Axis of resistance

Axis of resistance

Subject: IR

Section: Int grouping

What is the axis of resistance?

• The term “Axis of Resistance” typically refers to a geopolitical and strategic alliance among certain countries and groups in the Middle East that share common goals and interests.
• The axis often opposes what its members perceive as external interference, particularly from Western powers, and advocates for self-determination, sovereignty, and resistance against perceived occupation.
• The alliance is characterised by a shared opposition to certain foreign policies, especially those of the United States and its allies in the region.
• The key components of the Axis of Resistance include countries like Iran, Syria, and groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

THE ISLAMIC RESISTANCE IN IRAQ

• An umbrella group of hardline Shi’ite Muslim armed groups close to Iran, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed an attack near the Syrian-Jordanian border around the same time U.S. officials said their troops were targeted.
• They have claimed more than 150 attacks on bases housing U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq since October, leading to dozens of mostly minor injuries and drawing several rounds of U.S. strikes in response.

YEMEN’S HOUTHIS

• The Houthi movement, which controls large parts of Yemen, announced it had entered the conflict on Oct. 31, firing drones and missiles at Israel more than a thousand miles from their seat of power in Sanaa.

LEBANON’S HEZBOLLAH

• The heavily armed Lebanese group Hezbollah has been mounting near daily attacks on Israeli targets at the Lebanese-Israeli border since Oct. 8, prompting the heaviest exchanges of fire between the enemies since they waged full-scale war in 2006.
• Hezbollah says its attacks have helped to stretch the Israeli army while also uprooting tens of thousands of Israelis who have fled homes near the border. Israeli air and artillery strikes have also forced tens of thousands of Lebanese to flee.
• Founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, Hezbollah has served as a model for other Tehran-backed groups across the region, and has also advised or trained some of them.
• Hezbollah is widely regarded as more powerful than the Lebanese state and shares Iran’s Shi’ite Islamist ideology.
• The United States designates Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation.

How did the axis of resistance emerge? 

• Following the Islamic revolution of 1979, Iran attempted to spread its ideology and political power throughout the Middle East.
• One of its methods for doing so was a network of violent proxies and allies spread over Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and other countries.
• Although not all members of this group share Iran’s Islamic fundamentalism-Sunni members do not even subscribe to its creed they do share common goals: rejecting Western influence and battling Israel.
• Iran’s Quds Force, a division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has long coordinated the axis.
• The force targets weak states. In 1982, it began training young Shia terrorists in Lebanon to harass Israeli soldiers occupying the country’s southern region.
• Throughout the 1990s, the Quds Force supplied major assistance to Palestinian Islamic factions, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
• It also supported the Northern Alliance, a loose coalition in Afghanistan that opposed the Taliban takeover in 1996.
• In 2002, President George W. Bush warned of a new “axis of evil” that included North Korea, Iran, and Iraq.
• After the Libyan newspaper Al-Zahf al-Akhdar published a widely read editorial denouncing the word, some Arab and Iranian media began using the phrase “axis of resistance” to characterise the region’s burgeoning network of anti-American militias.
• The Quds Force began to extend its network in the late 1990s,following America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Quds Force formed armed organisations in the country to combat American and British forces.