Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah died at age 75 in Beirut on July 4. As a top Shiite cleric and spiritual influence for Hezbollah, he had a large number of followers—including one senior editor at CNN named Octavia Nasr. Fadlallah had a long history of terrorism and extremism, but this did not disqualify him from being admired by the news network’s senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs.
Fadlallah was an early supporter of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution in Iran and was closely tied to Hezbollah when the terrorist group was carrying out kidnappings and suicide bombings in Lebanon against Western targets. It was his fatwa that permitted the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Marine barracks and embassy in Lebanon. His role in terrorist operations was so prominent that he was the target of a car bombing in 1985, said to be set by the CIA or Christian Lebanese officers, and his home was later bombed by the Israelis in 2006.
Fadlallah has denied being involved with Hezbollah, but his denials are not credible. Journalist Con Coughlin says that when he interviewed Fadlallah in 1985, one of his bodyguards checked his passport. Coughlin later found out that the bodyguard was a Hezbollah operative looking to se if he was an American that could be taken hostage. The current chief of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, praised Fadlallah as a “merciful father and a wise guide.” The terrorist group is publicly morning his death, saying “He stood with courage in support of the resistance against the Zionist enemy. He also expressed his outright rejection of the conspiracies of the hegemonic powers.”
Although Fadlallah condemned honor killings, said women could defend themselves if their husbands beat them, and later distanced himself from the concept of Velayat-e-Faqih that underpins the Iranian regime, he was not a moderate. He consistently supported suicide bombings against Israelis. The label of Specially Designated Terrorist applied to him by the U.S. was well-fitting.
Fadlallah is said to have been privately critical of Iran even in the 1980s but calling him an opponent of the Mullahs would be going too far. His nephew said, “Politically, his eminence used to have two concerns. Mainly, he had the concern of the Resistance, the Resistance in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and everywhere. He was also concerned with safeguarding the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Tom Harb, the Secretary General of the World Council of the Cedars Revolution told FrontPage that Fadlallah was not a liberal democrat and promoted the gradual Islamization of Lebanon. His difference with Iran and Hezbollah was “really a matter of style and not substance.”
“Compared to the Iranian Pasdaran and Hezbollah leadership he was more focused on trying to convince women that wearing the hijab was to their advantage. So he wanted to convince people that fighting jihad is not something barbaric. He wanted to be more nuanced than Hezbollah, not different in the basic things.” Harb said.
When he was on his death bed, a nurse asked him if he needed anything, to which replied, “For the Zionist entity to cease to exist.” He also claimed in 2008 that “Zionism has inflated the number of victims in this Holocaust beyond imagination” and he was virulently anti-American. He preached that the U.S. has hatched an evil plot for world domination and he accused the CIA and Mossad of orchestrating suicide bombings in Iraq.
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