Hezbollah’s Man in Egypt

In November 2008, Egyptian authorities broke up what they said was a Hezbollah network plotting attacks in Egypt. While some of the charges appear to have been exaggerated, and it is clear that not all those arrested were in fact Hezbollah operatives, a careful examination reveals that a Hezbollah network was, in fact, operating on Egyptian soil. That it was originally tasked with carrying out neither surveillance nor attacks makes the case all the more intriguing, especially when compared with other cells that faced similar reassignments. As a case study, the Hezbollah network—which demonstrated the use of several known Hezbollah modus operandi—underscores how Hezbollah operates around the world in general, and in the Middle East in particular.