A defendant on trial in Cyprus for plotting terror attacks against Israeli tourists has admitted to being a member of Hezbollah, a confession that promises to deepen pressure on the European Union to heed U.S. calls and formally designate the Iran-backed group a terrorist organization. The admission by Hossam Taleb...

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Indications are growing that Hezbollah has made a series of tactical blunders, in Lebanon and beyond in Syria, which have the group scrambling to recover. In Syria the Iran-backed group finds itself engaged in a deepening sectarian war with Al Qaeda-linked Sunni rebels who see Hezbollah as complete infidels, full stop. Just...

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Foreign policy analysis suggesting that Hezbollah has morphed from being an Iranian proxy into being a Lebanese national movement has not held up well in recent months. There are the overarching dynamics that situate the group within intra-Iranian politics and put them on one side of the regional Sunni-Shiite divide....

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State-controlled Syrian media is reporting that shells fired by opposition forces have struck a stadium in Damascus, killing an athlete. The reports come alongside those from the opposition, which indicate that over 50 people were killed in Damascus suburbs yesterday. The increasingly Islamist rebel forces have been making slow but...

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Hezbollah’s role in propping up the Assad regime in Syria is deepening and – as the regime’s control of critical airports continues to precipitously slip –  more overt: The clash between Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah and Sunni Muslim rebels, in a religiously-mixed area southwest of the city of Homs, shows a growing role...

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United Nations human rights officials are urging the U.N. Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court, citing documented atrocities committed by forces loyal to the Bashar al-Assad regime during the country’s two-year-long conflict. Most plausible scenarios for prosecution of Syrian officials would require a referral by the United...

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Both incoming Secretary of State John Kerry and CIA chief nominee John Brennan have in recent months called on the European Union to formally designate the Iran-backed group Hezbollah as a terror organization. Daniel Benjamin, who until recently was the U.S. State Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism, has said that the...

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A Hamas delegation to Bulgaria has been expelled for posing a “serious threat for national security,” according to Bulgarian security officials. The delegation had been in the country for less than two days, having been invited by Bulgaria’s Center for Global and Middle East Studies. The center’s head, Mohammed Abu Assi,...

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A top Iranian military official was reportedly killed by Syrian opposition forces Tuesday while traveling between Syria and Lebanon. Gen. Hassan Shateri, identified by Iranian opposition groups as a member of the Quds Force, the foreign arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, is thought to have been the chief IRGC leader in...

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Israeli journalist Ron Ben-Yishai, the doyen of Israeli war correspondents, sat down with a top Hezbollah expert to unpack the likely tactics that the Iran-backed terror group will use in its next war with Israel. Extrapolating from three assumptions – (1) that Israelis are largely resiliant to rocket and missile...

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