Hizb'allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis

Abstract

The Lebanese Hizb'Alla organisation and its involvement in the abduction of Western citizens is a complex subject veiled in secrecy which plagued the conduct of foreign policy for most Western governments for over a decade. The West's chequered response to the hostage-crisis underlines the dilemma of the fulfilment of these state's duty to protect their citizens taken hostage abroad without major sacrifices in the conduct of foreign policy. This study demonstrates that the abduction of Western citzens by the Hizb'Allah was motivated either by internal organisational requirements or in alignment with Syrian and Iranian interests and that mechanisms for the resolution of the hostage-crisis were subject to continuous interaction between Hizb'Allah, Iran, and Syria, influenced by internal Lebanese, regional and international events.

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