Islamic Jihad Reportedly Being Disbanded in Crackdown

A Beirut magazine said Friday that an underground group holding at least two American hostages is being disbanded after a crackdown on its leadership by Hezbollah, Iran’s closest ally in Lebanon.

The magazine, Ash Shiraa, also reported that Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s Parliament Speaker and acting military commander in chief, has been put in charge of Iranian policy on the foreign hostages held in Lebanon.

The magazine, which gained international attention for first revealing U.S. secret arms sales to Iran, cited no sources for Friday’s report. Not all of its previous stories have been accurate.

Ash Shiraa said Islamic Jihad, or Islamic Holy War, “has been rapidly disintegrating after the arrest of one of its leaders, Abbas Zoreik, who headed a squad responsible for bank robberies in Beirut.”

The magazine did not say when Zoreik was arrested by what it called “an Islamic party that has been patronizing Islamic Jihad.”

This appeared to be a reference to Hezbollah, or Party of God, which is widely believed to be the umbrella for various Shia Muslim underground factions.

If the magazine’s report is accurate, it could mean Hezbollah is trying to remove extremist surrogates holding the hostages in order to take direct charge of the captives in advance of possible negotiations to free them.