Hezbollah

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she welcomed a new power-sharing arrangement in Lebanon even though it increased the power of Hezbollah militants at the expense of U.S.-backed moderates. "Obviously in any compromise there are compromises," Rice said during a surprise visit to Beirut to meet Lebanon's new president, former army chief Michel Suleiman. Lebanese politics operates on ambiguity and consensus, and to get Suleiman elected, that meant giving veto power to Hezbollah, a militia and political force that the United States lists as a terrorist group.

It's not the first time Israel has hinted it might strike Iran's nuclear facilities. Whisper campaigns about a possible surprise attack have leaked out before and sometimes appear timed to help U.S. efforts to rally international support for sanctions against Tehran. But the current round of speculation about an airstrike - fueled by recent statements by anonymous Israeli officials and some high-profile missile and military flight tests last week - sparked an unusually public debate here about whether Israel should take such a step at this time.

, -- At least six people were killed Friday in heavy clashes between sectarian factions in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli, medical sources said. An additional 50 people were wounded as gunmen from the Sunni Bab Tibbaneh district and the Alawite Jabal Mohsen area of Tripoli fought. Residents fled as the fighters exchanged machine-gun and grenade fire. At least 19 people in the mostly Sunni city have died in the last two months in sectarian violence linked to Lebanon's political troubles.

International jurists Wednesday released details of how an analysis of cellphone calls led investigators to conclude the Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah was behind the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri six years ago. The unsealing of the 47-page indictment, which suggests a complicated three-month plot by at least 11 conspirators to trail Hariri for months, establish his travel patterns and then dispatch a suicide bomber...

A majority of Muslims around the world welcome a significant role for Islam in their countries' political life, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center, but have mixed feelings toward militant religious groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. According to the survey, majorities in Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Nigeria would favor changing current laws to allow stoning as a punishment for adultery, hand amputation for theft and death for those who convert from Islam to another religion.

It happened in Baku, transforming the capital of Azerbaijan into a battleground in a global shadow war. Police intercepted a fleeing car and captured two suspected Hezbollah militants from Lebanon. The car contained explosives, binoculars, cameras, pistols with silencers and reconnaissance photos. Raiding alleged safe houses, police foiled what authorities say was a plot to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic that borders Iran.

In the March 16 story, "Bush Sees Hezbollah in Politics," the president was asked if he would support a political role for Hezbollah, a group tied to the 1983 bombing at a Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans. He told reporters: "We view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and I would hope that Hezbollah would prove that they're not by laying down arms and not threatening peace." Whose side is he on? Gordon G. Breecher Newport Beach

President Bush said we not only would go after terrorists but also those nations that harbor them. He also said that we would freeze the financial assets of not only the terrorists but also the assets of those nations that fund them. But Hezbollah, the terrorist organization that killed more than 250 Marines in Lebanon, is not on the list. Why not? Because the very same countries that fund the Hezbollah are part of the coalition of countries requested by us to help in the fight against terrorism.

Re "A realist's fantasy in four parts," Opinion, July 28 Rosa Brooks suffers from the same delusion that many liberals are under these days. She thinks that we should talk to Hezbollah and other Islamic jihadist groups and listen to their grievances. Her solution: Eliminate the grievances and you eliminate the conflict. Unfortunately, the grievances they have will not be solved by investing our money or our political capital in spreading peace and prosperity. What she and others who think like her don't admit is that the Islamic jihadists' grievances are that we exist and we are not Muslim.

A senior U.S. official Thursday expressed strong disagreement with the British decision to begin contacts with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, revealing a rare split between the two closely allied nations. The official said the Obama administration doesn't believe, as the British do, that there are separate military, political and social wings of the Shiite Muslim militia group, and that it is acceptable to deal with the political wing.

The United Nations-backed international tribunal set up to bring to justice those responsible for the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Friday published the identities, photographs and background information of four suspects named in the June indictment. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon posted photographs and detailed information on its website about the personal history of the four suspects — identified as Salim Jamil Ayyash, Mustafa Amine Badreddine, Hussein Hassan Oneissi and Assad Hassan Sabra — all of them close associates of Hezbollah, Lebanon's politically powerful Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militant group.

A United Nations-backed tribunal issued a long-anticipated indictment Thursday in the 2005 truck-bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a killing that stoked sectarian tensions in the region. The identities of the four suspects were not released, and the indictment remained sealed. But local news reports suggested all four were Lebanese nationals linked to Hezbollah, a major militia and political party backed by Iran and Syria. Syria and Hezbollah have denied any involvement in the highly polarized case.

After a five-month deadlock that sowed uncertainty in politically fragile Lebanon, the country's prime minister on Monday further inflamed passions by announcing a new government heavily dominated by the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah and its allies. Analysts described the new Cabinet as a relic from the past, when Syria thoroughly dominated politics in Lebanon, and said it bode ill for Lebanese democracy at a time of uprisings across the Arab world. "It shows how Lebanon is basically moving in the opposite direction of the 'Arab Spring,' " said Oussama Safa, director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, a Beirut think tank.

Something unusual is happening along Israel's border with Lebanon: nothing. The 49-mile stretch, one of the Mideast's most volatile areas, has been uncommonly quiet since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Even as both sides continue to build up arms and make war plans, it's been one of the longest lulls in fighting since Israel's founding. Not even a brief gunfire exchange last summer or the recent restructuring of Lebanon's government by Hezbollah have substantially raised border tension, as might have occurred a decade ago. What's behind the relative calm?

As Israel faces what many fear could turn into its most serious national security threat in decades, fault lines are widening over how it should respond and some critics say the government appears ill prepared. With the resignation Friday of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was widely seen as Israel's most predictable Arab ally, a quiet panic is spreading here as Israelis debate their next move. "This whole situation is making Israel's hawks more hawkish and the doves more dovish," said Yossi Alpher, a former government peace talks advisor and co-editor of Bitterlemons.

Despite the media's recent focus on Egypt, events in Lebanon may well tell us more about the troubled prospects for Middle Eastern democracy. The fall of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri's government, replaced by a Hezbollah-dominated coalition, dramatically imperils Beirut's democratic Cedar Revolution. Financed and dominated by Iran, terrorist Hezbollah has consistently refused to disarm and become a legitimate political party. Instead, it enjoys the best of both worlds, contesting elections while retaining the military ability to enforce its will against uncongenial results.

A broadcast report apparently based on extensive leaks from within the United Nations-backed tribunal probing the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, connects the Shiite militia Hezbollah and one of the former premier's top deputies to the killing. The investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., which was widely cited in news reports Monday throughout Lebanon, complicates efforts to resolve a standoff that threatens the nation's security. But the lengthy report also tarnishes the work of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, suggesting it repeatedly dismissed the findings of its own investigators and suppressed suspicions out of political considerations, potentially emboldening Hezbollah in its effort to force the government to disavow the tribunal's work.

The ascent of a Hezbollah-backed billionaire to the prime minister's post in deeply divided Lebanon on Tuesday sparked rioting and protests by Sunni Muslims and pushed the country into uncertainty. Lebanon's new prime minister-designate, Najib Mikati, pledged to pursue an independent, centrist path and insisted that he was not beholden to Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim militia and political organization. But his words did little to mollify supporters of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the powerful leader of the country's Sunni community.