Thread by @Levitt_Matt

Thread.... My latest, "Breaking Hezbollah’s ‘Golden Rule’: An Inside Look at the Modus Operandi of #Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad Organization," is now out @Perspectives_T @WashInstitute. Some highlights follow washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysi…

1. From 2012 to 2019, authorities in the US and Cyprus arrested 5 #Hezbollah IJO operatives. Law enforcement officials learned much about Hezbollah’s covert operations from these cases, including details being made public for the first time in this article.

2. Taken together, these cases-along with those involving operatives in Thailand & Peru-illustrate Hezbollah’s external operations modus operandi, senior handlers, communications techniques, travel patterns, terrorist training, & even limited info about operatives' pay scale

3. Publicly disclosing such information breaks the “golden rule” of Hezbollah’s Unit 910, as expressed to convicted Hezbollah operative Ali Kourani by his Hezbollah handler, Fadi Kassab: “The less you know about the unit, the better.”

4. Kassab served as handler for the operatives in both the US & Cyprus. US federal prosecutors @SDNYnews argued his true name is Majed Abdullah. Kourani believed “Fadi” was a European-Lebanese dual-national, possibly a British
citizen.

5. Kourani described Kassab to @FBI as the person “responsible for IJO operatives in both the United
States and Canada.” Kourani told FBI agents that even as Kassab ran Hezbollah agents in NYC, he played hands-on roles in the 2012 Hezbollah attack in Burgas, Bulgaria

6. See the article 4 details re Cyprus operatives Hussam Yaacoub & Hussein Bassam Abdullah. Yaacoub carried out surveillance of Israeli tourists, while Abdullah babysat boxes containing 65,573 ice packs, yielding 8.2 tons of ammonium nitrate in a Hezbollah safe house

7. In Yaacoub's words: “It was just collecting information about the Jews, and that is what my organization is doing everywhere in the world.”

8. Even as EU debated designating #Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, the group’s Cyprus operation continued unabated. According to Cypriot police, once Hossam Yaacoub was arrested Hezbollah found a new safe house 4 its ammonium nitrate ice packs

9. Acc to Cypriot authorities, in 2010 #Hezbollah
used a French-Lebanese professor, Jalal Jomaah, who was teaching in Lyon, France, at the time, as a cutout to
purchase a single-family home in Larnaca in 2010 for 350,000 Euros 4 the ice packs. Jomaah now believed 2b in Lebanon

10. Arrests of Ali Kourani & Samer el-Debek, & later Alexei Saab, revealed much about #Hezbollah operational MO. Kourani was tried & convicted, Debek appears to have plead, & Saab has yet 2b tried.

11. In Kourani's words: “I am a member of 910, also known as Islamic Jihad or the Black Ops of #Hezbollah”

12. Looking across these & other cases, several themes emerge regarding #Hezbollah operational modus operandi 4 international operations....

13. First, use of operatives with dual nationality, or non Lebanese nationals. Operatives who can travel on their legitimate, non-Lebanese passports provide excellent cover, & usually means they have experience living and/or traveling abroad, & likely speak foreign languages

14. #Hezbollah MP & Shura Council member Muhammad Hasan Ra’d & security chief Wafiq Safa maintained a list of 100 Hezbollah members who were to acquire foreign citizenship "in order to carry out long-term missions in Arab and Western countries" home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel…

15. Hezbollah also has a long history of producing counterfeit documents and procuring legitimate passports to be doctored into fraudulent documents for Hezbollah operatives. The FBI noted this trend in a November 1994
report washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinter…

16. In 2001, @CIA issued a report warning that various terrorist groups, including #Hezbollah, “are tapping into global alien smuggling networks to abet their movements around the world, including to the United States" documentcloud.org/documents/3691…

17. Consider these 13 cases of #Hezbollah operatives use of dual-nationality and/or fake documents for operational purposes

18. Second, cover stories. For some #Hezbollah IJO operatives, posing as a tourist has proven to be the cover story of choice, while others developed carefully crafted legends—mixing fact & fiction, grounding their cover stories at least in part on their true, confirmable IDs

19. Muhammad Hamdar carried out surveillance operations in Lima, Peru. Peruvian authorities found photographs of popular tourist spots when they searched Hamdar’s apartment, along with surveillance photographs

20. Alexei Saab carried out surveillance operations in NYC. His training specifically included lessons in “tradecraft in conducting surveillance and in taking videos and photographs for the IJO without drawing the attention of law enforcement authorities.”

21. For details on Ali Kourani's activities, see washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinter…

22. For details on Samer el-Debek's activities, see washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinter…

23. for details on Alexei Saab's alleged activities see washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinter…

24. Third: Handlers. #Hezbollah IJO operatives are typically assigned 1 or more operational handlers who oversee their training, give them their operational taskings, maintain communication while they travel, sometimes travel to meet them outside of Lebanon, & later debrief them

25. El-Debek, for example, met his handler in Malaysia on his way to Thailand to carry out a mission for Hezbollah. washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinter…

26. In recent years, the names of two key Hezbollah IJO handlers have come to light: Salman Raouf
Salman (aka Salman el-Reda) and Majed Abdullah (aka Fadi Kassab). For more on el-Reda see washingtoninstitute.org/hezbollahinter…

27. Fourth: Training. When interviewed, #Hezbollah operatives spoke of a mix of weapons, surveillance, interrogation, explosive, & ideological training, conducted in both group & 1-on-1 settings.

28. The extensiveness & frequency of training also differed, according to these Hezbollah operatives’ statements,
and included: a 45-day “Hezbollah 101” boot camp (Kourani), 2-day-2-night military training (Kourani), 6-day religious training (el-Debek), & more.

29. Fifth: OpSec. Although there appears to be no consistency in the timeline, order, or length of Hezbollah external operations training, the value placed on secrecy and anonymity is a constant.

30. Kourani, Saab, & Yaacoub were all picked up for their military trainings in vehicles with blacked-out windows and/or driven blindfolded to undisclosed
locations.

31. Sixth: Comms. While outside Lebanon, Kourani corresponded with his handler via email. He used 2 email addresses (Gmail & Hotmail), including 1 address in the name of a childhood friend. He ceased using email in 2011/2012 after being told communications had been compromised

32. Communication instructions given to other operatives mirror Kourani’s. #Hezbollah gave el-Debek an email to contact when he was abroad and coded language to use in his communications.

Pay: Pay scales varied among #Hezbollah operatives as well, at least from the few cases in which limited payment data
was available. Some were offered expenses, some were paid regular salaries of $600-$1,000 a month

33. After a close analysis of Hezbollah modus operandi, the strategic takeaway is nuanced: Hezbollah is a highly-skilled, operationally capable & dangerous adversary. But it is not 10 feet tall. Read all about it here: washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysi…

For more information on these and many other #Hezbollah operatives and plots, see my interactive map and timeline of Hezbollah worldwide activity washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysi… @WashInstitute