Warriors of God (18 page)

A Hezbollah fighter who has advanced in the “greater jihad” will have spiritually moved beyond the human fear of death, instead welcoming it as a sacrifice in God's name during the fulfillment of the “lesser jihad.” Unlike suicide, which is forbidden by Islam, Hezbollah considers the act of self-sacrifice as a paramount demonstration of faith in God, far removed from earthly, corporeal concerns. The motifs of martyrdom are inescapable in Hezbollah's strongholds, where streets and roads are lined with the portraits of “martyrs”—fighters who have died in battle—and billboards with paintings of fallen fighters entering garish representations of paradise with richly colored landscapes of green hills, wildflowers, and flowing rivers bathed in bright sunlight. The annual Martyrs' Day commemoration held each November 11 (the anniversary of Ahmad Qassir's suicide bombing of the IDF headquarters in Tyre in 1982) is one of the most important events in Hezbollah's calendar. Each Hezbollah fighter is photographed for an official “martyr's” portrait on joining the Islamic Resistance. His picture will adorn his neighborhood's lampposts should he be killed in the course of duty,
and each year he updates a “martyr's letter,” containing his final thoughts and wishes.

Conversations with committed Hezbollah fighters on the subject of martyrdom hold a certain surreal quality. When I met Maher, commander of a sector in south Lebanon, in May 2000, he mentioned that two of his friends had been killed days earlier in an operation inside the occupation zone. Normally, one would offer a polite commiseration, but Maher forestalled any expression of condolence with a raised hand. “Do not be sorry for them, be happy for them,” he said with a wistful smile. “God chose them to be martyrs, and, God willing, one day I, too, will be martyred fighting the Israelis.”

Maher had light brown crew-cut hair and a neatly trimmed beard, and his pale blue eyes shone with unquestioning confidence in the certainty of his convictions. At thirty-three years of age, Maher was a combat veteran, having joined the resistance in 1983. He was in charge of four units, two assault and two fire support. But he was also married and a father; when I met him, his wife was pregnant with their fourth child. If he were to die in combat, Hezbollah would provide for his family—a house, free education for his children, medical care, and a pension of around $350 a month. Yet how could he relish the prospect of death when he would leave behind him a widow and four fatherless children? Maher smiled again, nodding sympathetically.

“It is difficult for you to understand because you are not a Muslim. My wife will feel great joy and pride if I am martyred,” he said. “Martyrdom is a religious and philosophical concept. Islam is the same as Christianity and Judaism in the sense that if you follow God you will go to Heaven. But in Islam, it's explained differently. We are born to get acquainted with God. Our goal of living is to reach God. To reach God we have to move from the living world to the next world. This is done by death. We are all going to die, but each person has a choice of how to die. The way we lead our life dictates our death. According to Islam, the best way to die is to die for God.”

Hezbollah fighters can volunteer to join the Martyrdom (Istishadiyun) Unit, which means that they could be selected for specific suicide
attacks or particularly perilous missions where chances of survival are low. Although Hezbollah has always been associated in the public mind with suicide bombings, it conducted only eleven such operations in Lebanon during the years of Israeli occupation between 1982 and 2000. Of the eleven, only four were carried out during the 1990s.

“Martyrdom is a personal initiative,” says Maher. “A potential martyr makes his decision, then tells his religious leader [
marja'
]. The religious leader decides whether the candidate is suitable or not. Sayyed Nasrallah is the only one who can decide these things in Lebanon. He makes the decision according to priorities. He assesses whether the result is worthy of the act, then decides. It also depends on the situation on the ground. An act of martyrdom is like a military operation.”

This type of martyrdom is an alien concept in Western philosophy, which emphasizes the sanctity of life, but for many Hezbollah combatants, seeking death is a desirable outcome, one that is nurtured and constantly reinforced by the religious and cultural environment in which he lives. For unlike a member of a political party in the West, the Hezbollah recruit is submitting to a way of life that will dictate almost every aspect of his or her future: choice of friends, employment, social amenities, and often even marriage.

