Word: hizballah
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...Twenty years on, Toufeili has evolved into one of the most outspoken - and unlikeliest - critics of Hizballah and its sponsors in Tehran, accusing both of corruption and of selling out the ideals of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. "Hizballah is no longer a real liberation force but just a tool for Iranian interests. Hizballah has become a very bad and corrupt organization," he said in an interview with TIME...
...Such views have little traction in the Shi'ite villages of the eastern Bekaa Valley where Toufeili lives. Local residents openly mock the stubborn cleric, accusing him of being on the payroll of Hizballah's opponents. Small wonder, then, that he rarely leaves his home, and that his bodyguard rarely leaves his side...
...clans, smuggling and narcotics production. When Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982, Toufeili was in Tehran and helped organize the deployment in Lebanon of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who recruited and trained hundreds of young local Shi'ites to fight Israel's occupation, thus creating the nucleus of Hizballah...
...organization during the period of spectacular suicide bomb attacks against Western targets and the kidnappings of foreign nationals in the 1980s. Among those attacks was the suicide truck bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in October 1983 which killed 241 American servicemen. At that time, Hizballah had yet to publicly declare its existence and goals, and its leaders have always denied involvement in the anti-Western actions. But Toufeili admits that the group was responsible for the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks...
...While willing to fess up to the bombings, Toufeili insists that the kidnappings of Westerners "had nothing to with Hizballah. Nothing at all." Indeed, as he puts it, Iran's policy of using Lebanese Shi'ites to kidnap Westerners was a "mistake" which he tried to redress...