Amal

Hezbollah Readies Its Electoral Machine After War Losses

Whether Lebanon’s parliamentary elections are held on time in May or postponed, Hezbollah’s electoral machine appears to be in a state of full readiness. While the party commands the largest popular base within the Shia community, maintaining a wide lead over its closest ally, the Amal Movement, this electoral advantage has not bred ...

U.S. Rep. LaHood to This Is Beirut: “No Progress, No Support,” Lebanon Must Act Now

When Lebanese Army Commander Gen. Rodolphe Haykal arrived in the U.S. capital during the first week of February, he entered a fundamentally transformed strategic landscape. The meetings that unfolded—from tense political exchanges to a dramatic walkout by Sen. Lindsey Graham—crystallized a stark reality: Lebanon’s decades-long balancing act ...

Will Hezbollah Turn to Political Assassinations Again?

As Hezbollah faces mounting pressure, the risk is growing that the group could once again turn to assassinations to preserve its fragile military, political, and financial positions. In December 2025, fresh revelations about the activities of Hezbollah’s assassination squad, Unit 121, brought the group’s use of political violence back ...

The Council of the South: Hezbollah and Amal’s Tool for Clientelism

The Council of the South was intended to be one of the Lebanese state’s key mechanisms for addressing the damage from wars with Israel, but it effectively became a partisan tool serving the Amal Movement and Hezbollah. It was established in 1970 primarily to help residents of southern Lebanon repair their homes and rebuild what had been ...

Lebanon's Oldest Lock on Power Is the Speaker's Chair

Fortunate countries see their leaders come and go; in hapless ones, time ravages everything but their rulers. Lebanon is trapped in the latter camp, with one politician freezing his grip on power and the country’s chance for reform. The country’s banks collapsed and its currency crashed, the port exploded, half the youth emigrated, and whole ...

U.S. Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Sanction Election Interference in Lebanon

U.S. lawmakers introduced legislation on February 2 that would authorize President Trump to impose sanctions on foreign individuals or entities accused of interfering in Lebanon’s electoral process, including efforts to obstruct voting by Lebanese citizens living abroad. The legislation would allow the president, in consultation with senior ...

The Shia Duo Under Strain: How Iran’s Crisis Is Realigning Amal and Hezbollah

When Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri met with Joseph Aoun on January 23, at the height of Hezbollah’s rhetorical campaign against the president, the gesture spoke volumes. As Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem rejected disarmament and warned of civil war, Berri moved to restore communication channels, differentiating his Amal ...

The Unraveling of Hezbollah’s Strategic Myth

Since its inception, Hezbollah has sought to transform Shia identity in Lebanon from a national one into an ideological one, anchored in Iran’s Wilayat al-Faqih doctrine of absolute loyalty to its supreme leader. Yet its attempts to tighten control over the Shia community through Tehran’s political ideology met significant obstacles, pushing ...

Why Lebanon’s Shia Opposition Sees Opportunity in the 2026 Elections

Lebanon’s upcoming parliamentary elections are shaping up as a test of Hezbollah’s political standing at a moment of vulnerability, after the group suffered a major military blow in the 2024 war with Israel and faces mounting pressure from the Lebanese government’s pledge to disarm it nationwide. Since the 1992 parliamentary elections, the ...

Who are the Shia Opposition Seeking to Break Hezbollah’s Stranglehold?

Lebanon’s upcoming parliamentary elections, coming on the heels of the 2024 Hezbollah–Israel war that devastated the organization and its core constituencies, have reopened the question of Shia political representation. For decades, Lebanese political discourse has treated the Shia community as a unified political bloc, electorally ...

Ahead of 2026, Washington's Tougher Terms for Lebanon

Heading into 2026, U.S. engagement in Lebanon has become explicitly conditioned on measurable progress toward Hezbollah’s disarmament, marking a clear break from the strategic ambiguity that long defined Washington’s approach. The aftermath of the 2024 Israel–Hezbollah conflict, alongside Lebanon’s deepening economic and political crises, ...

Lebanon Probes Officer’s Disappearance Amid Suspected Mossad Involvement

Lebanese security is conducting investigations under the supervision of Public Prosecutor Judge Jamal Hajjar into the disappearance of retired General Security officer Ahmad Shukr, who has been missing for a week, amid conflicting information about his fate, according to a judicial source quoted by Saudi daily Asharq al Awsat. The source ...