(Fox News) Photos of Syrians celebrating the assassination of Hezbollah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah last week put the spotlight on the brutal activities of the terror group’s role in sex slavery, mass starvation and kidnappings in the Syrian civil war which led to the deaths of over half a million Syrians.
Walid Phares, a leading expert on Hezbollah and Lebanon, told Fox News Digital that Hezbollah has “committed ethnic cleansing” in Syria. He said Hezbollah “was behind the uprooting of millions of Syrians, of all communities, mainly Sunni. They have perpetrated rape. They have perpetrated mass sexual abuse, including keeping sexual slaves.”
Israel’s targeted assassination of Nasrallah last weekend has prompted greater interest in the inner workings of the Shiite terrorist organization that is widely considered the de facto ruler over Lebanon.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist entity is mainly known in America for bombing the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 people in 1983, and the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut also in 1983, resulting in the murders of 241 U.S. military personnel.
Hezbollah Radwan forces train in Southern Lebanon, close to the Israeli border. (AP/Hassan Ammar)
A new investigative video series by the Center for Peace Communications (CPC) shines a rare light on the U.S.-designated terrorist movement Hezbollah’s role in sexual slavery, rape and mass murder. The shocking expose about Hezbollah’s enslavement of a Syrian woman aired days after Israel reportedly launched devastating explosions of pagers held by thousands of Hezbollah terrorists across Lebanon in September.
CPC President Joseph Braude told Fox News Digital “Hezbollah’s war on Israel obscures its larger war to subjugate much of the region — as a tyrant in Lebanon, an occupier in Syria, a mafia of sex and drug trafficking, and the nerve center of Iran’s Arab empire. Millions of Arabs whose lives have been shattered by the militia want a different future. Hezbollah does not want the world to hear their voices.”
CPC’s previous series, called “Whispered in Gaza,” which was viewed over 20 million times, led to a Fatwa being issued against Hamas by Iraqi and Pakistani clerics. It was used by Gaza anti-Hamas activists during the July 2023 street protests against the terror organization’s rule.
Syrians gather in the lobby of a damaged apartment block, bearing a poster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, right, and Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of Lebanon’s Shiite movement Hezbollah, following a car bomb near the revered Shiite shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, south of the Syrian capital Damascus on April 25, 2016. (LOUAI BESHARA/AFP via Getty Images)
He added “‘Hezbollah’s Hostages,’ an eight-part series produced by the Center for Peace Communications and presented by The Free Press, features the actual recorded testimony of Lebanese and Syrian civilians in Hezbollah’s grip. To protect their identities and honor their lives, each recorded interview is accompanied visually by creative images and animation.”
One video depicts the kidnapping and sexual enslavement of Alya, a married 20-year-old woman from the northern Syrian city of Raqqa. She reveals how Yusuf, a member of Hezbollah, “stalked” her for months and eventually took her hostage.
Hezbollah enslaves women to fund its war machine and enrich its elites. Today, Alya becomes the first victim of its massive human trafficking ring to come forward. In Hezbollah’s Hostages, by our partners @peacecomcenter, she breaks her silence. https://t.co/AZgFgGaQ82 pic.twitter.com/vyL81zQ1ww
— The Free Press (@TheFP) September 23, 2024
Hezbollah took the side of the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad after civilians launched a protest movement in 2011 to secure democracy in the highly repressive nation.
Hezbollah terrorists aided Assad in his scorched-earth campaign to wipe out opposition to his regime, resulting in the killing of over 500,000 people. Syria is now a fragmented and war-ravaged country.
Hezbollah’s ally, the Sunni terrorist movement Hamas, engaged in rapes and sustained sexual assaults of Israeli women and men after the jihadi terrorist organization invaded Israel on Oct. 7.
Hezbollah joined Hamas’ war against Israel on Oct. 8 when it launched rockets into northern Israel. Hamas slaughtered nearly 1,200 people on Oct. 7, including over 30 Americans.
The fundamental corruption and mafia-style criminality of Hezbollah’s global organization has been examined by Matthew Levitt, the director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute.