“In one home you could have a brother who is a communist, another who is with Amal, and a third who is with Hezbollah,” explains the Chief. “They are all brothers in the same family, but for the Hezbollah man, Hezbollah is his family. He breathes Hezbollah, eats Hezbollah, everything is Hezbollah.… None of our fighters join because they want a job. Many of us are educated people—university graduates, teachers, doctors. We are like everyone else. We want to live in peace, but we also want to live in dignity and without having our rights trampled upon.”

After a recruit has passed through the initial
tahdirat
phase, he will enter the second stage of induction, known as
intizam
, or commitment, which also lasts around a year, during which the rigors of party discipline are instilled along with basic military training. “Afterward, it depends on his improvements, he can undergo other courses with higher
levels that enable him to hold positions within the organization,” Qassem says. “Some are gradual and some are specialized. You can say it's like a university.”

Paradoxically, despite the cultish aspects of the indoctrination and educational process, Hezbollah is not interested in churning out an army of mindless drones blindly sacrificing themselves. A degree of self-reliance and autonomy is encouraged, so long as the parameters of party discipline are not breached. Even within Hezbollah, there are those who practice their religious observance more deeply than others. Speaking in the context of the resistance against the Israeli occupation in the late 1990s, Nasrallah admitted that there were two categories of fighters in the Islamic Resistance: “Fighters and officers whose objective is eventually to go back home, and those whose objective is martyrdom, pure and simple. The latter have a far higher morale on the battlefield, and regardless of the kind of weapons they carry, their faith and spirit makes them strong and steadfast and allows them to deal the enemy a severe blow.”

The lengthy and intense process of religious instruction attempts to inculcate within the recruit the moral and religious rectitude of the second category to which Nasrallah refers. Maher, for example, fitted into this category. Raised in an austere and violent environment in south Lebanon and devout from childhood, he had known nothing but resistance and jihad throughout his young adult life. Maher was a single-minded combatant for whom the act of resisting Israel was considered a religious obligation that even took precedence over his human desire to end Israel's occupation of his natal village.

The Chief, on the other hand, although pious, had not reached the same level of religious intensity as that attained by Maher. He admitted to me that his principal motivation was a desire to protect Lebanon from Israel. The Chief's upbringing was generally secular, and he had been a talented athlete before joining Hezbollah. His easygoing, friendly nature made him a popular figure in his neighborhood, which is why Hezbollah appointed him a recruiter and placed dozens of fighters under his charge. The Chief was an organizer and a team leader rather than a resolute seeker of martyrdom.

Still, despite the arduous induction process, there is no compulsion to join Hezbollah. The party seeks only those who are unreservedly committed to its ideology and willing to follow the doctrine of
wilayat al-faqih
, which is an unconditional prerequisite for membership. Recruits who remain unconvinced after weeks of educational courses are free to leave.

“The
wali al-faqih
is the leader as far as we are concerned,” Qassem says. “His status in Islam is a religious one. If we are to be reassured that our applications of the teaching of our religion are correct, we need to know the restrictions and the rules that the religion endorses. He gives us these rules and our general political performance. He does not interfere in details.”

As an example, Qassem said that the resistance campaign against Israel in Lebanon from 1982 was religiously sanctioned by the
wali al-faqih
, Khomeini at the time. But the
wali al-faqih
did not bother with the tactical details of how Hezbollah waged its resistance campaign. Similarly, the
wali al-faqih
, this time Khamenei, was the ultimate arbiter of Hezbollah's decision to enter parliamentary politics in 1992. But Hezbollah's parliamentary policies are left up to the party and do not individually require approval by the
wali al-faqih
.

“During this period, the [recruit] will have a vision forming through information. If he becomes convinced … he will become a member. If he doesn't believe in it, he will leave us. It's a matter of conviction,” Qassem explained to me. “Hezbollah has a doctrinal intellectual Islamic code of law. It regards the
wilayat al-faqih
as part of its system. We believe in the leadership of the
wali al-faqih
. This is a religious issue as far as we are concerned. All those who want to be a part of Hezbollah have to commit themselves to its intellectual code of law, and the
wilayat al-faqih
is part of this.”

Many recruits receive little or no pay from Hezbollah for the first two or three years, and most will find day jobs to provide an income. Later they will receive monthly salaries and financial support for housing, education of children, and medical needs.

