Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda

Hezbollah:-
Hezbollah is a political and militant Shi'ite Muslim group based in Lebanon. Hezbollah, whose
name means “Party of God” in Arabic, was founded in 1982 following Israel’s invasion of
Lebanon in the First Lebanon War. The group, which is currently led by Sheikh Hassan
Nasrallah, has close political and military ties with Syria and Iran, and is designated by the
United States and other Western nations as a terrorist group. The political arm of Hezbollah is
deeply involved in Lebanese politics, with seats in the government, and the group has a history
of providing social programs, schools and health care to the Lebanese Shi'ite community.
Hezbollah opposes the West and Israel, and seeks to create in Lebanon an Islamic state modeled
on Iran. It primarily operates in the Shi'ite dominated areas of southern Beirut, southern
Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley. The group’s founding was inspired by the 1979 Islamic
Revolution in Iran and it received military assistance from Iran during the 1982 Israeli invasion
of Lebanon. Soon after its establishment, Hezbollah replaced the Amal movement, the dominant
Shi'ite military group at the time. Throughout the 1980s, Hezbollah carried out attacks against
the Israeli army in Lebanon as well as targeting Western interests abroad. Along with Iran, it is
the prime suspect in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, in which 85
people were killed. Israel’s success in expelling militant Palestinian groups from southern
Lebanon allowed Hezbollah to gain a stronger foothold in Lebanese politics. Hezbollah
operatives were trained by Iranian forces and the group became highly organized politically and
militarily. 
After two decades of an Israeli presence in Lebanon, the IDF withdrew from the country in 2000
and Hezbollah assumed greater power in the war-torn south.  Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon
did not end Hezbollah’s war against the Jewish State. Although the group initially stated that its
primary goal was to “liberate” Lebanese soil, it also assumed the banner of fighting for the
Palestinians and to defeat Israel once and for all. With close cooperation from Syria and Iran,
Hezbollah continues to confront Israel over disputed territories. In the summer of 2006,
Hezbollah abducted two Israel Defense Forces soldiers in a cross-border raid that sparked the
month-long Second Lebanon War. Supplied with advanced rocket power from Iran and Syria,
Hezbollah viewed itself as the victor and it subsequently gained a greater political leverage in
Lebanese politics. However, Nasrallah also admitted that he would not have ordered the raid had
he known Israel would respond so fiercely. More than 1,200 people were killed in the
confrontation and parts of the country lay in ruins from IDF bombing. In the aftermath of the war
with Israel, Hezbollah quickly moved towards demanding greater inclusion in Lebanon’s
political decision making and in May 2008, the group successful received veto power over any
cabinet decisions. Today, Hezbollah remains a strong opposition force with representatives in
Lebanon’s parliament and it still enjoys large support from the country’s Shi'ite population, as
well as backing from Syria and Iran.

Al-Qaeda:-
Al-Qaeda broad-based militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in the late
1980s. Al-Qaeda began as a logistical network to support. Muslims fighting against the Soviet
Unionduring the Afghan War; members were recruited throughout the Islamic world. When the
Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the organization dispersed but continued to oppose
what its leaders considered corrupt Islamic regimes and foreign (i.e., U.S.) presence in Islamic
lands. Based in Sudan for a period in the early 1990s, the group eventually reestablished its
headquarters in Afghanistan (c. 1996) under the patronage of the Taliban militia. Al-Qaeda
merged with a number of other militant Islamist organizations, including Egypt’s Islamic Jihad
and the Islamic Group, and on several occasions its leaders declared holy waragainst the United
States. The organization established camps for Muslim militants from throughout the world,
training tens of thousands in paramilitary skills, and its agents engaged in numerous terrorist
attacks, including the destruction of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania (1998), and a suicide bomb attack against the U.S.
warship Cole in Aden, Yemen (2000; see USS Cole attack). In 2001, 19 militants associated with
al-Qaeda staged the September 11 attacks against the United States. Within weeks the U.S.
government responded by attacking Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. Thousands of
militants were killed or captured, among them several key members (including the militant who
allegedly planned and organized the September 11 attacks), and the remainder and their leaders
were driven into hiding. The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 challenged that country’s viability
as an al-Qaeda sanctuary and training ground and compromised communication, operational, and
financial linkages between al-Qaeda leadership and its militants. Rather than significantly
weakening al-Qaeda, however, these realities prompted a structural evolution and the growth of
“franchising.” Increasingly, attacks were orchestrated not only from above by the centralized
leadership (after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, based in the Afghan-Pakistani border regions)
but also by the localized, relatively autonomous cells it encouraged. Such grassroots independent
groups—coalesced locally around a common agenda but subscribing to the al-Qaeda name and
its broader ideology—thus meant a diffuse form of militancy, and one far more difficult to
confront. With this organizational shift, al-Qaeda was linked—whether directly or indirectly—to
more attacks in the six years following September 11 than it had been in the six years prior,
including attacks in Jordan, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, the United Kingdom,
Israel, Algeria, and elsewhere. At the same time, al-Qaeda increasingly utilized the Internet as an
expansive venue for communication and recruitment and as a mouthpiece for video messages,
broadcasts, and propaganda. Meanwhile, some observers expressed concern that U.S. strategy—
centred primarily on attempts to overwhelm al-Qaeda militarily—was ineffectual, and at the end
of the first decade of the 21st century, al-Qaeda was thought to have reached its greatest strength
since the attacks of September 2001. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was killed by U.S. military
forces after U.S. intelligence located him residing in a secure compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan,
31 miles (50 km) from Islamabad. The operation was carried out by a small team that reached the
compound in Abbottabad by helicopter. After bin Laden’s death was confirmed, it was
announced by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, who hailed the operation as a major success in the fight
against al-Qaeda. On June 16, 2011, al-Qaeda released a statement announcing that Ayman al-
Zawahiri, bin Laden’s long-serving deputy, had been appointed to replace bin Laden as the
organization’s leader.