Lebanon

News of Terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (December 16 – 22, 2015)

This past week the current Palestinian terrorist campaign continued, primarily with stabbing and vehicular attacks in Judea, Samaria and Israel. n Another rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip targeting the western Negev. Kuntar, a notorious terrorist, was killed in an aerial attack near Damascus.
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Combined ISIS Suicide Bombing Attacks in the Shi’ite Suburb of South Beirut

In the late afternoon on November 12, 2015, ISIS carried out combined suicide bombing attacks in Burj al-Barajneh, the southern Shi’ite Hezbollah-controlled suburb of Beirut. Forty-three people were killed, most of them passersby, and 240 were injured (according to Al-Jazeera, quoting the Lebanese ministry of health). The blasts also destroyed a considerable amount of property
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Spotlight on Iran (July 12-26, 2015)

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, stressed that Iran would continue to support the Palestinians, Yemenis, Syrians, Iraqis, Bahrainis and Lebanese even after the nuclear deal had been signed. Two high-ranking Iranian officers were killed in Syria; a Basij operative was killed in Iraq. The commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – Qods Force (IRGC-QF)
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Spotlight on Global Jihad (July 2-8, 2015)

The main event of the week was a combined attack carried out on July 1, 2015, by operatives of ISIS’s Sinai province against the Egyptian security forces. This attack has proved that ISIS’s operatives in the Sinai Peninsula possess considerable operational capabilities. Two days after the attack (July 3, 2015), operatives of ISIS’s Sinai province
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Spotlight on Global Jihad (June 25 – July 1, 2015)

The main events of the week were three terrorist attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks in Tunisia and Kuwait, These three attacks were intended to achieve different objectives: the terror attack in Tunisia was intended to harm Western tourism and destabilize the regime, the terror attack in Kuwait was
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Spotlight on Iran (June 13 – 28, 2015)

Iran rejected the American State Department’s annual report on terrorism. Hossein Hamedani, a senior IRGC official, described Syria as “Iran’s strategic depth,” and claimed the objective of Syria’s enemies was to ensure Israel’s security through decreasing Iran’s regional influence and weakening Hezbollah. Three Iranian fighters were killed when a mine exploded on the Damascus-Daraa road
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Lebanon

Lebanon is a small country with a population of only about 4.1 million. Situated on the Mediterranean Sea, Lebanon borders on Israel in the south and Syria in the east and north. It gained its independence from France on November 22, 1943. Due to Lebanon’s varied ethnic composition, its history is rife with schisms, conflicts and civil wars based on sectarian allegiances. Since its independence, Lebanon has had a unique political system of ethnic distribution with a parliamentary democracy based on ethnic-sectarian-religious representation. The most important offices are divided among the various religious groups, in accordance with the national charter of 1943.


Lebanon’s social complexity, the weakness of its central government, and the social and economic gaps between the various ethnic groups led to the rise of many armed sectarian-political militias, some of which turned to terrorism. The most prominent Shiite terrorist organization in Lebanon is Hezbollah, which was founded in the summer of 1982 during the First Lebanon War. It is not only a terrorist organization which owes its allegiance to the Iranian regime, it has also been incorporated into the Lebanese political system.


Lebanon has traditionally served as an arena for foreign forces, both Middle Eastern and international. In the past, Syria’s intervention in Lebanon was most conspicuous. Today, Iran’s intervention is most conspicuous: it provides Hezbollah in Lebanon with weapons, ammunition, financing and military training. The border between Israel and Lebanon has undergone some tense periods and several confrontations where IDF forces entered the Lebanese territory. Since the Second Lebanon War (2006), the border between Israel and Lebanon has been relatively quiet, a situation exploited by Hezbollah to advance its military buildup and intensely intervene in the civil war in Syria, under Iranian direction.