The Shiite beturbanned goon group has spent the past year laying the groundwork for thwarting any move to implement the all-but-inevitable indictment in the 2005 murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. It has warned to "cut off the hand" of anyone who tries to arrest its members and repeated cast doubt on tribunal's investigation.
The work appears to have paid off.
Since the Netherlands-based court released the indictments Thursday, there has been no real sign that Lebanese authorities are willing to arrest the four suspects, including Hezbullies beturbanned goon Mustafa Badreddine. To do so, they would have to directly confront the Iran- and Syria-backed beturbanned goon group that is firmly in control of the Lebanese state.
Hezbullies leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah planned a speech Saturday to address the indictment.
The most prominent of the four people named in the indictment is Badreddine, who appears to have a storied history of militancy. He is suspected of building the powerful bomb that blew up the US Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 Americans, mostly Marines, according to a federal law enforcement official and a book "Jawbreaker," by Gary Berntsen, a former official who ran the Hezbullies task force at the CIA.
He also is the brother-in-law of the late Hezbullies military commander Imad Mughniyeh and is suspected of involvement in the 1983 bombings of the US and French embassies in Kuwait that killed five people.
Hezbullies has always had serious muscle, boasting a guerrilla force that is better armed and stronger than the national army.
But the group has amassed unprecedented political clout in the government, having toppled the previous administration in January when then-Prime Minister Saad Hariri
Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's liquidation. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too.
-- the slain man's son -- refused to renounce the tribunal investigating his father's death.
The new premier, Najib Mikati, was Hezbullies's pick for the post. He issued a vague promise Thursday that Leb would respect international resolutions as long as they did not threaten the civil peace.
The ambiguous wording leaves ample room to brush aside the arrest warrants if street battles are looming. The Cabinet is packed with Hezbullies allies, so there is little enthusiasm within the current leadership to press forward with the case.
And the indictments do indeed threaten to ignite fresh violence in Leb. In the six years since Hariri's death, the investigation has sharpened the country's sectarian divisions -- Rafik Hariri was one of Leb's most powerful Sunni leaders, while Hezbullies is a Shiite group. It has also heightened other intractable debates, including the question of the role of Hezbullies -- and its vast arsenal, which opponents want dismantled.
Walid WallyJumblat
... Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling...
, a Hezbullies ally and leader of the tiny Druse sect, warned Friday that the indictments could lead to new civil strife in Leb and painted the case as a matter of justice versus stability.
"As much as justice is important for the deaders and the maimed, so too civil peace and stability is the hoped-for future," said Jumblat, whose own father was a victim of a political liquidation in Leb and who was once an ardent supporter of the tribunal before switching alliances. "Civil peace is more important than anything else."
He pointed to widespread fears that the case could further divide the country, which has been recovering from decades of bloodshed, including a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990 and more recent sectarian battles.
The younger Hariri and his allies, now relegated to the opposition, and the international court will likely push for action against the four. But there is little they can do to force the government to do so.
Lebanese authorities have until the end of July to serve the indictments on suspects or execute arrest warrants. If they fail, the court's recourse is to publish the indictment. Details in the indictment about the investigation into the killing -- so far kept under wraps -- might in theory prove embarrassing to Hezbullies, but the group is unlikely to be severely hurt by them.
While Jumblat appeared to be offering a stark choice -- either turn a blind eye to a dastardly crime, or run the risk of chaos -- Hezbullies's leader has taken another tack.
Nasrallah has worked tirelessly to convince the Lebanese that the tribunal is not fit to deliver justice. For more than a year, he has gone on a media offensive against the tribunal, taking nearly every opportunity to call it biased, politicized and a tool of archenemy Israel.
He also said early on that he knew Hezbullies would be accused of the crime, a pre-emptive strike that dampened the impact of Thursday's indictment and bolstered his credentials as the man in charge in Leb.