After coming under scrutiny for de facto facilitating weapons shipments from Iran to the Bashar al-Assad regime, Iraqi officials have declared their readiness to carry out random searches of airplanes: While Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s spokesman spoke of newly tightened restrictions on Iranian flights to Syria, the head of Iraq’s...

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Lebanon’s delicately built sectarian electoral system — which seeks to balance representation across the country’s 17 officially recognized religious sects, and which is so fragile that Lebanon has not held a census since 1932 — is in danger of an out-and-out collapse. The country’s prime minister dissolved the country’s government on Friday. Much...

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Hezbollah is lashing out against President Obama after the president told a crowd of Israeli students last week that the European Union should blacklist the Iran-backed group. Hezbollah conducts critical fundraising and logistical work inside the E.U., and even the group’s head, Hassan Nasrallah, has said that an E.U. designation “would...

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Hezbollah officials in Lebanon are lashing out at U.S. diplomats after U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly urged Lebanese authorities to move forward with scheduled elections on the basis of existing electoral laws: Hezbollah’s Baalbek-Hermel MP Nawar Saheli denounced Sunday what he called “flagrant interference” by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura...

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A network of spy stations is transmitting information from Lebanon to Iran, according to a report in the Saudi daily Al-Watan [Arabic]. In the report, journalist Fatima Houhou writes that information passed on to Tehran includes video, phone, and electronic data. Houhou goes on to suggest that the information is...

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Echoing calls by U.S. officials and Bulgarian diplomats, Israeli President Shimon Peres has called upon the European Union to formally designate Hezbollah as a terror organization. In an historic speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Peres emphasized that the Iran-backed group has engaged in a global terror campaign that...

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Journalist Michael Totten, evaluating the situation from on the ground in Lebanon, reports that the country is “gearing up to explode” due to sectarian tensions ignited by the Syrian conflict across the border. The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah has long been operating in Syria on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad...

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A long-feared full-blown sectarian war in Syria and Lebanon is inching closer to becoming a reality, with Syrian opposition forces threatening to make a border area “a graveyard” for Hezbollah. The Shiite group and the largely Sunni Free Syrian Army (FSA) exchanged rhetorical and actual blows this week, in the...

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Speculation continues to swirly in Israel over reports that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been taken to Iran for medical treatment, possibly for cancer. Reports of Nasrallah’s ill health – which appeared on the front pages of Israel’s leading dailies Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv earlier today – were first aired Tuesday...

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Fighting between the Free Syrian Army and the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah appears to have escalated. The organization, which has gone all-in on propping up Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, now finds itself entangled on behalf of Iran in the regional proxy war raging inside Syria. A YouTube channel known to...

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