Nicholas Blanford

Nicholas Blanford is the author of Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah’s Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel (Random House 2011). He lives in Beirut.

Author Articles

Whack-a-mole. Israeli soldiers gather near the site of an Israeli excavation site for reported cross-border Hezbollah-dug tunnels, December 5. (AFP)
Israel’s hunt for cross-border tunnels ratchets up pressure on Hezbollah
December 08, 2018
Israeli air defence systems on display at the Hatzor Airbase. (AP)
Israel ponders response to Hezbollah’s missile capabilities
December 01, 2018
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu shows suspected guided missile sites in Beirut during his address at the UN General Assembly, on September 27. (AP)
Netanyahu’s accusations about Hezbollah trigger fears of confrontation
October 06, 2018
Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri speaks to the media in front of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague, on September 10. (AFP)
Special Tribunal for Lebanon to conclude with whimper rather than much-anticipated bang
September 15, 2018
A worker cultivates plants at a cannabis plantation in the village of Yammouneh in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley. (AFP)
Hezbollah control of the Bekaa Valley threatened as Lebanon mulls legalising medicinal cannabis
August 18, 2018
Russian offer to restrain Iran turned down by Israel
July 28, 2018
Narcopolitics. A file picture shows a man working inside a factory that processes hashish in the Bekaa Valley. (Reuters)
Drug smuggling, tribal violence produce rich crop for Hezbollah recruiters
June 30, 2018
A 2004 file picture shows Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (L) chatting with Khaled Meshaal, head of Hamas’s political bureau in Beirut. (AP)
Hezbollah, Hamas bolster ties, raising stakes in Lebanon
June 16, 2018
Syrians wave Iranian, Russian and Syrian flags during a protest against US-led air strikes in Damascus, last April. (Reuters)
Iran and Hezbollah too entrenched within Syria to step back now
June 09, 2018
Hezbollah supporters hold pictures of the group’s secretary-general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine, who was killed in an attack in Syria. (Reuters)
Elections and sanctions augur difficult new era for Lebanese politics
May 26, 2018
A picture taken from the Israeli side of the border shows the flag of Lebanon’s Hezbollah Shia movement and a religious flag reading “Al-Hussein.” (AFP)
Confrontation between Israel, Iran and Hezbollah looks inevitable
May 05, 2018
Israeli soldiers (top L) and UN peacekeepers (top R) look at Hezbollah supporters attending a rally in the southern Lebanese village of Alma al-Shaab, last January. (AFP)
Peace between Israel and Hezbollah endures but stakes of conflict are higher
April 07, 2018
Lebanese soldiers march in Beirut during a military parade to mark the 74th anniversary of Lebanon’s independence from France, last November. (AP)
As Western influence recedes, Russia looks to fill Lebanon’s power vacuum
March 17, 2018
Farmers are seen near the border with Israel close to the village of Kfar Kila in Lebanon, on February 10. (Reuters)
US mediates border dispute between Lebanon and Israel amid rising tensions
February 24, 2018
The remains of a missile that landed in the southern Lebanese village of Kaoukaba near the border with Syria, on February 10. (AFP)
The rules shift in Iran, Hezbollah and Israel’s great game
February 17, 2018
The test firing of Iran’s home-built surface-to-surface Fateh-110 missile. (Iranian Defence Ministry)
Lebanon’s potential missile plants threaten renewed conflict with Israel
February 10, 2018
Imminent conundrum. A Turkey-backed Syrian rebel fighter mans a monitoring point near the Syrian village of Qilah on the south-western edge of the Afrin, on January 24. (AFP)
High stakes in Washington’s Syria gamble
January 26, 2018

Hezbollah’s popular support jeopardises Lebanon’s alliances
January 15, 2018

Israel’s Syrian air strikes risk renewing escalation as Iran expands presence in Golan
December 18, 2017

Hariri’s resignation postponement offers Lebanon fragile reprieve
November 25, 2017

Beirut- The decision by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to put his resignation on hold has, f