Position: Political Advisor to Hezbollah’s Secretary General

Hussein al-Khalil began his political career in Imam Musa al-Sadr’s Amal Party. However, after the Imam’s disappearance in 1978 and Nabih Berri’s subsequent assumption of the party’s leadership, al-Khalil broke away from the party – along with other religiously inclined members, like Hassan Nasrallah, Abbas al-Mousaoui, Subhi al-Tufaili, Mohammad Yazbek, Naim Qassem, Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed, and Mohammad Raad – to found Islamic Amal.

Al-Khalil became one of Hezbollah’s earliest members upon its emergence in 1982. He served as one of Hezbollah’s main leaders in the Beqaa Valley, maintaining a senior position in the movement’s command leadership since then. In the mid- to late 1980s, he established Hezbollah’s security apparatus and acted as the operational coordinator of its military units in cooperation with Islamic Amal. He then headed Hezbollah’s Politburo (now known as the Political Council) between the years of 1989-1990.

He was later elected as Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah’s political advisor in July of 1995, during Hezbollah’s fourth conclave, and a member of the Shura Council. He has held both positions since that time. Al-Khalil is currently the only other non-cleric besides Mohammad Raad serving on Hezbollah’s supreme Council. Al-Khalil acts as Nasrallah’s personal representative, taking meetings on his and the party’s behalf with other public, political, religious, or media officials.

According to an in-depth CBC investigation, Hussein al-Khalil and Wafiq Safa (the head of Hezbollah’s internal security department) were both involved in the 2008 assassination of Lebanese Internal Security Forces Captain Wissam Eid. At the time of his murder, Eid was investigating the 2005 assassination of Rafic Hariri. Al-Khalil has also served as part of Hezbollah’s national Central Security Apparatus, acting as the main liaison between the movement’s security and intelligence branches, and between Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence, the VEVAK (Vezarat-e Ettelaat V’Amniyat-e Keshvar). For a time during the 1990s, he also shared responsibility with Hezbollah’s late military commander Imad Mughniyeh for the group’s “special operations” in Europe.