Islamic Jihad Organization

Possibly formed in early 1983 and reportedly led by Imad Mughniyah, a former Lebanese Shi'ite member of Palestinian Fatah's Force 17, the IJO was not a militia but rather a typical underground urban guerrilla organization.{{cite web|url=http://www.jpost.com/Blogs/The-Iran-Threat/Tehrans-master-terrorist-Imad-Mughniyah-and-the-forgotten-road-to-911part-I-of-II-390278|title=Tehran's master terrorist, Imad Mughniyah and the forgotten road to 9/11 part I of II|author=Stephen Hughes|work=Jerusalem Post|date=2 July 2015|access-date=4 April 2017}} Based at Baalbek in the Beqaa valley, the group aligned 200 Lebanese Shi'ite militants financed by Iran and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' contingent previously sent by Ayatollah Khomeini to fight the June 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.{{citation needed|date=April 2017}} However, senior Iranian officials denied the alleged connections. For instance, Mehdi Karroubi claimed that Iran had not been related to the group.{{cite news|title=Karrubi: Iran knows Islamic Jihad only through media|url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA338002.pdf|access-date=5 August 2013|newspaper=Kayhan International|date=6 June 1985|archive-date=5 August 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130805115127/http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA338002|url-status=live}}

Initially the group was described as "a mysterious group about which virtually nothing was known,"Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, (2001), p.73 one whose "only members" seemed to be the "anonymous callers" taking credit for the bombings, or one that simply didn't exist. After the MNF bombing, the New York Times reported that "Lebanese police sources, Western intelligence sources, Israeli Government sources and leading Shi'ite Muslim religious leaders in Beirut are all convinced that there is no such thing as Islamic Jihad," as an organization, no membership, no writings, etc.New York Times, 30 December 1983, p.A6, "The Search for Evidence."

Lebanese journalist Hala Jaber compared it to "a phony company which rents office space for a month and then vanishes," existing "only when it was committing an atrocity against its targets ..."Hezbollah: Born with a vengeance by Hala Jaber, p.113 Journalist Robin Wright has described it as "more of an information network for a variety of cells of movements", rather than a centralized organization.Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, (2001), p.85 Not all of IJ's claims of responsibility were credible, as "in some cases, the callers seemed to be exploiting the activities of groups that had no apparent ties to Islamic Jihad," while working with some success to create "an aura of a single omnipotent force in the region."Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, (2001), p.86 Wright has compared Islamic Jihad to the Black September wing of the Palestinian Fatah,Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, (2001), p.95 serving the function of providing its controlling organization, in this case Hezbollah, with some distance and plausible deniability from acts that might provoke retaliation or other problems.

Adam Shatz of The Nation magazine has described Islamic Jihad as "a precursor to Hezbollah, which did not yet officially exist" at the time of the bombings Islamic Jihad took credit for.{{cite magazine|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17060|title= In Search of Hezbollah|author=Adam Shatz|magazine=The New York Review of Books|date=29 April 2004|access-date=14 August 2006}} Jeffrey Goldberg states "Using various names, including the Islamic Jihad Organization and the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, Hezbollah remained underground until 1985, when it published a manifesto condemning the West, and proclaiming, '.... Allah is behind us supporting and protecting us while instilling fear in the hearts of our enemies.'"[http://www.jeffreygoldberg.net/articles/tny/a_reporter_at_large_in_the_par.php In The Party Of God] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070223074001/http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/021014fa_fact4 |date=23 February 2007 }} Part I, By Jeffrey Goldberg, The New Yorker, 14 October 2002

