He has fought Israel since the 1990s and killed many fighters in Syria’s civil war, but the increasing difficulty of working-class life in Lebanon and a popular revolt against the country’s leaders has forced Abu Hussein to reevaluate his decades-long service to Hezbollah, like reported by thedailybeast.com.

The group whose name translates as “the Party of God” has been branded a terrorist organization by the United States since the 1980s. Backed by Iran, it is more powerful than Lebanon’s military and holds a political veto on state policies. The Trump White House has made Hezbollah a prime target in its “Maximum Pressure” campaign against Iran, which seeks to squeeze the Islamic Republic economically until it signs a new, Trump-approved deal covering not only nukes, but ending Iran’s support for militias like Hezbollah. Sanctions have targeted the party’s members in Lebanon’s parliament and a Lebanese bank accused of involvement managing Hezbollah accounts.

But the U.S. efforts have only added pressure to Lebanon’s economic crisis. And Iran has many ways to fight back.

“Iran sees Lebanon as an important arena in the duel with Washington and will not sacrifice its prize horse Hezbollah no matter the cost,” says Raghida Dergham, founder of the Beirut Institute, an independent think tank. The cost to the country of an effort to crush the uprising could be enormous, and some Hezbollah fighters want no part of it.

I have met Abu Hussein several times over the last four years, but this conversation in the southern suburbs of Beirut is like none we’ve had before. Regardless of how grim the fighting had been in Syria, when he came back home Abu Hussein was always unwaveringly loyal and ideologically committed to the party. (He uses a pseudonym here because Hezbollah fighters are barred from speaking to Western media.)

Now he is frustrated with Hezbollah’s response to the widespread discontent in the streets by masses of people fed up with corruption, austerity and the high cost of living. After years fighting abroad as the commander of a rapid response unit that numbered as many as 200 fighters, it is domestic rather than regional issues that pushed him to abandon the movement.

Hezbollah first built its strength and reputation fighting the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. “Am I a member of Hezbollah against the Israelis? Yes I am,” says the weathered officer. “Am I member of Hezbollah when it’s against the people in the streets? No!”

Two months ago, as Israel and Lebanon stood on the brink of war after an exchange of cross-border fire, Abu Hussein was part of redeployment from Syria, leading patrols and reconnaissance missions on Lebanon’s southern border with Israel.

But then, last month, working- and middle-class people from across Lebanon took to the streets condemning a ruling political class still lingering since the 1975-1990 civil war and enriching itself as the country’s economy collapsed.

Rather than the traditional hurling of blame across the sectarian divide of Lebanon’s confessional political system, this time Christians, Druze, Shia and Sunni Muslims condemned the failures of their own leaders, and for Abu Hussein, something changed. Now he says he refuses to go back to Syria, has not gone on patrol in the south since the protests started, and won’t be mobilized in Beirut.

“The protesters’ demands are 100 percent legitimate and they have no other choice to get their demands met,” he says of a movement that calls for an end to the sectarian system that Hezbollah relies on to leverage power. He contends that a growing number of his comrades in arms support the demonstrations and roadblocks where people chant “all of them means all of them.”

It’s a rebuke to all of the country’s political leaders: Sunni Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Maronite Christian President Michel Aoun, Shia Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, the powerful Druze leader Walid Joumblatt—and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

“Hezbollah made a major mistake; they thought they were too big for Lebanon,” says Abu Hussein of a movement focused on expanding regional military influence while its Shia working class base endured some of the worst of the country’s economic pain. “They never thought people would rebel against them with this force and now they feel the heat.”

For Hezbollah, a movement inspired by the Iranian revolution and loyal to the Islamic Republic, this loss of confidence is a problem its military successes can’t solve.

In southern cities like Nabatieh and in Bekaa valley towns where Hezbollah competes with Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri’s Amal movement for Shia support, demonstrators have cursed both Berri and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Young people from the low-income Shia-majority Beirut suburb of Dahieh have joined the protests in the capital center around Martyrs’ Square.

