Word: hizballah
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...published children's books), few were suspicious when Ezzeddine promised investors a share of his business with the lure of outstanding returns - from 20% to 40% - and few details of how the plan worked or guarantees or paperwork. Still, what he seemed to have - the implicit backing of Hizballah, the popular anti-Israeli militant group and political party - was as good as gold to its many loyal followers among the Shi'ites of Lebanon...
...Ezzeddine's schemes - supposed investments in oil, publishing, metals and television, spread out from the Gulf to Africa - are unraveling on a spectacular scale, and it is casting Hizballah in an unflattering light. The house of cards began falling earlier this month, when his businesses went bankrupt, ostensibly from the effects of the global financial crisis. But rumors swirled in the press of a pyramid scheme of more than $1 billion, and the local media dubbed Ezzeddine the Lebanese Bernie Madoff. Last weekend the Lebanese government charged him with fraud. All across the Shi'ite-populated regions of Lebanon, thousands...
Ezzeddine's exact connection to Hizballah is unclear. The organization denied having an official relationship with him, but Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah has acknowledged that the group was being tainted by association, saying he would mount an investigation to account for investor losses. But many investors have said Hizballah officials not only encouraged them to put their money and trust in Ezzeddine but also claimed that his investments were halal, acceptable according to Muslim laws that forbid profiting from interest (which they equate with usury). (See pictures of Hizballah's youth movement: the Mahdi Scouts...
...separate country by European colonial powers.) And it has made some effort to stem the flow of militants across the Syrian border into Iraq. Still, Syria appears wary of giving away too much and is especially wary of U.S. demands that it give up its strategic alliances with Iran, Hizballah and Hamas. Syria's fears that breaking from its allies in search of a separate peace deal will cost it leverage needed to achieve its primary goals of recovering the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and reintegrating into the international community. An ongoing Lebanese political crisis is certainly a reminder...
...resignation, in fact, may be an attempt to call that bluff by demonstrating that he and his backers in Washington and Riyadh can play the confrontation game too. He is almost certainly going to be renominated as Prime Minster by President Suleiman, and his supporters are warning that Hizballah can forget about a unity government. That could return the Lebanese political deadlock to the dangerous days of 2006 and 2007, when the threat of violence loomed large...