Hezbollah foreign relations

Hezbollah has a Foreign Relations Unit (Arabic: وحدة العلاقات الخارجية, romanized: Wahdat al-‘Ilāqāt al-khārijiyya) and maintains relations with a number of foreign countries and entities. These are particularly Shia states, but also Sunni groups like those affiliated with the Palestinian cause; and the group is also suggested to have operations outside the Middle East in places such as Latin America and North Korea.

Hezbollah has especially close relations with Iran, with the Alawite leadership in Syria, specifically with President Hafez al-Assad (until his death in 2000) and his son and successor Bashar al-Assad, and has sent fighters in support of Assad in the Syrian Civil War. Hezbollah declared its support for the now-concluded Al-Aqsa Intifada.

There is little evidence of ongoing Hezbollah contact or cooperation with al-Qaeda. Hezbollah's leaders deny links to al-Qaeda, present or past. Al-Qaeda leaders, such as former al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, consider Shia, which most Hezbollah members are, to be apostates, as do Salafi-jihadis today.

The 9/11 Commission Report, however, found that several al-Qaeda operatives and top military commanders were sent to Hezbollah training camps in Lebanon in 1994.