“There were the kids of Hezbollah MPs telling their fathers that the people’s demands should be heard,” says the commander, emphatically describing the mood among Hezbollah’s core constituents. He is careful to keep Nasrallah above reproach, blaming those around him and his tenuous ally, Berri, who went from warlord to parliamentary speaker in 1992 and has held the position ever since.

But Abu Hussein does not mince words about Nasrallah’s response to the uprising.

In a televised addresses broadcast across the country on Oct. 25, Nasrallah tried at first to dismiss the protests as a hostile foreign plot while claiming he would not accept the government or president’s resignation. Three days after the government collapsed, on Nov. 1, he went on air again, this time to begrudgingly accept the reality of the Hariri led cabinet resignation. He tried to distance himself from his previous comments about the protests being a Western and Israeli plot and called for dialogue.

Unable to to appear in public because of the threat of Israeli assassination, the long serving secretary general always makes his televised addresses from an undisclosed location.

“Hezbollah can say what it wants,” the commander tells me, annoyed by the allegations of foreign interference. He says he knows many people who have been joining the protests and that the demonstrators are changing people’s minds.

“Every time they reach a point they feel they are in trouble with their own people, they blame someone else,” he adds. “They are in trouble and don’t know what to do.”

The clanging of pots and pans echoing nightly off apartment buildings across Beirut has become the latest sound of discontent ringing out here, a month into the country’s popular revolt. Lebanon’s economic crisis continues to deepen, with banks restricting withdrawals and transfers abroad while the gap between the official and street-traded exchange rate of the Lebanese lira, which is pegged to the U.S. dollar, grows wider. As protests and political stagnation add to the economic crisis, faith in the established parties continues to dissipate, even among core supporters.

This erosion is not unique to Hezbollah but rather seems to be happening across the establishment’s political divide, threatening the future of all parties, whether allied to Iran and Syria or the West and the Gulf. It is discontent with a system of proxy politics that exploits sectarian divides while ignoring the basic needs of people that is threatening to upend politics and power in Lebanon.

“There is a paradigm shift in the way people are thinking. People have been able to move away from the traditional parties that they have been attached to and there is a general dislike of party partisanship,” says Ahmad Mousalli, a political science professor and specialist in Islamic movements at the American University of Beirut.

“Most of the people on the ground these days have not been through the civil war in Lebanon, but they have known nothing but these corrupt cronies,” he continues.

At the same time, the parties have continued to fight over which of their traditional blocks will dominate in the new government, each claiming to carry the street’s anti-corruption, economic reformist goals and demands for a secular civil democracy.

“They are trying to ride the wave in one way or another,” says Mousalli before adding, “I don’t think the population at large want this anymore.”

Mousalli notes that this trend has impacted Hezbollah, but argues that the intense ideological conviction of its members, especially its fighters, puts it in better shape than other established parties in a political system where loyalty is usually based on patronage.

While Abu Hussein says he is among an increasing number of fighters leaving the organization, Abu Abdullah, who also declines to use his name because of Hezbollah’s restrictions on its fighters talking to the media, is unwavering in his support. He fought Israel in 2006, then bolstered the Assad regime in Syria’s civil war, and now he trains fighters.

Describing Hezbollah units across the country as on “full alert,” he says they are looking out for American or Israeli acts of destabilization through the protests. Abu Abdullah also knows people from Dahieh going to the protests and hears about discontent with Hezbollah along with the rest of the political class, but he has listened to Nasrallah’s accusations and is convinced that the protests are the result of foreign agitation.

“The Israelis and Americans feel they can enter through these protests and we aren’t going to let them,” he says decisively.

In 2008, Hezbollah fighters took over the streets in Beirut in a display of their military dominance and effective control of the country, but Abu Abdullah states univocally that Hezbollah has no intention of doing that at the moment.

