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Unit 910 – Hezbollah Foreign Security Organization (ESO)

Overview of the structure of this unit:

واحد “Unit 910” exists in the organizational structure of Hezbollah. Hezbollah is governed by an advisory council called the Central Assembly, headed by Secretary-General Seyed

Hassan Nasrallah.

جریان There are five currents in the Central Council: 1_Political; 2_Parliament; 3_admin; 4_Judicial; And 5_military (jihad).

نظامی The Military Council directs the military branch of Hezbollah, which is responsible for all of Hezbollah’s armed activities. The military wing includes all Hezbollah combat elements and related military functions, including Unit 910, a separate entity. Thus, the unit’s activities are distinct from Hezbollah’s official military operations in the Middle East.

Hezbollah is a multifaceted organization with political, social, and military components and holds seats in the Lebanese government. Inside Lebanon, Hezbollah has traditionally represented the Lebanese Shiite community, the country’s largest religious sect, and has a social welfare network that includes education and health services.

Hezbollah was set up in 1982 with the help of Iran during the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Since entering the Lebanese parliament in 1992 and the government in 1995, Hezbollah has sought to function as a legitimate resistance movement in Lebanon against the Israeli occupation and thwart its region goals.

حزب The secret unit of Hezbollah elites, under the command of “Talal Hamiyah” (the commander of this organization according to the CIA) and acts as a broad strategic arm of Hezbollah and Iran. In addition, this organization aims to act as a deterrent against the West and especially against the Israeli regime. In the past, the head of this unit was “Martyr Emad Mughniyeh.”

Talal Hamiyah – Up to $7 Million Reward

Talal Hamiyah is the head of Hezbollah’s External Security Organization (ESO), which maintains organized cells worldwide. The ESO is the Hezbollah element responsible for the planning, coordinating, and executing terrorist attacks outside of Lebanon. The attacks have primarily targeted Israelis and Americans. As a result, the U.S. Department of Treasury designated Talal Hamiyah on September 13, 2012, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) according to Executive Order 13224 for providing support to Hezbollah’s terrorist activities in the Middle East and around the world.

Imad Mughniyeh

Imad Fayez Mughniyeh, also known as Hajj Radwan, was reportedly born in south

Lebanon in 1962 and became a sniper in Yasser Arafat’s forces in 1976. He has been implicated in some of the most spectacular terrorist attacks of the 1980s and 1990s, earning him a place on the FBI and EU’s most wanted lists. He served as special operations chief for Hezbollah’s international operations and as the group’s primary liaison to Iran’s security and intelligence services.

The first high-profile terror act linked to Mughniyeh was the 1983 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that killed sixty-three people. In the fall of the same year, he reportedly masterminded the twin truck bombings in Beirut that hit a building housing French paratroopers, killing fifty-eight, and a U.S. army barracks, killing 241 marines. Mughniyeh also engineered a series of high-profile kidnappings, including the CIA’s Beirut station chief William Buckley (who was later killed), and AP correspondent Terry Anderson, who was held for six years prior to his release. Mughniyeh was also implicated in — and subsequently indicted for — the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, which resulted in the execution of U.S. navy diver Robert Stetham.

NOTE: Treadstone 71 served in the Middle East from 1983 through 1985
and was present in the region for each of the above terrorist acts.

International Reach

As Hezbollah’s international operations chief, Mughniyeh oversaw the group’s terror network and established operational cells around the world.

South America. Mughniyeh’s first major operation outside Lebanon was the March 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires that killed twenty-nine people. Two years later, he directed the bombing of the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) in the same city, killing eight-five. Although Hezbollah conducted the attack, Argentinean court documents allege that Mughniyeh’s impetus came from a fatwa issued by Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Arab-Israeli conflict. Mughniyeh was central in Hezbollah’s support for Palestinian terrorist groups and its operations against Israel. In fact, U.S. officials contend that Iran ordered Mughniyeh to help Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad shortly after the second intifada erupted in September 2000. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and Mughniyeh reportedly worked together in planning terrorist attacks globally and across the UN-certified blue line separating Israel and Lebanon. Mughniyeh is also believed to have facilitated the training and transfer of Hezbollah operatives into Israel through Europe for the purpose of carrying out attacks and conducting surveillance.

Mughniyeh was also deeply involved in the Karine-A affair — an Iranian attempt to ship arms to the Palestinian Authority. Hajj Bassem, Mughniyeh’s senior deputy, personally commanded the ship that met Karine-A at the Iranian island of Kish and oversaw the ship-to-ship transfer of the Iranian weapons.

