Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I endorse the chair's commentary on the report that has just been tabled and add my thanks to our committee secretariat for the work that they continue to do in supporting this committee. I found it particularly interesting to reflect again on the nature of the organisation we were dealing with.

If you want further information, the report, quoting from Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre, says a little about Hezbollah, or Party of God. It tells us Hezbollah:

… was formed in 1982 but formally announced its existence in February 1985. It was initially composed of small radical Shia Muslim groups that looked to Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution for inspiration. Many of the early leaders had studied in Shia seminaries … in Iraq where they were inspired by the radical teachings of Mohammed Baqr as-Sadr and Ruhollah Khomeini. Hizbullah began to emerge in the wake of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Islamist members of the mainstream Shia Amal Movement broke away to form Islamic Amal, headed by Hussein Mussawi.

He was part of the group that joined with former members of the Lebanese Dawa Party and numerous small radical Shiah groups to form Hezbollah. It originated in the Beqaa Valley before spreading south, particularly to Beirut. It won loyalty through the provision of social services, including health, education and infrastructure to the impoverished Shiah areas. In 1992, it stood candidates in the first post-war parliamentary elections, securing eight seats, and now it has 12. It is a member of the government of Lebanon.

That makes it particularly interesting that we are dealing with the proscription of an element of it, its external security organisation, which was set up, as we were told, by Imad Mughniyah, who has been described variously as Hezbolla's security section, a senior intelligence officer and one of the founders of Hezbollah. After he fled to Iran, following Hezbollah's 1983 attack on the US military in Beirut, the international wing grew out of the military wing to become a separate branch.

It is important to understand that history that we are dealing with. As mentioned by the chair, the committee does find it a fairly interesting area to deal with. We want to make it very clear that we were not supporting here at the government's request a listing of the entire Hezbollah organisation but, in looking at the external security organisation in particular, we are faced with a difficulty because many of the public resources that we look at, such as Jane's and the United States National Counterterrorism Center, which the committee uses to independently look at terrorist organisations that have been relisted, do not differentiate between the two. But we are required to do that, and we do, and paragraph 27 of the report in relation to the difficulty of attributing specific attacks to Hezbollah's ESO notes the secretive nature of the organisation and that:

... it is difficult to gather detailed information about the group's role and activities. However, there is no indication that the ESO's role has changed in recent times, and considering Hizballah's stated desire to avenge the death of Imad Mughniyah, and the recent arrest of a probable Hizballah operative in Bangkok, it is likely that the ESO retains its separate terrorist function within Hizballah's overall organisational structure.

It is for that reason that the government recommends that this organisation be proscribed and it is for that reason that the committee endorses that recommendation.

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