Mousalli concurs, saying that any military action against Lebanon’s people would likely only create bigger problems for Hezbollah, exacerbating internal divisions and alienating its base.

Still, Abu Abdullah contends Hezbollah will not allow the collapse of a sectarian system that it uses to secure its interests while avoiding the international isolation for Lebanon that would come from a party the U.S. has long labeled a terrorist organization officially running the country. It’s a position he’s willing to kill for and he says he’s ready to do whatever his commanders deem necessary.

“If I get an order and a fatwa to shoot the people,” he says, “then yes, I’ll shoot my brother.”

For Abu Hussein, there is no order or religious decree that could make him turn on his people and he would sooner abandon his post than help Hezbollah use its might against its own. For Hezbollah, concerns that the number of Abu Husseins is growing in its ranks may be one reason its reaction, so far, has remained political.

Early Tuesday morning, Israeli forces carried out a targeted operation eliminating Baha Abu al-Ata, a senior terrorist in the Islamic Jihad organization’s Gaza division, like reported by inn.com. But who was Abu Al-Ata, and why was he singled out as a target for the Israeli strike?

The 42-year-old chief of Islamic Jihad’s Al Quds Brigades’ Gaza Strip branch was considered one of the most radical terrorists in Gaza – even within Islamic Jihad – Abu Al-Ata was seen as a rising force within the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave, due in part to his close ties with Tehran, and the decline in Hamas’ popularity in Gaza.

Under Abu Al-Ata’s watch, Islamic Jihad in Gaza has undertaken to obtain longer-range, more powerful rockets for its attacks on southern – and even central Israel.

A string of rocket attacks on Israel this year have been attributed to Islamic Jihad’s Al Quds Brigades – and Abu al-Ata.

Shortly after the operation which killed Abu Al-Ata and his wife, the IDF said that the Islamic Jihad terrorist was responsible for hundreds of terror attacks, adding that another one was imminent.

“Al Ata was directly responsible for hundreds of terror attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers. His next attack was imminent.”

Along with rocket attacks, Abu al-Ata was also responsible for a number of other terror attacks against Israeli targets, including sniper attacks on Israeli soldiers and the use of drone aircraft armed with explosive devices.

The IDF believes Abu al-Ata to have been personally responsible for planning and ordering the majority of all terror attacks on Israel over the past 12 months.

In earlier years, Abu al-Ata personally led major attacks on Israel, including a deadly 2008 infiltration attack in which four terrorists crossed into Israeli territory and killed two Israelis at the Nahal Oz fuel depot.

Israel has been targeting Abu al-Ata for years, with attempts to eliminate him going back as far as Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012, when Israeli forces targeted a building he was believed to be hiding in.

Immediately following his killing, rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel, setting off sirens both in central and southern Israel.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who also serves as Defense Minister until 11:00 a.m. Tuesday, authorized the strike.

“Senior Islamic Jihad commander Baha Abu al-Ata was targeted overnight in Gaza. He was responsible for many terrorist attacks and the firing of rockets at the State of Israel in recent months and had intended to carry out imminent attacks,” the Prime Minister’s Office said Tuesday morning.

“The IDF action was recommended by the IDF Chief-of-Staff and ISA Director and was approved by the Prime Minister and Defense Minister after it had been presented to – and approved by – the Security Cabinet.”

Thirteen Islamic militants were killed in a raid on Tuesday in the Egyptian Mediterranean coastal city of el-Arish’ el-Obour neighborhood, officials announced according to aawsat.com.

They said police found weapons and explosives in the hideout, and forensic teams are now identifying the bodies.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to talk to reporters.

Egypt has battled an insurgency led by an ISIS affiliate for years in Sinai, which occasionally spills over to the mainland.

Separately, officials said a police conscript has been killed in a militant attack in the restive northern part of the Sinai Peninsula.

They said the attack, which took place late on Monday in the town Sheikh Zuweid, also wounded three other policemen who were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

The Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar has expressed fears that Turkey, which has launched an offensive on Kurds in northeast Syria, would transfer thousands of terrorists to Libya, like reported by aawsat.com.

