Hezbollah is training southern Lebanese locals to fight Israel. The Financial Times writes:
“We have twice as many people signing up for training this summer as before,” said a senior Hizbollah official when asked about the movement’s strength. After last year’s war Hizbollah is putting more emphasis on training the local population in the villages and towns in the south. The goal is to have the inhabitants stay and fight rather than flee, as happened en masse during last year’s war.
The organization isn’t limiting its expertise to Lebanon either. According to Time, Hezbollah’s also teaching in Iraq:
According to the People’s Mujaheddin Organization of Iran (PMOI), a longtime opposition group to the regime in Tehran, as many as 500 Hizballah operatives are at work in Iraq training militiamen at the behest of Iran. The PMOI, which claims to have an extensive intelligence network in Iran and Iraq, says most of the Hizballah operatives in Iraq are serving as trainers or assistant trainers to the Mahdi Army, the Shi’ite militia of firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Brooks says the PMOI assessment seems plausible based on U.S. intelligence. “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Brooks said. “Evidence of their presence has been here for some time.” Brooks said sophisticated kidnapping operations in Iraq and high-tech bombs of the kind Hizballah has been known to use in Lebanon are signs that the group is increasingly a part of the militia scene here.
Hezbollah’s known for franchising global jihad.