According to investigative journalist Ronen Bergman, "Islamic Jihad" was one of many aliases used by Hezbollah.{{cite book |last1=Bergman |first1=Ronen |title=Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations |date=2018 |publisher=Random House Publishing Group |isbn=9780679604686 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3UXKDQAAQBAJ}} A 2003 decision by an American court named Islamic Jihad as the name used by Hezbollah for its attacks in Lebanon, and parts of the Middle East, and Europe.see also {{Cite web|title=Anne Dammarell et al. v. Islamic Republic of Iran |url=http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/01-2224.pdf |author=Bates, John D. (Presiding) |date=September 2003 |location=District of Columbia, U.S. |publisher=The United States District Court for the District of Columbia |access-date=21 September 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051231142249/http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/01-2224.pdf |archive-date=31 December 2005 }} Hezbollah itself uses the name "Islamic Resistance" (al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya) in its attacks against Israel.Magnus Ranstorp, "Hizb'allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis", Palgrave Macmillan, 1997, p. 67

According to Marius Deeb, by the mid-1980s Hezbollah leaders are reported to have admitted their involvement in the attacks and the nominal nature of "Islamic Jihad", that it was merely a "telephone organisation,"Marius Deeb, Militant Islamic Movements in Lebanon: Origins, Social Basis, and Ideology, Occasional Paper Series (Washington, DC, Georgetown University, 1986) p.19al-Nahar, 7 September 1985 andLaRevue du Liban, 27 July-3 August 1985

whose name was "used by those involved to disguise their true identity."al-Nahar al-Arabi, 10 JuneMa'aretz, 16 December 1983Le Point, 30 July 1987al-Shira, 28 August 1988Nouveau Magazine, 23 July 1988

Former CIA operative and author Robert Baer describes it as the cover name used by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Baer claims the order for 1983 US embassy bombing is widely believed to have originated high up in the Iranian leadership hierarchy.Baer, Robert. 2002. See No Evil Three Rivers Press, New York, New York. According to Baer it is "a very distinct organization, which was separate from Hezbollah because you had the [Hezbollah] consultative council which only had a vague idea of what the hostage-takers were doing."{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tehran/interviews/baer.html|title=terror and tehran|date=2 May 2002|website=www.pbs.org|access-date=18 August 2017}}

Hala Jaber calls it a name "deliberately contrived by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and their recruits to cast confusion." However, Wright is more circumspect saying: "Islamic Jihad was clearly pro-Iranian in ideology, but some doubts existed among both Muslim moderates and Western diplomats about whether it was actually directed by Iran rather than home-grown."

More recently authors such as researcher Robert A. PapePape, Robert A., Dying to Win : The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism , Random House, 2005 p.129 and journalist Lawrence WrightWright, Lawrence, Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, by Lawrence Wright, NY, Knopf, 2006 have made no mention of Islamic Jihad and simply name Hezbollah as the author of Lebanese terror attacks claimed or attributed to Islamic Jihad: "From 1982 to 1986, Hezbollah conducted 36 suicide terrorist attacks involving a total of 41 attackers against American, French, and Israeli political and military targets in Lebanon ... Altogether, these attacks killed 659 people ..."