LNA spokesman Ahmed al-Mesmari said that Turkish President Recep Tayyep Erdogan could send the terrorists held by Kurdish forces in detention camps to Libya through the seaports and airports of Tripoli, Misrata and Zuwara, which fall under the control of Fayez al-Sarraj’s Government of National Accord.

“ISIS’s sleeper cells are now under the control of Turkey which is seeking to transfer them to a safe haven. Libya could be their destination because of the security vacuum here,” Mesmari warned.

There are fears that the Turkish offensive in northeast Syria may lead to the escape of militants held at the prisons managed by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

Libya’s future would be in great danger if Erdogan sends terrorists to the country, said Mesmari, in his first reaction to this week’s Turkish military operation.

On clashes with forces loyal to the GNA, the spokesman said the LNA is fighting for the stability of the country and a better future.

“It’s a security and not a political battle,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Libyan parliament has urged the Arab League, which is set to hold an emergency meeting in Cairo on Saturday, to suspend the GNA’s membership “for lacking legitimacy and supporting militias backed by Erdogan’s regime to spread extremism in the entire region and not just Libya.”

The Arab League, which groups 22 states, said in a statement on Wednesday that Saturday’s meeting would be at the ministerial level “to discuss the Turkish aggression” on Syrian territory.

“It constitutes an unacceptable attack on the sovereignty of an Arab member state of the League,” Arab League Assistant Secretary General Hossam Zaki said.

A suicide bomber was killed as Egyptian security forces thwarted a terrorist attack on a checkpoint in Arish, North Sinai province, Egyptian Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said the man was killed before detonating his explosive belt.

The statement included a picture of a man’s body lying on the ground that was smeared with blood, and another picture of an explosive belt.

Egypt has been fighting a wave of terror activities that have killed hundreds of policemen, soldiers and civilians since the military ousted former President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 in response to mass protests against his one-year rule and his currently outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.

A Sinai-based terrorist group loyal to the Islamic State regional group claimed responsibility for most of the terror attacks in Egypt over the past few years.

Libya’s current conflict is emerging as a very different one to what has been fought before in the country, or the world. Fleets of long-range drones carry out strikes, cyber-attacks proclaim the end of governments, and social media propaganda has become all-consuming. The war has devolved into a bloody stalemate, with over 1 000 fighters dead and thousands wounded in grinding urban conflict, like reported by thisisafrica.me.

Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), a militia coalition based in the east of the country, have been on a mission to seize Tripoli since April. The capital is held by the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), supported by militias from across western Libya.

But while it is Libyans who are fighting and dying, foreign actors have largely been driving this war. Turkey and Qatar support the GNA, while the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Russia and France are behind the LAAF. These foreign backers have contributed diplomatic support, military equipment, mercenaries and military personnel, and direct military action to the two sides.

The use of drones, cyber-attacks and social media propaganda, among other dynamics in Libya’s conflict, probably portend what armed conflict in this century will look like – both within and between states.

In six months, drones have become a mainstay of Libya’s conflict. While they have been fielded by Libyan militias before, including by the LAAF in the battle for the eastern city of Derna, it was not until the present conflict that their use became systematic and militarily important.

According to Ghassan Salamé, the United Nations Special Representative for Libya, the current conflict has seen some 900 missions flown by drones fielded by the two sides, and this has increased steeply in recent weeks. Both sides use them for surveillance, long-range strategic strikes on arms depots and airports, and close-air support to units enmeshed in urban combat.

The GNA and LAAF rely on foreign actors for their drones. Since May, Turkey has supplied the GNA with more than a dozen Bayraktar TB2 craft, as well as ground control units. The UAE has provided the LAAF with the Chinese Wing Loong II drones. Both Turkey and the UAE are rumoured to have deployed personnel to Libya to operate the drones.

