Hezbollah

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Sheik Ahmad Assir (left) greets supporters to his protest camp in the southern Lebanon port city of Sidon, declaring it an uprising against Hezbollah’s weapons. While the hardline Sunni cleric and his followers may not be a direct threat to Hezbollah, his willingness to publicly confront the terrorist group with strong ties to Syrian President Basher Assad underlines the dangers the group faces as it tries to retain the power and influence it has built up over 30 years. (Associated Press)

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A pro-Syrian regime protester (left), holding a poster of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah with Arabic that reads "Hezbollah", cheers a convoy believed to be transporting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Damascus, Syria, on Feb. 7, 2012. (Associated Press)

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**FILE** Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah is seen in Beirut on June 2007. (Associated Press/Hezbollah Media Office)

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** FILE ** Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, a U.S. military spokesman, speaks near a poster of senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative Ali Mussa Daqduq during a press conference in July 2007 in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Wathiq Khuzaie, Pool, File)

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Angry Sunni protesters remove a poster of Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati in the northern port city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011. Thousands of Sunnis waved flags, burned tires and torched a van belonging to Al Jazeera on Tuesday during a "day of rage" to protest gains by the Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah, which now has enough support in parliament to control Lebanon's next government. In the second and final day of consultations to choose a new prime minister Tuesday, a majority of Lebanese lawmakers voted to support Mr. Mikati, the candidate backed by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah. (AP Photo/Ahmad Omar)

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Angry protesters destroy a van belonging to Al Jazeera in the northern port city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011. Thousands of Sunnis waved flags, burned tires and torched a van belonging to Al Jazeera on Tuesday during a "day of rage" to protest gains by the Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah, which now has enough support in parliament to control Lebanon's next government. The Arabic banner reads:" No for Hezbollah Prime Minister." (AP Photo)

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Lebanese lawmaker Nagib Mikati, a billionaire businessman with close relations to Syria, is emerging as a candidate favored by Hezbollah to head Lebanon's next government. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Tawil, File)

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Lebanese soldiers man armored vehicles to keep order in Beirut as Hezbollah party supporters gather in the streets early Tuesday after a U.N. tribunal filed indictments in the assassination of a former prime minister. (Associated Press)

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Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah is seen on a big screen as he speaks in a Beirut suburb in November. He says the threat of indictments against Hezbollah for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri are not a concern, but analysts say otherwise. Mr. Nasrallah has called for other Lebanese to back his group. (Associated Press)

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Indictments tying Hezbollah to the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri in a suicide bombing that killed 22 others would hit the group's image as strictly a resistance force. (The Washington Times)

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The head of Hezbollah's 12-member parliamentary bloc, Mohammed Raad, speaks at the Parliament in Beirut on Wednesday. (Associated Press)

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Lebanese soldiers patrol in front of a mosque of the Sunni Muslim Association of Islamic Charitable Project, known as the Al-Ahbash group, after clashes erupted between group members and supporters of the Shi'ite Hezbollah group in the Bourj Abu Haidar area near Beirut's downtown on Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2010. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)