The double suicide bombing that rocked Beirut’s Shiite neighborhood, al-Dahiyah, on Wednesday — killing at least six and injuring dozens near an Iranian cultural institute — illustrated Hezbollah’s near-helplessness in the face of radical Sunni terrorism.
Time and again, Sunni terrorists have succeeded in striking at Hezbollah and carrying out serious attacks in the Shiite group’s most sensitive site, despite unprecedented security arrangements taken by Hezbollah to prevent attacks of this sort. Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army deployed dozens of checkpoints across the southern Beirut Shiite stronghold in recent weeks, checking suspicious cars and people. And yet, Wednesday’s attack claimed by the Abdullah Azzam Brigades — the Lebanese branch of al-Qaeda — succeeded in overcoming these obstacles.
This attack was reminiscent of the attack near the Iranian embassy in Beirut last month: two suicide bombers exploded almost simultaneously in the Shiite neighborhood of Bir Hassan. Then, as now, the primary target was a building affiliated with the Islamic Republic.
The Abdullah Azzam Brigades’ method — suicide bombing — is not especially original. Hezbollah was among the first militant groups to introduce the tactic to the Middle East, and now it finds itself the target of an ongoing wave of suicide attacks. The appointment of a new Lebanese prime minister, Tammam Salam, and the establishment of a national unity government, won’t dent the motivation of Sunni groups to continue their attacks. The Abdullah Azzam Brigades already announced that the attacks on Hezbollah will only stop when the Shiite group withdraws its forces from Syria.
In the meanwhile, Hezbollah tries not to appear as if it is flinching in the face of threats. Just this week, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed that his organization would continue to fight on Syrian soil, apparently at the Iranians’ request. Its Shiite fighters have suffered major blows in the battles there. On Tuesday, Lebanese media reported that 27 Hezbollah fighters were killed in an ambush near the Lebanon-Syria border. A few hours after Wednesday’s suicide bombings, rockets exploded in a Shiite village in the Bekaa Valley.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories
By signing up, you agree to the
terms
Hezbollah fighters in military uniform carry the coffin of one of their own, Hassan Faisal Shuker, 18, who was killed in a battle against Syrian rebels in the town of Qusair, Syria, in May 2013 (photo credit: AP)
To date, Hezbollah has lost some 300 fighters in Syria and another 1,000 have been wounded. For the sake of comparison, Hezbollah lost 700 combatants during the Second Lebanon War with Israel in the summer of 2006. What’s more frustrating for the Lebanese militant group, however, may be its lack of alternatives. So long as the Iranians keep up pressure to persist in fighting in Syria, Hezbollah will have no choice but to do so. It will be forced to continue to take blows, whether it be suicide bombings or rocket attacks falling on population centers.
Hezbollah has no real enemy in Lebanon it can fight or defeat, in part because the al-Qaeda operatives embed themselves among the civilian population — just like Hezbollah.
It's not (only) about you.
Supporting The Times of Israel isn’t a transaction for an online service, like subscribing to Netflix. The ToI Community is for people like you who care about a common good: ensuring that balanced, responsible coverage of Israel continues to be available to millions across the world, for free.
Sure, we'll remove all ads from your page and you'll unlock access to some excellent Community-only content. But your support gives you something more profound than that: the pride of joining something that really matters.
Join the Times of Israel Community
Join our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You're a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel ten years ago - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
comments