Middle East Peace and Security Initiative Nonresident Senior Fellow Nicholas Blanford writes for the Christian Science Monitor on Hezbollah in Syria:
A huge roar erupted from the 100,000 cheering Hezbollah supporters as the Shiite organization’s beaming leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, dressed in a customary brown cloak and black turban, stepped onto a stage decorated in the red, white, and green Lebanese national flag and yellow party banners.
It was May 26, 2000, and Sheikh Nasrallah was in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil, a few miles north of the Israeli border, to mark a stunning and unprecedented military achievement. His group of several hundred lightly armed resistance fighters had pushed the Israeli army out of south Lebanon, ending an occupation that had begun 22 years earlier.
The last Israeli troops had left their posts in south Lebanon just two days before.