After the 2006 war with Israel, Nasrallah authorized a onetime payment of $100 to each Hezbollah fighter and members of his immediate family in a simple gesture of appreciation. The sum was deliberately kept small. “If we gave them all Range Rovers, they wouldn't want to fight anymore,” noted one Hezbollah official.

Hezbollah fights for God, not Mammon, but the party's leadership knows from the experiences of others the temptations that arise when an organization is awash with funds and practices lax accounting. The lure of cash can easily dull the sharp edge of commitment to the cause. In the 1970s, Hezbollah's future leaders had watched the PLO leadership become corrupt and lazy when it was the recipient of substantial funds from foreign donor countries. The Amal movement today is inefficient and bloated by graft, corrupted by access to state funds to sustain its patronage networks—a grubby legacy to the integrity of Musa Sadr's original vision.

Recruits into Hezbollah are expected to be financially honest and reliable in accordance with Islamic tenets. Anis Naqqash, the early tutor of the young Imad Mughniyah, recalls sharing a taxi from Damascus to Beirut with a young Hezbollah fighter who had just returned from a training session in Iran. Naqqash offered to pay the fighter's $15 taxi fare, but the youngster insisted on paying for himself. Naqqash took offense and told him, “Shame on you. I am like your father. I am a businessman and you are a student.” But the youngster would not yield. Later, Naqqash discussed the incident with a friend in Hezbollah.

“Yes, this is normal,” the Hezbollah man said. “We would have given him the fifteen dollars for the taxi fare. It was impossible for him to keep the money for himself.”

Although salaries may be limited, the Hezbollah member knows that his needs will be met by the party, which acts as a vast social welfare network in a country where state social support is almost nonexistent. If a Hezbollah fighter has an accident and requires hospitalization but lacks insurance or the funds to be admitted for treatment, the party will step in and provide the financial coverage and handle the paperwork. I heard of one young Hezbollah man who fought bravely on the front lines in south Lebanon during the 2006 war who was rewarded afterward
with a grant of $40,000, allowing him to marry and purchase a home.

Self-discipline and obedience are integral characteristics of Hezbollah. Hezbollah fighters are expected to obey all orders promptly and fully when they are given. They are also expected to behave correctly toward each other as well as toward people outside the party, a natural outcome of successfully pursuing the “greater jihad.” Transgressors face being fined, having pay docked, or spending time in Hezbollah's own prison in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

During the preparatory phase, each recruit is subjected to a rigorous background security check by Hezbollah's internal security apparatus. Anyone who has lived abroad for a lengthy period of time, for example, will be treated as a potential security risk and face great difficulty in joining. The security assessment is constantly updated during the recruit's subsequent life within Hezbollah. Hezbollah has managed to maintain a high level of internal security over the years due to each recruit's learning self-discipline and developing a sense of security. Nevertheless, individual Hezbollah fighters feel the tug of human emotion—anger, jealousy, humor—just like anyone else. Many of the Hezbollah fighters who spoke to me for this book were not authorized to do so, but some of them had become friends over the years, and others were willing to talk on the assurances of mutual acquaintances.

Hezbollah men tend to be wary of strangers and are required to report any contact with a foreigner to their superiors. Foreigners appearing in Hezbollah-controlled areas are sometimes stopped and questioned and occasionally followed. Every now and then one hears stories of unsuspecting foreign tourists swooped upon by vigilant Hezbollah men while innocently snapping photographs in Beirut's southern suburbs. A newcomer to Lebanon doubtless will be unsettled, to say the least, when apprehended by burly Hezbollah men or tailed by a militant riding an off-road motorcycle while driving through southern villages. But Hezbollah personnel are generally disciplined and polite, albeit firm, when quizzing a visitor. Over the years I have run the gamut of Hezbollah security procedures, from the mild (being stopped and politely questioned for a few minutes) to the mildly annoying (being stopped, politely
questioned, and having a roll of film confiscated) to the disconcerting (being stopped, politely questioned, and photographed, face-on and profile, mug-shot-style, by a Hezbollah security officer) to the thoroughly vexing (being stopped, detained, interrogated, accused of being a spy, handed over to Lebanese military intelligence, and thrown in jail for the night).