Islamic Jihad Organization

This article is about the Lebanese Shiite faction. For other groups called "Islamic Jihad", see Islamic Jihad.
Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO)
Participant in Lebanese civil war (1975-1990)
Active Early 1983 Until 1992
Leaders Imad Mughniyah
Headquarters Beirut, Baalbek
Strength 200 fighters
Allies Iranian Revolutionary Guards
Hezbollah under Subhi al-Tufayli
Amal Movement
Opponents Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
South Lebanon Army (SLA)
Syrian Army
Internal Security Forces (ISF)
Amal Movement
Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF)

The Islamic Jihad Organization – IJO (Arabic: حركة الجهاد الإسلامي‎‎, Harakat al-Jihad al-Islami) or Organisation du Jihad Islamique (OJI) in French, but best known as "Islamic Jihad" (Arabic: Jihad al-Islami) for short, was a Shia Islamist militia known for its activities in the 1980s during the Lebanese Civil War. They demanded the departure of all Americans from Lebanon and took responsibility for a number of kidnappings, assassinations, and bombings of embassies and peacekeeping troops which killed several hundred people. Their deadliest attacks were in 1983, when they carried out bombing of the barracks of French and U.S. MNF peacekeeping troops, and of the United States embassy in Beirut.

Origins

Possibly formed in early 1983 and reportedly led by Imad Mughniyah, a former Lebanese Shiite member of Palestinian Fatah’s Force 17, the IJO was not a militia but rather a typical underground urban guerrilla organization. Based at Baalbek in the Beqaa valley, the group aligned 200 Lebanese Shiite militants financed by Iran and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ contingent previously sent by Ayatollah Khomeini to fight the June 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

However, senior Iranian officials denied the alleged connections. For instance, Mehdi Karroubi claimed that Iran had not been related to the group, stating "Because like you, we learn about their existence or nonexistence through the mass media and our information about them is as much as yours."[1]

Existence

Initially the group was described as "a mysterious group about which virtually nothing was known,"[2] one whose "only members" seemed to be the "anonymous callers" taking credit for the bombings, or one that simply didn't exist. After the MNF bombing, the New York Times reported that "Lebanese police sources, Western intelligence sources, Israeli Government sources and leading Shi'ite Moslem religious leaders in Beirut are all convinced that there is no such thing as Islamic Jihad," as an organization, no membership, no writings, etc.[3] Journalist Robin Wright has described it as "more of an information network for a variety of cells of movements", rather than a centralized organization.[4] Not all of IJ's claims of responsibility were credible, as "in some cases, the callers seemed to be exploiting the activities of groups that had no apparent ties to Islamic Jihad," while working with some success to create "an aura of a single omnipotent force in the region."[5]

Wright has compared Islamic Jihad to the Black September wing of the Palestinian Fatah,[6] serving the function of providing its controlling organization, in this case Hezbollah, with some distance and plausible deniability from acts that might provoke retaliation or other problems.

Lebanese journalist Hala Jaber compared it to "a phony company which rents office space for a month and then vanishes," existing "only when it was committing an atrocity against its targets ..."[7]

Adam Shatz of The Nation magazine has described Islamic Jihad as "a precursor to Hezbollah, which did not yet officially exist" at the time of the bombings Islamic Jihad took credit for.[8] Jeffrey Goldberg says

Using various names, including the Islamic Jihad Organization and the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, Hezbollah remained underground until 1985, when it published a manifesto condemning the West, and proclaiming, “.... Allah is behind us supporting and protecting us while instilling fear in the hearts of our enemies.”[9]

A 2003 decision by an American court named Islamic Jihad as the name used by Hezbollah for its attacks in Lebanon, and parts of the Middle East, and Europe.[10] Just as Hezbollah used another name Islamic Resistance, or al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya, for its attacks against Israel.[11]

By the mid-1980s Hizbollah leaders are reported to have admitted their involvement in the attacks and the nominal nature of "Islamic Jihad" - that it was merely a "telephone organisation,"[12][13] and[14] whose name was "used by those involved to disguise their true identity."[15][16][17][18][19]

Former CIA operative and author Robert Baer describes it as the cover name used by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Pasdaran). Baer claims the order for 1983 US embassy bombing is widely believed to have originated high up in the Iranian Islamic Republic's hierarchy.[20] According to Baer it is "a very distinct organization, which was separate from Hezbollah because you had the [Hezbollah] consultative council which only had a vague idea of what the hostage-takers were doing."[21]

Hala Jaber calls it a name "deliberately contrived by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and their recruits to cast confusion."[7]

Wright is more circumspect, saying: "Islamic Jihad was clearly pro-Iranian in ideology, but some doubts existed among both Muslim moderates and Western diplomats about whether it was actually directed by Iran rather than home-grown."[4]

More recently authors such as researcher Robert A. Pape[22] and journalist Lawrence Wright[23] have made no mention of Islamic Jihad and simply name Hezbollah as the author of Lebanese terror attacks claimed or attributed to Islamic Jihad.