Southeast Asia. Through the 1990s, Hezbollah operations in Southeast Asia were carried out under the command Mughniyeh’s deputies. In 1994, two of his deputies, Yousef al-Jouni and Abu Foul, were nearly successful in bombing the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. Hezbollah collected intelligence on synagogues in Manila and Singapore, the El Al office in Bangkok, ships arriving in Singapore, as well as U.S. Navy and Israeli merchant ships in the Malacca Straits. Hezbollah members also reportedly procured and cached weapons in Thailand and the Philippines and recruited local Sunni Muslims. With Mughniyeh’s oversight, Hezbollah procured false and stolen passports, especially in the Philippines, and conducted significant fundraising throughout the region.

Iraq. Mughniyeh’s special operations group has also been active in Iraq. According to a U.S. intelligence official, Iran “helped facilitate Hezbollah training inside Iraq.” In June 2006, then-deputy assistant secretary of state David Satterfield told the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat that Hezbollah cadres participated in attacking U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq. In March 2007, coalition forces in Iraq captured Ali Musa Daqduq, a Hezbollah veteran who was working with Iran’s al-Quds Force to train Iraqis in high-grade weapons, intelligence, sniping, and kidnapping operations. According to the U.S. military in 2005, Daqduq “was directed by senior Lebanese Hezbollah leadership to go to Iran and work with the al-Quds Force to train Iraqi extremists.” In May 2006, Daqduq “traveled to Tehran with Yussef Hashim, a fellow Hezbollah member and head of the organization’s operations in Iraq.”

Implications for Syria-Hezbollah Ties

By providing Mughniyeh safe haven, Syria has confirmed its intimate and ongoing relationship with Hezbollah. Syria under Bashar al-Assad has clearly improved relations with the Shiite terrorist organization as evidenced during the 2006 summer war when Damascus provided the organization with its own top-shelf Russian made anti-tank weapons as well as its indigenously produced anti-personnel rockets. But by harboring Mughniyeh — a top-ranked terrorist on America’s most wanted list — Damascus took an extreme risk, especially since it claims to seek improved relations with Washington.

At the same time, Mughniyeh’s assassination on Syrian territory also highlights a critical weakness of the Assad regime: it can no longer provide real security for the terrorists it harbors. Indeed, yesterday’s car bomb was only the latest in a series of ongoing foreign incursions: in 2003, Israel bombed an Islamic Jihad training camp outside the capital; a Damascus car bomb killed a top Hamas leader in 2004; in 2006, Israeli planes buzzed Assad’s palace in Latakia; and last year, Israel destroyed a presumed North Korean-supplied nuclear facility in Syria. None of these provocations elicited Syrian retaliation.

A Setback for Hezbollah

For Hezbollah, Mughniyeh’s departure could prove more problematic politically than militarily. Under his leadership, the group’s operational capabilities had dramatically improved via its extensive training in Iran, and its deployments against coalition forces in Iraq and against Israel in Lebanon. Mughniyeh will be missed as a tactician, as an effective liaison with Iranian intelligence, and as the engineer of the group’s international cell network. But Hezbollah’s military cadres are well trained, and no longer depend solely on him for operational guidance.

Politically, however, Mughniyeh was a constant within a rapidly changing organization. Some reports in the Arab press suggest that there is growing dissention within the ranks of Hezbollah, stemming from the 2006 summer war, slow progress in rebuilding the south, and Nasrallah’s ongoing leadership of the organization — something that violates Hezbollah’s own bylaws. One report last month even suggested that Nasrallah’s military authority had been stripped and awarded to the deputy secretary general, Naim Qassem. But since Hezbollah is an opaque organization, these reports cannot be taken at face value. Still, Mughniyeh’s departure removes Hezbollah’s key conduit to Iranian intelligence and could serve to exacerbate organizational fissures within the organization.

Matthew Levitt is a senior fellow and director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute. David Schenker is a senior fellow and director of the Institute’s Arab politics program.

The relation between Suleimani and Mughniyeh family started in 1998 when he was assigned as the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force. Since that year, Suleimani constantly went to the house f Hezbollah’s military commander Imad Mughniyeh who was assassinated by Israeli Mossad using a CIA car bomb in Damascus on February 12, 2008, according to Al-Akhbar’s article.

The relation between the two commanders became closer after they repeatedly faced death together, Qassem says. One of that incidents took place in July War in 2006. Then, due to intensified Israeli bombing of Lebanon, Mughniyeh and Suleimani (his associate) moved to a different location. While moving, Suleimani pulled Mughniyeh by his shoulder, addressing him: “Stay back; I will secure the road. You have to stay alive.”

Qassem narrates another incident when Suleimani and Mughniyeh, known for his nom de guerre (Haj Rudwan), noticed a suspected car on their way from Qom to Tehran. Although Mughniyeh’s facial expressions had never changed as they changed their way, the Beirut-based Palestinian journalist cites a story told by Suleimani about that incident.

Just a few minutes before Mughniyeh’s martyrdom in 2008, Suleimani was accompanying the Hezbollah commander, Qassem cites a report by Ronen Bergman, an Israeli investigative journalist. Following the assassination, Suleimani became a member of the Mughniyeh family. He got the nickname of “Amo,” which means uncle, and kept following up on their issues. His house in Iran also became a destination for the Mughniyeh family, Qassem says.

