INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST GROUPS

International Terrorist Groups And Their Significant Impact On America

International Terrorist Groups And Their Significant Impact On America

Abstract

In this age of Global Terrorist attacks on the United States of America, it would be desirable to believe that we could at least count on the loyalty of all USA citizens to help protect and preserve our country's security. However, history has shown otherwise, and as discouraging as it is, we must realize that some of the threat of violence and terror to the United States is from organizations with twisted sense of values that attack our own Homeland.

Demographics

Hezbollah is a Shi'a Islamist political and paramilitary organisation based in Lebanon. It is a significant force in Lebanese politics, providing social services, which operate schools, hospitals, and agricultural services for thousands of Lebanese Shiites. It is regarded as a resistance movement throughout much of the Arab and Muslim world. Hezbollah first emerged as a militia in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, also known as Operation Peace for Galilee, in 1982, set on resisting the Israeli occupation of Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. (Joseph, 2006, 98)

Its leaders were inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini, and its forces were trained and organized by a contingent of Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto listed its three main goals as "putting an end to any colonialist entity" in Lebanon, bringing the Phalangists to justice for "the crimes they [had] perpetrated," and the establishment of an Islamic regime in Lebanon. Recently, however, Hezbollah has made little mention of establishing an Islamic state, and forged alliances across religious lines. (Joseph, 2006, 98) Hezbollah leaders have also made numerous statements calling for the destruction of Israel, which they refer to as a "Zionist entity... built on lands wrested from their owners.

Scholars differ as to when Hezbollah came to be a distinct entity which is very much different from the core values of Saint Leo University. Some organizations list the official formation of the group as early as 1982 whereas Diaz and Newman maintain that Hezbollah remained an amalgamation of various violent Shi'a activists until as late as 1985. Another version states that it was formed by supporters of Sheikh Ragheb Harb, a leader of the southern Shiite resistance killed by Israel in 1984. (Joseph, 2006, 98)

Nasrallah became the leader of Hezbollah after Israel assassinated the movement's leader Abbas al-Musawi in 1992. Hezbollah's military campaigns of the late 1990s were the main factors that led to the Israeli decision to withdraw from Southern Lebanon in 2000, thus ending 18 years of occupation. This move greatly increased Hezbollah's popularity in Lebanon and across the Islamic countries.

Consequently, Nasrallah is widely credited in Lebanon and the Arab world for ending the Israeli occupation in Southern Lebanon, something which has greatly bolstered the party's political standing within Lebanon.

Nasrallah also played a major role in a complex prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hezbollah in 2004, resulting in hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners being freed and the dead body of his son with many ...