Understanding Hizballah’s Global Empire

While perhaps best known for fighting and surviving two wars with Israel, the Iran-backed terrorist group Hizballah is currently in the headlines because of the devastating blast in Beirut, an at-best-indirect result of its power and influence in Lebanon. But Hizballah is in fact global in reach, fighting wars in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, laundering money in Hong Kong, Detroit, and Benin, and plotting terrorist attacks everywhere from South America to Germany to Southeast Asia. The extent and complexity of its operations are made clear in an interactive map and timeline composed by Matthew Levitt, in which one can learn—to mention but a few examples—about the failed bombing of a Buddhist Temple in Indonesia in 1985, a plan to attack the Warsaw synagogue in 1992, and a thwarted bombing outside La Paz, Bolivia. Not to mention, of course, the organization’s many successful acts of terror, which have claimed hundreds of lives.