FOr in the last four years, the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah has fought a war in Syria, supported the Iraqi military and staged its hometown politics while trying to avoid confrontation with Israel. Yet its weary leaders fear that Donald Trump’s last breaths of the president could threaten to embrace everything else.
At the heart of the organization, Hezbollah members are watching the clock – and the sky. Israeli jets have been pilots for more than a month, and the frequency of flights has risen sharply in the past few weeks, as the nerve center of the region’s most powerful terrorist group is security in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Leaders and senior members fear that Trump intends to use the weeks before Biden’s inauguration to take decisive action against Iran and Hezbollah before he adopts the softer stance widely expected by his outgoing Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo and Israel’s new president.
A middle-ranking Hezbollah group said, “They have found their window and want to complete what they started.” “But don’t worry, Syed [the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah] Is safe. ”
Interviews with two middle-ranking Hezbollah members and the group’s most senior leaders acquainted with the ideology revealed a picture of the organization not clashing with Israel or clearly acting in Iran’s defense. All three sources said they believe the upcoming U.S. The administration will try to negotiate a nuclear deal with Tehran, which was signed by Barack Obama and canceled by Trump and can now be renewed in another incarnation.
“It means relief from sanctions, and it means that eventually the pressure will stop from us,” said a Hezbollah member. “They are trying to harm Iran. It won’t work because everyone has been looking at this plan since the summer. And we all have the means to escape their pressure. “
Israeli attacks on Iranian targets inside Syria became a weekly occurrence in early 2017, and Hezbollah members who played a key role in ousting Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad were often killed in airstrikes, although senior members have not been targeted recently. The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Israel’s chief nuclear scientist, outside Tehran on November 27, almost certainly, has raised concerns in Beirut that differences between Iran and Hezbollah could change in the coming months.
One senior described the coming week as “the worst in 30 years.” Everyone is worried, and for good reason. “
So far Israel has indicated that its arch enemy ranks are not its main target in Syria and at the time they fired warning shots at targets that know how to include Hezbollah members to avoid assassination. One such attack involved a missile landing near a jeep at a Lebanese border crossing from Syria in April. When four Hezbollah members left the vehicle and fled, another missile destroyed it.
Israeli leaders have strongly supported the “maximum US pressure” policy of Iran and Trump to rescind the nuclear deal, and have seen it as a key opportunity to reduce Hezbollah, which has been fueled by chaos in Iraq and Syria. .
The alliance of Israeli interests with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf World View about Iran has been cited by Trump officials as the main reason for the normalization deals with the UAE and Bahrain and the warm relations with Riyadh.
Israeli leaders believe their counterparts in the Gulf are as hostile to Hezbollah and Iran, and are unwilling to free Lebanon from its devastating economic collapse as long as the group maintains a grip on the country’s politics.
“It doesn’t matter what the Saudis say,” said another Hezbollah member. “The party can monitor on its own. They must understand that if the country falls, who will emerge the strongest? Not the parties that will support it.
“But will they try to do something big in Beirut next week? It is possible and it is true that there are security warnings in Dahih and South. All this is to protect our leaders. We have nothing special. But there is something in the atmosphere. ”
The Hezbollah security zone in the middle of its hold is surrounded by steel barriers that were lifted last week, allowing cars to pass. Security members stood on the sidewalks watching the flow of traffic under the surveillance of cameras that maintain Dahihan’s interconnected view.
Banners of Iranian General Qasem Suleimani, who was assassinated in January in Baghdad in an American drone attack, have been placed near the quadrangles and hung from shops across Dahih, and photographs of Nasrallah are also prominent. Posters that have killed fewer people in clashes with Israel are also common in Syria and Iraq.
“We are not afraid of death, as you know,” said another Hezbollah member. “But we must protect our leaders and we know that if anything happens to them, we will be harmed politically. This is a dangerous time. Trump is crazy, but he’s not getting what he wants. He has no patience and no time. The Israelis feel they are coming for us. We are coming for them. ”