From 1982 to 1986, Hezbollah conducted 36 suicide terrorist attacks involving a total of 41 attackers against American, French, and Israeli political and military targets in Lebanon ... Altogether, these attacks killed 659 people ...[22]

Actions

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Bombings and assassinations

Claims of bombing

Kidnappings

Further information: Lebanon Hostage Crisis

Decline and demise 1986–1992

The IJO suffered a setback in 1986 when a temporary abduction of four Soviet diplomats ended up in the assassination of one hostage, an affair promptly regulated by the KGB using methods of intimidation. This fiasco, coupled by the pressure resulting from tighter security measures and joint anti-militia sweeps implemented by the Syrian Army, the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) and the Amal Movement at the Shia quarters of West Beirut in 1987–88, brought a steady decline in the organization's activities in Lebanon for the rest of the civil war.

The last recorded attack claimed by the IJO as an independent group took place outside the Middle East in March 1992, when the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was blown up in retaliation for the death of Hezbollah's secretary-general Abbas al-Musawi.

This organization is no longer active. Some reports indicate that they merged with Hezbollah afterwards, with their leader Imad Mughniyah appointed as head of that party's overseas security apparatus.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Karrubi: Iran knows Islamic Jihad only through media". Kayhan International. 6 June 1985. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  2. ↑ Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, (2001), p.73
  3. ↑ New York Times, 30 December 1983, p.A6, "The Search for Evidence."
  4. 1 2 Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, (2001), p.85
  5. ↑ Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, (2001), p.86
  6. ↑ Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, (2001), p.95
  7. 1 2 Hezbollah : Born with a vengeance by Hala Jaber, p.113
  8. ↑ Adam Shatz (29 April 2004). "In Search of Hezbollah". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 14 August 2006.
  9. ↑ In The Party Of God Part I, By Jeffrey Goldberg, The New Yorker, 14 October 2002
  10. ↑ see also Bates, John D. (Presiding) (September 2003). "Anne Dammarell et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran" (pdf). District of Columbia, U.S.: The United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Retrieved 21 September 2006.
  11. ↑ Magnus Ranstorp, "Hizb'allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis", Palgrave Macmillan, 1997, p. 67
  12. ↑ Marius Deeb, Militant Islamic Movements in Lebanon: Origins, Social Basis, and Ideology, Occasional Paper Series (Washington, DC, Georgetown University, 1986) p.19
  13. ↑ al-Nahar, 7 September 1985
  14. ↑ LaRevue du Liban, 27 July-3 August 1985
  15. ↑ al-Nahar al-Arabi, 10 June
  16. ↑ Ma'aretz, 16 December 1983
  17. ↑ Le Point, 30 July 1987
  18. ↑ al-Shira, 28 August 1988
  19. ↑ Nouveau Magazine, 23 July 1988
  20. ↑ Baer, Robert. 2002. See No Evil Three Rivers Press, New York, New York.
  21. 1 2 Interview Robert Baer
  22. 1 2 Pape, Robert A., Dying to Win : The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism , Random House, 2005 p.129
  23. ↑ Wright, Lawrence, Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, by Lawrence Wright, NY, Knopf, 2006
  24. ↑ New York Times, 19 April 1983, 'Islamic Attacks Seen as Pro-Iranian, Hijazi, Ihsan, p. A12
  25. ↑ Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, 2001, p. 73, pp. 15-16
  26. ↑ Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, 2001, p. 73
  27. ↑ Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, 2001, p. 112
  28. ↑ Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, 2001, pp. 101-2
  29. ↑ "Two Iranian exiles are assassinated in Paris". Lodi News Sentinel. Paris. UPI. 8 February 1984. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  30. ↑ Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, 2001, p. 107
  31. ↑ Walker, Jane. "Spanish bomb blast blamed on Jihad / Madrid restaurant explosion blamed on Muslim group." The Guardian, 15 April 1985.
  32. ↑ New York Times 26 May 1985
  33. ↑ 1992 Patterns of Global Terrorism: The Year in Review
  34. ↑ Watson, Laurie. "Errors By Crew Reportedly Cited In Gander Crash", Philadelphia Inquirer, United Press International, 6 November 1988, pp. A33.
  35. ↑ "Arrow Air Flight 1285 accident record". ASN.
  36. ↑ "CSB Majority Report".
  37. ↑ "CASB Majority Report".
  38. 1 2 Lebanon, The Hostage Crisis
  39. ↑ Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, 2001, p.101,2,4
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