• 24 May 1982. Car bomb attack on French Embassy in Beirut killing 12 and wounding 27. Islamic Jihad is one of several groups taking responsibility. Anger over France's providing of arms to Iran's enemy Iraq is thought to be the motivating factor.New York Times, 19 April 1983, "Islamic Attacks Seen as Pro-Iranian", Hijazi, Ihsan, p. A12
• 18 April 1983. Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Detonated in a delivery van driven by a suicide bomber, carrying about 2000 pounds of explosives. The bomb killed 63 people, 17 of them Americans, including 9 CIA agents in Beirut for a meeting.Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, 2001, p. 73, pp. 15–16
• 23 October 1983. MNF barracks bombing in Beirut. Two truck bombs struck buildings in Beirut housing U.S. and French members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon, killing 241 American servicemen and 58 French paratroopers. Islamic Jihad claims responsibility in a statement to Agence France Presse: "We are the soldiers of God, ... We are neither Iranians, Syrian nor Palestinians, but Muslims who follow the precepts of the Koran ... We said after that [April embassy bombing] that we would strike more violently still. Now they understand with what they are dealing. Violence will remain our only way."Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, 2001, p. 73
• 12 December 1983. 1983 Kuwait bombings. Two months after the Beirut barracks bombing. The 90-minute coordinated attack of six key foreign and Kuwaiti installations including two embassies, the airport and the country's main petro-chemical plant, was more notable for the damage it might have caused than what was actually destroyed. What might have been "the worst terrorist episode of the twentieth century in the Middle East," succeeding in killing only six people because of the bombs faulty rigging.Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, 2001, p. 112
• 18 January 1984. Malcolm H. Kerr, president of the American University in Beirut (AUB), was assassinated near his office. He had replaced AUB president David Dodge, who was kidnapped six months earlier. A telephone message claiming to represent Islamic Jihad proclaimed: "We are responsible of the assassination of the president of AUB ... We also vow that not a single American or French will remain on this soil. We shall take no different course. And we shall not waver."Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, 2001, pp. 101–2
• 7 February 1984. Gholam Ali Oveisi, former military governor of Tehran, and his brother were assassinated in Paris where they were in exile. An anonymous person called and told the UPI in London that the group perpetrated the assassination, stating "...we shall do this wherever our opposition is abroad."{{cite news|title=Two Iranian exiles are assassinated in Paris|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2245&dat=19840208&id=8pUzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=bjIHAAAAIBAJ&pg=5419,3921052|newspaper=Lodi News Sentinel|date=8 February 1984|agency=UPI|location=Paris}}
• 20 September 1984. 1984 U.S. embassy annex bombing. In Christian East Beirut the US embassy was bombed by a suicide van bomber with 3000 pounds of explosives. 14 were killed, including two Americans, and dozens were injured. They had moved to a "quiet residential suburb of hillside villas and luxury apartments" after the 1983 bombing. Ambassador Reginald Bartholomew and visiting British Ambassador David Miers were buried under rubble but rescued with only minor injuries. Islamic Jihad took credit in an anonymous phone call vowing, "The operation comes to prove that we will carry out our previous promise not to allow a single American to remain on Lebanese soil. ... we mean every inch of Lebanese territory. ..."Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, 2001, p. 107
• 12 April 1985. 1985 El Descanso bombing. The IJO claims a bombing of a Spanish restaurant aimed at American military personnel. The bomb killed 18 Spaniards and injured 82 others, including 11 American servicemen.Walker, Jane. "Spanish bomb blast blamed on Jihad / Madrid restaurant explosion blamed on Muslim group." The Guardian, 15 April 1985.
• 25 May 1985. Attempted assassination of Kuwaiti ruler (Emir) Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, by suicide car bomber attack of the Emir's motorcade. Two bodyguards and a passerby are killed. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility and again demands the terrorists release.New York Times 26 May 1985
• 22 July 1985. 1985 Copenhagen bombings. Two bombs exploded in a terrorist attack in Copenhagen, Denmark. One of the bombs exploded near the Great Synagogue and a Jewish nursing home and kindergarten, and another at the offices of Northwest Orient Airlines."27 Injured in 3 Terrorist Explosions in Copenhagen". Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. 22 July 1985. Archived from the original on 2015-02-15.
• 7 March 1992. Assassination of Ehud Sadan. A booby-trapped car exploded in Ankara, Turkey, killing Ehud Sadan, the security chief of the Israeli embassy, and wounding three bystanders. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility alongside the previously-unknown Islamic Revenge Organization.{{Cite news |last=Cowell |first=Alan |date=8 March 1992 |title=Car Bomb Kills an Israeli Embassy Aide in Turkey |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/car-bomb-kills-an-israeli-embassy-aide-in-turkey.html |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20230722034424/https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/car-bomb-kills-an-israeli-embassy-aide-in-turkey.html |archive-date=22 July 2023 |access-date=1 March 2025 |work=The New York Times |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=1992-03-08 |title=Israeli Envoy in Turkey Killed by Bomb |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-03-08-mn-6116-story.html |access-date=2025-03-02 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}
• 17 March 1992. 1992 Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires. A suicide truck bomber smashes into the front of the Israeli Embassy destroying the embassy, a Catholic church, and a nearby school building. 29 are killed and 242 wounded, mostly Argentinian civilians, many of them children. As of 2006 it remains the deadliest attack on an Israeli diplomatic mission. Islamic Jihad, claims responsibility, stating the attack was in retaliation for Israel's assassination of Hezbollah leader Sayed Abbas al-Musawi.{{cite web|url=https://fas.org/irp/threat/terror_92/review.html|title=1992 Patterns of Global Terrorism: The Year in Review|access-date=18 August 2017}}