Armed drones are ubiquitous in Libya, and will be on future battlefields, both due to the relatively high-precision attacks they can undertake and because they are far cheaper than traditional attack aircraft. A Wing Loong II costs US$1-2 million, and even the pricier Bayraktar is just less than US$6 million.

Militaries can therefore more easily purchase and field large numbers of drones, and replace those lost in combat. Other countries – such as the UAE and Turkey – can also provide foreign proxy forces and militias with effective airpower at little cost and limited risk to their own personnel. Recent use by GNA drones of roads, rather than airstrips, for take-off and landing, shows the ruggedness of the craft, and the potential for their use even in austere conditions.

Alongside drones, hacking and cyber-attacks have been weaponised in Libya’s conflict. The most publicised incident occurred in August when the GNA Twitter account was hacked, and a false statement posted proclaiming the GNA had stepped down and security was to be left to the LAAF.

In another incident, a hacker culled information from Facebook users after setting up a series of false pages detailing Turkish activity in Libya or spoofing LAAF recruitment sites. The hacker later published secret LAAF documents and the passport information of government officials that had been collected.

Similar to drones, cyber-attacks offer a low-cost means of achieving conflict goals. The hacking of the GNA Twitter account led to little more than public confusion, but given the increasing importance of social media for government’s public communications – in both Libya and globally – the risk of a future incident achieving greater goals is real.

Libya’s conflict has also seen a wave of propaganda and disinformation as the GNA and LAAF, and their foreign backers, seek to shape public opinion to their advantage. Haftar’s initial attempt to seize Tripoli rested as much on the narrative of the LAAF’s might and inevitable victory as it did on raw military power.

With this narrative shredded by the LAAF’s failure, propagandists on both sides have tried to reshape public attitudes and support. Social media posts proclaim their side’s seizure of territory or inevitable victory, or their rivals’ brutality against civilians and foreign connections.

A lot of the propaganda is foreign generated, with nearly a third of content around Haftar posted over the past six months coming from Saudi Arabia. Much of this has been disseminated through social media, showing that sites such as Facebook and Twitter are go-to sources for news and information for many Libyans.

Propaganda has long played an important role in conflict. But what Libyan propogandists and their backers have shown is the speed through which new narratives and disinformation can be spread, how social media can be used for this, and how easily foreign actors can influence and engage in public debates in Libya in real time.

Each of these factors – drones, cyber-attacks and social media propaganda – have been used to varying degrees individually in different countries over the past two decades. Drones in particular are evolving rapidly into a versatile threat to even highly advanced militaries.

However Libya’s uniqueness – and its value as an example of what future conflicts will look like – arises because all these factors are currently being employed together in large amounts, in a conflict being prosecuted primarily by non-state armed groups.

It is important to closely watch Libya’s conflict to predict future wars. Understanding the contours of future battles, and how foreign actors can intervene, will help prevent and address conflicts. In Libya’s case, the country needs international support to surmount these conflict dynamics. The successes and challenges it faces will offer valuable lessons for peacebuilding in future.

The Israel Defense Forces have set up a special engineering corps company to discover and prevent terror tunnels dug across Israel’s northern border from Lebanon, like reported by algemeiner.com.

The new company is intended to deal with the long-term threat from tunneling attempts by Hezbollah, Israeli news website Mako reported on Sunday. It will use cutting edge technology to do so, most of it tested on Hamas tunnels dug from Gaza, but adapted to the northern terrain, which is quite different.

The main tactic employed by the company is the use of new technology, and as a result is heavily invested in research and development.

One department deals with developing technologies to detect tunnels and tunnel digging activity, while another examines the practical engineering means of interdicting and destroying them.

The head of the company, Captain Moshe Asraf, said it was established according to the “lessons” learned during last year’s Operation Northern Shield, during which he served as a commander in the engineering corps.

“Our goal is to get out in front of this,” Asraf said, “and to produce a professional unit in the field that will specialize in the sector, the enemy, and the terrain.”

