Hizballah Returns to a Dangerous Business

Call it cyberjihad. with his nubby oatmeal sweater, blue jeans and easy smile, Malek Hussein might seem more at home sipping a latte in Seattle than sugary tea in Beirut's Shi'ite Muslim stronghold. But the 38-year-old self-taught Webmaster is holed up in a secret office where the Lebanese Islamic group Hizballah operates an Internet site that blasts propaganda against Israel. With a four-person staff, Hussein is fending off a hacker assault launched by Israelis. "They're going after us!" proclaims Hussein, who loads software designed to deflect the bulk messages that become e-mail bombs when they reach Hizballah's Web address.

After a four-month lull, Hizballah and Israel are back at war. In two provocative operations last month, Hizballah commandos captured three Israeli soldiers and a businessman who the group claims is a Mossad agent, putting Hizballah back in the spotlight as heroes of the Arab world. The group is also openly extending its campaign beyond Lebanon, using its financial and operational resources to whip up Palestinian fury.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak hoped he had seen the last of Hizballah when he ended a 22-year military occupation of southern Lebanon in May. Many Lebanese, including some Hizballah moderates, expected the group to downsize its guerrilla activities and become a conventional political party. But Hizballah's political ambitions were toasted by a dismal showing in parliamentary elections in September. So, with the blessing of Iran, which has supported Hizballah for years, the group has returned to its path of violent resistance.

The latest clashes between Israelis and Palestinians have offered a good pretext. In a TIME interview at his fortified office in Beirut's southern suburbs, Hizballah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah made it clear that the group's political aims in Lebanon have become secondary to the regional jihad to free Jerusalem from Israeli occupation. "There is no doubt that our most important role is in the region," he explained. "We have experience, and we are ready to help. All means must be used to help the Palestinians." U.S. officials contend that Hizballah is training radical Palestinian factions for terrorist operations. And though Israel has tried to up the stakes by threatening to attack Syria in retaliation for Hizballah's moves, it's not entirely clear that Syria controls the group. Hizballah's top leadership is probably as responsive to Iran as it is to Syria. Still, the prospect of Israel's taking on the group's sponsors instead of just the group is worrisome.

To be sure, Hizballah still seems ready to take on Israel. The group runs patrols along the Israeli border--which helped it snatch those three Israeli soldiers last month. And the group has shown new skills in luring the Israeli businessman--who it says is a spy--to Beirut before nabbing him.

If past experience with fundamentalists' holding hostages in Lebanon is anything to go by, the Israeli captives have probably been separated from one another to prevent a rescue mission. They may be allowed a mattress, blanket and pillow and be supplied with simple meals like flat Arabic bread, yellow cheese and tea. Hizballah refuses to release any details about their captivity, hoping that it can exchange scraps of information for imprisoned Hizballah activists. Nineteen Lebanese militants and hundreds of Arab prisoners are in jail in Israel, and the group hopes the hostages will be a way to get them back. The militant resistance business is clearly one that Hizballah is good at. American and Israeli hopes that it would be out of that business forever were clearly premature.