Unit 910 Continued

واحد 910 consists of specialized units that work together both administratively and operationally. 910 is entirely separate from other units of the organization.

واحد This unit consists of a small group of predominantly Lebanese Shiites whose families were not born in Lebanon, some of whom even have valid foreign identity documents that allow them to travel around the world with fake identities as tourists or businessmen.

The unit’s forces undergo a lengthy and complex security training process until they formally obtain a permit to operate, including field security, covert work, sabotage techniques, as well as covert techniques and, if necessary, fleeing any country. It becomes.

The activity of this unit is characterized by a long-term perspective and efforts to achieve significant achievements in the face of rapid and limited achievements.

Relations with other Islamic resistance groups:

Due to the unit’s covert nature, little is known about ESO’s links to other Islamic resistance groups other than Hezbollah and its military wing. Hezbollah’s military wing has provided training, operational support, and military equipment to Palestinian resistance groups, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas, operating directly against the Zionist regime. The unit also has close ties to Shiite resistance groups in Iraq and Ansar al-Yamin in Yemen.

فوق The above material is taken from the reports of the Australian Foreign Security Agency, the FBI, and some international news agencies and is not confirmed or denied by the QSF.

 #Unit_910 #Islamic_Jihad #Hizb_Allah_Lebanon - Quds Special Forces

Unit 910 – Hezbollah Foreign Security Organization (ESO)

ربه Cross-stroke operations (blood vs. blood)

In general, Hezbollah does not publicly claim responsibility for the attacks or endorse any activities of Unit 910 (as do most similar organizations such as the Mossad and the CIA).

نشانه There is no indication that the role of the ESO has changed in recent times. The role includes the monitoring, planning, coordination, and execution of counter-attacks against the enemies of the resistance outside Lebanon. Still, the Axis of Resistance and Iran enemies usually blame this unit for the so-called “reciprocal blow” attacks or the creation of a deterrent under the name of “Israeli blood against Muslim blood.”

مار In March 2021, Christopher Ray, director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, told the Senate Judiciary Committee:

《Lebanon’s Hezbollah has created factors to build intelligence / operational infrastructure worldwide. The arrest of individuals in the United States allegedly linked to Lebanese Hezbollah’s main branch abroad, and their efforts to gather information and supplies, indicate Hezbollah’s interest in long-term planning activities here in the United States.》

In general, ESO has not publicly acknowledged its responsibility for “counter-attack” attacks outside Lebanon. However, significant operations against targets outside Lebanon attributed to Unit 910 include:

On July 18, 2012, the unit attacked an Israeli bus carrying several Mossad intelligence agents in Burgas, Bulgaria, in which six people were killed. In September 2020, a Bulgarian court convicted an Australian-Lebanese citizen in absentia of his role in the attack. These actions were in response to the assassination of many resistance fighters in the Syrian crisis by Israel. The “reciprocal strike” strategy drives the actions.

On July 18, 1994, a van carrying explosives outside the Zionist Association of Argentine Jews exploded in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 85 people and injuring more than 300. In 1999, Argentine authorities issued an arrest warrant in absentia for the involvement of then-ESO leader Martyr Emad Mughniyeh. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Hezbollah has repeatedly denied the allegations. However, these measures were taken to pressure the Zionist regime to stop the crimes and leave southern Lebanon, which can be considered following a “reciprocal strike” strategy.

17 On March 17, 1992, a truck loaded with explosives was used to destroy the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people and injuring 242 others. Although Hezbollah denied involvement in the attack, Argentine authorities eventually issued an arrest warrant for ESO leader Emad Mughniyeh in absentia for organizing the attack. However, these measures were taken to pressure the Zionist regime to stop the crimes and leave southern Lebanon, which can be considered following a “reciprocal strike” strategy.

فوق Some of the material is taken from the reports of the Australian Foreign Security Agency, the FBI, and some international news agencies and is not confirmed or denied by the Quds Special Forces (QSF). Some of the material is taken directly from the QSF and translated from Farsi.

#Unit_910 #Islamic_Jihad #Hizb_Allah_Lebanon – Quds Special Forces

Stay tuned for our next post on Qassem Soleimani.

Treadstone 71

http://www.treadstone71.com

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Treadstone 71

@Treadstone71LLC Cyber intelligence, counterintelligence, Influence Operations, Cyber Operations, OSINT, Clandestine Cyber HUMINT, cyber intel and OSINT training and analysis, cyber psyops, strategic intelligence, Open-Source Intelligence collection, analytic writing, structured analytic techniques, Target Adversary Research, cyber counterintelligence, strategic intelligence analysis, estimative intelligence, forecasting intelligence, warning intelligence, threat intelligence

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