coming year? Here are five places where I believe civil conflicts or unrest could worsen and potentially lead to violence.

Myanmar

Myanmar descended into chaos in 2021 when a military coup overthrew the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and sparked widespread civil protests that eventually morphed into an armed resistance.

The country, home to 135 ethnic groups, has rarely known peace. For years before the coup, there was a ongoing, low-grade civil conflict between the military and several minority ethnic groups who have long sought control over natural resources in their regions and independence from the state.

This exploded after the coup as ethnic militia groups joined forces with pro-democracy fighters from the Bamar majority protesting the junta.

Their resistance escalated in late 2023 with a coordinated northern offensive dealing the military its most significant losses in many years.

Insurgents won control of towns and villages on the northeastern border with China, including control over key trade routes. This led to renewed fighting in western Rakhine state, as well as in other areas.

The tenacity of the resistance of these minority groups, paired with the refusal of the military to compromise, suggests the country’s civil war may worsen considerably in 2024 and regain international attention.

Mali

In Mali, a nation in the turbulent Sahel region of Africa, tensions escalated throughout 2023 and now threaten to erupt into full-scale civil war.

Mali has long battled insurgent activity. In 2012, Mali’s government fell in a coup and Tuareg rebels, backed by Islamist militants, seized power in the north.

A United Nations peacekeeping mission was established in 2013 to bring stability to Mali. Then, in 2015, key rebel groups signed a peace agreement with the Mali government.

After two more coups in 2020 and 2021, military officers consolidated their power and said they would restore the state’s full territorial control over all of Mali. The regime insisted the UN peacekeeping mission withdraw from the country, which it did in June 2023. Subsequently, violence broke out between the military and rebel forces over future use of the UN bases.

In November, the military, reportedly backed by Russia’s Wagner Group, took control of the strategic northern town of Kidal which had been held by Tuareg forces since 2012. This undermines the fragile peace that has held since 2015.

It is unlikely the military will regain complete control over all rebel-held areas in the north. At the same time, insurgents are emboldened. With the 2015 peace agreement now all but dead, we can expect increased volatility in 2024.

Lebanon

In 2019, widespread civil protest broke out in Lebanon against leaders who were perceived not to be addressing the day-to-day needs of the population.

The situation continued to deteriorate, with a reshuffled government, escalating economic crisis and a massive port explosion that exposed corrupt practices.

Aljazeera English: “0:04 / 2:21
Israel carries out air strike on Bint Jbeil as violence on Lebanon border grows ”

The International Monetary Fund criticised Lebanon in September for a lack of economic reform. The Lebanese government has also failed to reach agreement on appointing a president, a post that has been vacant for more than a year.

This risks undermining the fragile power-sharing arrangement in Lebanon in which the key political posts of prime minister, speaker and president are allocated to a Sunni-Muslim, Shia-Muslim and Christian Maronite, respectively.

Most recently, the war between Israel and Hamas has threatened to spill over to Lebanon, home to the Hezbollah militant group, which claims to have an army of 100,000 fighters. Importantly, this jeopardises tourism as a key hope for Lebanon’s economic recovery.

These factors may precipitate a more serious economic and political collapse in 2024.

Pakistan

Since Pakistan’s independence in 1947, the military has played an interventionist role in politics. Though Pakistani leaders are popularly elected, military officials have at times removed them from power.

In 2022, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan fell out of favour with Pakistan’s militant leaders. He was subsequently ousted from power in a parliament vote and later arrested on charges that his supporters claim are politically motivated.

Violent demonstrations broke out nationwide after his arrest – a display of anger against the military that was once unthinkable.

Pakistan also faces spillover from instability in neighbouring Afghanistan and increased terror attacks. These security challenges have been compounded by a struggling economy and ongoing costs from the devastating 2022 floods.

Pakistan is expected to hold parliamentary elections in February 2024, after which the current military caretaker government is expected to transfer power back to civilian rule. Many are watching the military closely. If this transfer of power does not take place, or there are delays, civil unrest may result.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka faced a debilitating economic crisis in 2022 that led to critical fuel, food and medical shortages. Civil protests caused then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country. He was quickly replaced by current President Ranil Wickremesingh.

Stability returned in 2023 as Sri Lanka began implementing economic reforms as part of a bailout agreement with the International Monetary Fund. However, widespread dissatisfaction with political elites and the underlying drivers of the country’s economic hardship have not been addressed.

Elections are also due in Sri Lanka by late 2024. While Wickremesingh, the incumbent, is likely to run for a second term, he has low trust with the public. He is viewed as too close to corrupt political elites.

This dissatisfaction could lead to renewed protests – particularly if the economy stumbles again – in a repeat of the situation that led to Rajapaksa’s ousting in 2022.

Jessica Genauer, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Flinders University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.