Operation Northern Shield exposed and destroyed what is believed to be all the tunnels dug so far by terror group Hezbollah in order to invade and attack Israel’s north.

The Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Marshal Khalifa Haftar announced Tuesday a sudden advance in the battle to seize control of the capital, Tripoli, from militias backed by the Government of National Accord (GNA) after nearly five months of fighting, like reported by aawsat.com.

A statement by the Media Center of the LNA’s Dignity Operations Room said the “militias are beginning to collapse on various fronts after painful and accurate airstrikes and advances near their bases.”

A senior LNA official told Asharq Al-Awsat that National Army forces advanced took control over new areas in their advanced towards Aziziyah, about 40 kilometers south of Tripoli.

The official said the militias in Tripoli are “very weak,” but he declined to disclose the number of casualties or the size of their losses.

LNA’s Military Information Division aired video footage on Tuesday showing the surrender of a group of militiamen. It said the fighters handed over their weapons, ammunition and vehicles to military units near Tripoli.

Meanwhile, Forces from Fayez al-Sarraj’s GNA said they took control of new positions in the Ramla battlefront, south of the capital.

The forces announced repelling an LNA attempt to advance from the front towards the capital.

Field Commander in Volcano of Rage Operation Taher bin Gharbiyya said his forces have taken control of new positions in this area.

The media loyal to the GNA quoted some of its military officials as saying that its air force bombed an LNA convoy on its way to the airport, located in the coastal city of Sirte.

It noted that most of the vehicles in the convoy, which had departed from al-Jufra air base, were destroyed in the bombing.

The Libyan National Army, led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, struck for the second day in a row positions held by militias loyal to the Government of National Accord in the coastal city of Sirte, like reported by aawsat.com.

GNA head Fayez al-Sarraj, who considers himself the military commander, admitted for the first time that there is no army in the country. Sarraj deplored the ugly truth, “there is no army in Libya”, adding that attempts continue to rebuild the military institution as he expressed confidence that the US ally could be helpful in this regard.

He accused Haftar of crippling the political process following his offensive on Tripoli on April 4. Victory is a matter of time and Haftar’s wish to enter Tripoli is inconceivable, he affirmed.

LNA’s Karama operations media center announced Sunday that in the past two days, militia positions and headquarters suffered huge material and human losses due to the strikes.

Sirte Protection Force (SPF), which is loyal to Sarraj, admitted that three airstrikes had struck the city. Local media channels quoted SPF Commander Al-Naas Abdullah as saying that gate 17 in the city’s east was targeted by four airstrikes with no human losses.

This is the second attack in a row, following a series of airstrikes on positions belonging to SPF and another civilian facility that left two people dead and five injured.

Egyptian security forces have killed 15 suspected militants in a shootout in restive north Sinai, the interior ministry said.

A militant group was “planning hostile acts targeting military and police forces…in order to destabilise national security”, the ministry said in a statement.

It did not name a specific group, but said “terrorist elements” had been hiding in a farm in El-Arish, the capital of North Sinai province.

When forces approached, “the militants shot live rounds forcing troops to deal with them (and) leading to 15 deaths”.

Graphic pictures of the bodies of the alleged militants were sent along with the Sunday press release.

Authorities also said they found a small trove of stashed weapons including an explosive belt, several rifles and an explosive device.

The ministry did not specify when the reported shootout took place, but Sunday’s announcement follows recent military operations in Sinai that authorities say killed 118 suspected militants.

Nine soldiers were killed and one wounded in those “counter-terrorism” operations, a military statement said on Friday.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi paid tribute to the dead personnel in a series of tweets late Friday, describing “terrorism” as a “cancer still trying to kidnap the nation”.

In February 2018, Egypt’s military launched a nationwide offensive against Islamist militants, focused mainly on North Sinai, where the Islamic State group still has a significant presence.

Some 665 suspected militants and around 60 soldiers have been killed since, according to official figures.