The group, whose name means "Party of God" in Arabic, gained notoriety in the 1980s for car bombings that killed 243 U.S. Marines in Beirut and the kidnapping of a CIA officer in that country. It gained political legitimacy in Lebanon in the 1990s by establishing a social service network for poor Muslims and by fighting a guerrilla war that forced Israel to withdraw from the southern part of the country.

The U.S. government says the group is "known or suspected to have been involved in numerous anti-US terrorist attacks" as well bombings of official Israeli offices in Argentina in 1992 and 1994.

On the Web: Hezbollah

From the U.S. State Dept., Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations