| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 4,000 [1] - 5,000 [2] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Beirut, Nabatieh | |
| Languages | |
| Persian, Kurdish, Azerbaijani, Armenian and Arabic | |
| Religion | |
| Shia Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Iranians, Arabs, Azeris, Armenians, Lebanese, Kurds, Turks, Arab-Persians |
Iranians in Lebanon are people of Iranian background or descent residing in Lebanon. Some of them are Lebanese citizens while some are migrants or descendants born in Lebanon with Iranian heritage. Many Iranians in Lebanon live in Nabatieh. [3] Many of the Iranians in Lebanon are carpet traders. [2] [1]
Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group. Its paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council. Hezbollah was led by Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah from 1992 until his assassination in an airstrike in Beirut in September 2024.
Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia, bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west; Cyprus lies a short distance from the country's coastline. It is at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula. Lebanon has a population of more than five million and an area of 10,452 square kilometres (4,036 sq mi). Beirut is the country's capital and largest city.
Hassan Nasrallah was a Lebanese cleric and politician who served as the secretary-general of Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist political party and militia, from 1992 until his assassination in 2024.
Imad Fayez Mughniyeh, alias al-Hajj Radwan, was a Lebanese militant leader who was the founding member of Lebanon's Islamic Jihad Organization and number two in Hezbollah's leadership. Information about Mughniyeh is limited, but he is believed to have been Hezbollah's chief of staff and understood to have overseen Hezbollah's military, intelligence, and security apparatuses. He was one of the main founders of Hezbollah in the 1980s. He has been described as "a brilliant military tactician and very elusive". He was often referred to as an ‘untraceable ghost’.
Musa Sadr al-Din al-Sadr was an Iranian-Lebanese Shia Muslim cleric and politician. In Lebanon, he founded and revived many Lebanese Shia organizations, including schools, charities, and the Amal Movement.
The Quds Force is one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. U.S. Army's Iraq War General Stanley McChrystal describes the Quds Force as an organization analogous to a combination of the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the United States. Responsible for extraterritorial operations, the Quds Force supports non-state actors in many countries, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthi movement, and Shia militias in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. According to Michael Wigginton et al., the Al-Quds Force is "a classic example of state-sponsored terrorism."
The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War, was a 34-day armed conflict in Lebanon, northern Israel and the Golan Heights. The principal parties were Hezbollah paramilitary forces and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The conflict started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, though it formally ended on 8 September 2006 when Israel lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon. Due to unprecedented Iranian military support to Hezbollah before and during the war, some consider it the first round of the Iran–Israel proxy conflict, rather than a continuation of the Arab–Israeli conflict.
Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been accused by several countries of training, financing, and providing weapons and safe havens for non-state militant actors, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and other Palestinian groups such as the Islamic Jihad (IJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). These groups are designated terrorist groups by a number of countries and international bodies such as the EU, UN, and NATO, but Iran considers such groups to be "national liberation movements" with a right to self-defense against Israeli military occupation. These proxies are used by Iran across the Middle East and Europe to foment instability, expand the scope of the Islamic Revolution, and carry out terrorist attacks against Western targets in the regions. Its special operations unit, the Quds Force, is known to provide arms, training, and financial support to militias and political movements across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Yemen.
Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). From 1998 until his assassination by the United States in 2020, he was the commander of the Quds Force, an IRGC division primarily responsible for extraterritorial and clandestine military operations, and played a key role in the Syrian Civil War through securing Russian intervention. He was described as "the single most powerful operative in the Middle East" and a "genius of asymmetric warfare." Former Mossad director Yossi Cohen said Soleimani's strategies had "personally tightened a noose around Israel's neck."
The Axis of Resistance is a network of Iranian-backed militias and political groups in the Middle East, formed by Iran by uniting and grooming armed groups that are dedicated to confronting the influence of United States and Israel in the Middle East, and shares hostility toward the countries. The U.S. designates most of these groups as terrorist organizations.
The Iran–Israel proxy conflict, also known as the Iran–Israel proxy war or Iran–Israel Cold War, is an ongoing proxy conflict between Iran and Israel. In the Israeli–Lebanese conflict, Iran has supported Lebanese Shia militias, most notably Hezbollah. In the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Iran has backed Palestinian groups such as Hamas. Israel has supported Iranian rebels, such as the People's Mujahedin of Iran, conducted airstrikes against Iranian allies in Syria and assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists. In 2018 Israeli forces directly attacked Iranian forces in Syria.
The 2013 Iranian embassy bombing in Beirut was a double suicide bombing in front of the Iranian embassy in Beirut, Lebanon on 19 November 2013. The two bombings resulted in 23 deaths and injured at least 160 others.
Irreligion in the Middle East is the lack of religion in the Middle East. Though atheists in the Middle East are rarely public about their lack of belief, as they are persecuted in many countries where they are classified as terrorists, there are some atheist organizations in the Middle East. Islam dominates public and private life in most Middle East countries. Nonetheless, there reside small numbers of irreligious individuals within those countries who often face serious formal and, in some cases, informal legal and social consequences.
The January 2015 Mazraat Amal incident was an airstrike against a two-car convoy that killed six Hezbollah fighters, including two prominent commanders, and a general of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, at al-Amal Farms in the Quneitra District of Syria, in the Eastern Golan Heights, on 18 January 2015, during the Syrian Civil War. The attack was largely attributed to Israel, which did not officially confirm that it carried it out. Hezbollah and IRGC held Israel responsible and threatened to retaliate. On 19 January 2015, Al-Nusra Front member Abu Azzam al-Idlibi claimed that Jihad Mughniyeh and the other Hezbollah fighters were killed in an Al-Nusra Front ambush at Jaroud in the Qalamoun Mountains in the Al-Qutayfah District northeast of Damascus, claiming that it "will be the end of the Persian project, God willing."
The 2015 Southern Syria offensive, code-named "Operation Martyrs of Quneitra", was an offensive launched in southern Syria during the Syrian Civil War by the Syrian Arab Army, Hezbollah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces. Government forces also include Iranian sponsored Afghani Shi'ite volunteer militias. The name "Operation Martyrs of Quneitra" refers to the January 2015 Mazraat Amal incident, in which several high level Hezbollah and IRGC members were killed in an Israeli strike.
Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian civil war has been substantial since the beginning of armed insurgency phase of the Syrian civil war in 2011, and evolved into active support for Syrian government forces and troop deployment from 2012 onwards. By 2014, Hezbollah was deployed across Syria. Hezbollah has also been very active in preventing Al-Nusra Front and Islamic State penetration into Lebanon, being one of the most active forces in the Syrian civil war spillover in Lebanon.
The State of Israel has been accused of engaging in state-sponsored terrorism, as well as committing acts of state terrorism on a daily basis in the Palestinian territories. Countries that have condemned Israel's role as a perpetrator of state-sponsored terrorism or state terrorism include Bolivia, Iran, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.
Lebanon's role in the Syrian Civil War has been limited, compared to the role of other regional and international actors. While the Lebanese Republic has not been officially involved in the conflict, it has been greatly affected by it and some Lebanese factors have taken an active role in the Syrian War and its spillover into Lebanon.
The Iran–Israel conflict during the Syrian civil war refers to the Iranian–Israeli standoff in and around Syria during the Syrian conflict. With increasing Iranian involvement in Syria from 2011 onwards, the conflict shifted from a proxy war into a direct confrontation by early 2018.
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1 The Lebanese people has the most religious diversity of all peoples in the Middle East, comprising 18 recognized religious sects recognized by the Constitution of Lebanon. 2 Under the terms of the Constitution of Lebanon, the Druze community is designated as a part of the Lebanese Muslim community. | |||||||
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