• 12 December 1985. Arrow Air Flight 1285 taking off from Gander, Newfoundland, crashes and burns about half a mile from the runway, killing all 256 passengers and crew on board. An anonymous caller to a French news agency in Beirut claimed that Islamic Jihad destroyed the plane to prove "our ability to strike at the Americans anywhere."Watson, Laurie. "Errors By Crew Reportedly Cited in Gander Crash", Philadelphia Inquirer, United Press International, 6 November 1988, pp. A33. An investigation by the Canadian Aviation Safety Board (CASB) found that the crash was most likely an accident.{{Cite web|url=http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19851212-0|title=Arrow Air Flight 1285 accident record|publisher=ASN}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.sandford.org/gandercrash/investigations/majority_report/html/_i.shtml|title=CSB Majority Report}} However, the minority report speculated that the in-flight fire "may have resulted from detonations of undetermined origin".{{cite web|url=http://www.sandford.org/gandercrash/investigations/majority_report/html/_i.shtml|title=CASB Majority Report}}

{{Further|Lebanon Hostage Crisis}}

• 16 March 1984. William Francis Buckley, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Beirut chief of station, was abducted on this date. Islamic Jihad claims to have killed him on 3 October 1985, and later released to a Beirut newspaper a photograph purporting to depict his corpse. Press reports stated that Buckley had been transferred to Iran, where he was tortured and killed.{{cite web|url=http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-8105.html|title=Lebanon – The Hostage Crisis|website=www.country-data.com|access-date=18 August 2017}}
• May 1984. Presbyterian minister Benjamin Weir is kidnapped by three armed men. Weir may have thought he was safe from harm from Muslims because he had lived in Lebanon since 1958. He lived in Shiite West Beirut working "closely with various Muslim-oriented charity and relief groups". Two days after his abduction, a telephone message allegedly from Islamic Jihad, claiming responsibility for the abduction "in order to renew our acceptance of Reagan's challenge and to confirm our commitment of the statement ... that we will not leave any American on Lebanese soil." Weir was freed sixteen months later.Wright, Robin, Sacred Rage, Simon & Schuster, 2001, p.101,2,4
• 10 February 1986. Islamic Jihad released a photograph that claimed to show the (dead) body of French citizen Michel Seurat, who had been kidnapped earlier.
• In January 1987, Terry Waite traveled to Beirut with the intention of negotiating with Islamic Jihad to release hostages. The group violated an agreement of safe passage and kidnapped him.{{Cite news|last=Ap|date=1987-02-01|title=Abductors in Beirut Demand That Israel Free 400 Prisoners|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/01/world/abductors-in-beirut-demand-that-israel-free-400-prisoners.html|access-date=2020-03-13|issn=0362-4331}}{{Cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/18/newsid_2520000/2520055.stm|title=1991: Church envoy Waite freed in Beirut|date=1991-11-18|access-date=2020-03-13|language=en-GB}} He was kept as a hostage until 1991.{{Cite web|url=https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2017/24-november/news/uk/from-the-archive-bells-ring-nationwide-to-welcome-terry-waite|title=From the archive: Bells ring nationwide to welcome Terry Waite|website=www.churchtimes.co.uk|access-date=2020-03-13}}

