The unlikely Hezbollah alliance that heralds a new era of terrorism

 In the dead of night, Israeli special forces converged on the remote village of Habbariyeh in the mountainous terrain of southern Lebanon.

To outward appearances, their target was merely a local politician.

But on Monday – the raid having concluded with no casualties – the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) announced the capture of a “senior” terrorist, later named as Atwi Atwi.

Surprisingly for an operation in this area, Atwi is not accused of belonging to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia group, which prompted accusations of “piracy” from the Lebanese government.

Instead, he is from an entirely different terror group, and one that is Sunni.

Atwi is the local commander of the al-Farj Forces, the armed wing of the al-Jama’a al-Islamiya (“Islamic Group”), which is believed to be working closely with Hezbollah.

The group have, for the first time in decades, worried intelligence chiefs in Tel Aviv over the prospect of Hezbollah forging new “smarter” alliances on Israel’s northern border that reach across sectarian divides.

Israel is so concerned that they have launched ground raids into southern Syria and southern Lebanon to take out and disrupt the al-Farj Forces.

Some analysts warn that the newfound cooperation between the Sunni al-Farj Forces and Shia Hezbollah creates a new “pan-Islamic” jihadi high-command.

The al-Farj Forces, which form the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, became active in the early 1980s in response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, but went into decline once the IDF withdrew in 2000.

They emerged again after the October 7 massacre by Hamas, claiming involvement in the firing of some rockets into northern Israel in support of Hezbollah. Their involvement was largely seen as symbolic, however, with insufficient fighters or weaponry to make a real difference along the border.

More than two years on, that has now changed.

In recent months, the Israelis have carried out a number of raids into Lebanon and Syria to destroy caches of weapons, as well as launching drones and other airstrikes to assassinate commanders.

An operation in November in Beit Jinn, southern Syria, to blow up an al-Farj weapons depot turned into a bloody ambush, in which six Israeli soldiers were badly wounded and some 13 Syrians killed.

Credit: Reuters

Last weekend’s decision to risk a ground incursion into hostile territory to capture Atwi alive – he is now being interrogated – illustrates just how seriously they are taking the resurgent terror group.

The IDF has been striking targets in southern Lebanon almost daily, despite the fact that Hezbollah and Israel agreed a ceasefire after the war of autumn 2024, with the group greatly reduced in strength because of the decapitation of its leadership and Israel’s ground incursion.

Lebanon’s army is tasked with disarming Hezbollah on the ground, and has claimed some progress, but not to the satisfaction of Israel.

In Israeli military circles, the subject of another major war in southern Lebanon is spoken of in terms of “when”, and not “if”.

Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the apparent resurgence of the al-Farj Forces showed that Hezbollah was actively looking to work alongside new allies to displace the retaliatory risk from the IDF.

“The concern is that Hezbollah is trying to find people who are not actually Hezbollah, who may have a little bit more freedom of movement, people who are seen less as an Iranian proxy and more as Lebanese fighters,” he told The Telegraph.

“They’re looking along the Syrian and Lebanese borders to find these proxies.”

On top of the potential military potency of a tactical alliance between Hezbollah and the al-Farj, some analysts see a worrying symbolism in the close cooperation between Sunni and Shia jihadists.

While Hezbollah has worked alongside various Sunni Islamists in Lebanon before, such as the Resistance Brigades, this partnership forms a new bond between Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), which effectively controls the group, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Bassem Hammoud, deputy head of al-Jama’a al-Islamiya’s political bureau, said in 2024 that “the relationship with Hezbollah is between two Lebanese political components. We agree on some issues and differ on others. Right now, we are partners resisting the enemy.”

The brotherhood, which was founded in Egypt in 1928, holds a huge sway over Islamist-minded Sunnis across the world and has formidable funding and financing capabilities.

Although Hamas is technically the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and they have worked closely with Iran, previously it has not been thought that the brotherhood and Iran share a deep strategic alliance.

Only last month, Donald Trump designated its Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese branches of the Brotherhood as Foreign Terrorist Organisations, partly as a result of the anti-Semitic firebomb attack in Boulder Colorado last year, the perpetrator of which expressed allegiance to the organisation.

Amine Ayoub, an analyst of Islamism, warned in Ynet this week of the apparent new alliance giving Tehran’s hostility towards Israel a “pan-Islamic” legitimacy, and a “unified tactical umbrella”.