Hizbullah

The resistance group Hizbullah ('Party of God') formed in 1982 in response to Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and were instrumental in eventually forcing Israel to withdraw its troops altogether - thus ending a twenty-two-year-old military occupation. Many armed factions had sprung up in the face of Lebanon's descent into chaos, but few were as organised, disciplined, persistent and civic-minded as Hizbullah. In the 1990s, after many years functioning as both a guerrilla movement targeting the Israeli military on Lebanese soil and as a social-support provider to Lebanese victims of war, Hizbullah moved into mainstream parliamentary politics. Despite US condemnation of Hizbullah as a 'terrorist group', the party has never advocated attacking non-military targets, and was quick to condemn the events of September 11. Today they remain a force to be reckoned with on the Lebanese political scene.