The IJO suffered a setback in 1986 when their temporary abduction of four Soviet diplomats carried out previously in September 1985 ended up in the assassination of one hostage. The KGB promptly retaliated with intimidation and by pressuring Syria to stop its operations in northern Lebanon in exchange for release of the remaining three hostages.{{cite web|url=http://svr.gov.ru/smi/2001/ogon20011022.htm|title=Interview with former Beirut KGB resident Yuri Perfilev|access-date=18 August 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070128011810/http://svr.gov.ru/smi/2001/ogon20011022.htm|archive-date=28 January 2007}} This fiasco, coupled by the pressure resulting from tighter security measures and joint anti-militia sweeps implemented by the Syrian Army, the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) and the Shi'ite Amal militia at the Shia quarters of West Beirut in 1987–88, brought a steady decline in the organization's activities in Lebanon for the rest of the civil war.

The last recorded attack claimed by the IJO as an independent group took place outside the Middle East in March 1992, when the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was blown up in retaliation for Israel's assassination of Hezbollah's secretary-general Abbas al-Musawi in February that year.{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tehran/interviews/baer.html|title=Interviews – Robert Baer – Terror And Tehran – FRONTLINE – PBS|website=PBS |date=2 May 2002|access-date=18 May 2016}}{{cite news|last=Long|first=William R.|title=Islamic Jihad Says It Bombed Embassy; Toll 21|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-03-19-mn-5905-story.html|access-date=23 July 2012|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=19 March 1992}}

This organization is no longer active. Some reports indicate that they merged with Hezbollah afterwards, with their leader Imad Mughniyeh appointed head of that party's overseas security apparatus.{{cite news|title=Hezbollah Again Postpones General Congress|url=http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/hezbollah-delays-general-congress.html|access-date=25 March 2013|newspaper=Al Monitor|date=20 March 2013}}{{cite news |title=The Final Hours of Imad Mughniyeh |url=http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/exclusive-final-hours-imad-mughniyeh |access-date=4 April 2013 |newspaper=Al Akhbar |date=19 February 2013 |location=Damascus |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130222031958/http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/exclusive-final-hours-imad-mughniyeh |archive-date=22 February 2013 |url-status=dead }} In 2008 Mughniyeh was killed by a car bomb in Damascus, Syria as a part of a CIA and Mossad combined operation.{{cite news|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1350754620080213|title=Hezbollah's most wanted commander killed in Syria bomb|date=13 February 2008|access-date=13 February 2008|work=Reuters}}{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/13/whizbollah213.xml|title=Israel denies assassinating Hezbollah chief|last=Powell|first=Robyn|date=13 February 2008|work=Daily Telegraph|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080215010927/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2008%2F02%2F13%2Fwhizbollah213.xml|archive-date=15 February 2008|url-status=dead|author2=Chivers, Tom|location=London|df=dmy-all}}[http://www.jpost.com/Features/FrontLines/Article.aspx?id=207767], "Will Hezbullah avenge the hit on its terror chief?" by Yaakov Katz, 11 February 2011{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-and-mossad-killed-senior-hezbollah-figure-in-car-bombing/2015/01/30/ebb88682-968a-11e4-8005-1924ede3e54a_story.html|title=CIA and Mossad killed senior Hezbollah figure in car bombing|last1=Goldman|first1=Adam|date=2015-01-30|newspaper=Washington Post|access-date=2018-02-16|last2=Nakashima|first2=Ellen|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/mughniyeh-assassination-cia-115049|title=Why the CIA Killed Imad Mughniyeh|work=POLITICO Magazine|access-date=2018-02-15}}

• Hezbollah
• Organization of the Oppressed on Earth
• Islamic terrorism
• Jihad
• Lebanese Civil War

{{Reflist}}

Category:Factions in the Lebanese Civil War

Category:Islamist insurgent groups

Category:Hezbollah

Category:Israeli–Lebanese conflict

Category:Defunct Islamic organizations

Category:1983 establishments in Lebanon

Category:1992 disestablishments in Lebanon

Category:Islamic organizations established in 1983

Category:Islamic organisations based in Lebanon

Category:Organizations disestablished in 1992