Nicholas Blanford – författare

As sectarian tensions mount in Lebanon following the 2006 summer war, one question threatens to ignite the Middle Eastern tinderbox. Who killed former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri as he drove along the seafront on that fateful day in 2005? With an international tribunal about to be set up, the issue could drag Syria, Hezbollah, Iran Israel and Hamas in to a regional war.In a much-acclaimed blend of investigative journalism, reportage and story-telling, Nicholas Blanford draws on his unrivalled sources in Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere to piece together the politics, personalities and power-struggles leading up to the assassination. The paperback edition contains new interviews with key players who refused to speak at the time, casting some of the evidence in a dramatic new light. Full of intrigue, shady characters and suspense, "Killing Mr Lebanon" is the definitive account of how Beirut became once again the flashpoint of the Middle East.

Hezbollah is the most powerful Islamist group operating in the Middle East today, and no other Western journalist has penetrated as deeply inside this secretive organization as Nicholas Blanford. Now Blanford has written the first comprehensive inside account of Hezbollah and its enduring struggle against Israel. Based on more than a decade and a half of reporting in Lebanon and conversations with Hezbollah’s determined fighters, Blanford reveals their ideology, motivations, and training, as well as new information on military tactics, weapons, and sophisticated electronic warfare and communications systems.Using exclusive sources and his own dogged investigative skills, Blanford traces Hezbollah’s extraordinary evolution—from a zealous group of raw fighters motivated by Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution into the most formidable non-state military organization in the world, whose charismatic leader vows to hasten Israel’s destruction. With dramatic eyewitness accounts, including Blanford’s own experiences of the battles, massacres, triumphs, and tragedies that have marked the conflict, the story follows the increasingly successful campaign of resistance that led to Israel’s historic withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.Warriors of God shows how Hezbollah won hearts and minds with exhaustive social welfare programs and sophisticated propaganda skills. Blanford traces the group’s secret military build-up since 2000 and reveals the stunning scope of its underground network of tunnels and bunkers, becoming the only journalist to independently discover and explore them. With the Middle East fearful of another, even more destructive war between Lebanon and Israel, Blanford tenaciously pursues Hezbollah’s post-2006 battle plans in the Lebanese mountains, earning him newspaper scoops as well as a terrifying interrogation and a night in jail.Featuring sixteen years of probing interviews with Hezbollah’s leaders and fighters, Warriors of God is essential to understanding a key player in a region rocked by change and uncertainty.From the Hardcover edition.

On Valentine's Day 2005 former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri, nicknamed 'Mr Lebanon' for his local power and patronage, was killed by a massive explosion as he drove along the Beirut seafront. Ten weeks later, Syrian troops had withdrawn from Lebanon after an occupation of nearly thirty years. In this compelling book, Nicholas Blanford looks at how the murder of a businessman provoked such a seismic shift in Middle Eastern politics. He examines Hariri's past, inextricably linked with that of Lebanon, and uncovers a murky world of shifting alliances between businesses, security services, politicians and diplomats. Based on exclusive interviews with the key players in the Syrian, Lebanese and international arenas, Blanford traces the last weeks of Hariri's life, and reveals who and what stood to gain from his death. Gaining access to material never before made public, Blanford shows how right up until the morning of his assassination, Hariri was building up a unique political movement which would have upset the balance of power in Middle Eastern politics. Larger than life figures emerge in this Shakespearean political drama: the wily Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, the much-feared head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, Rustom Ghazaleh and the young Syrian leader eager to stamp his authority, Bashar al-Assad. With Lebanon reeling from the explosion of regional tensions in the summer of 2006, Blanford traces the impact of the Hariri assassination on Hizbullah, Syria and Israel. Full of intrigue, shady characters and suspense, Killing Mr Lebanon is the definitive account of how Beirut became once again the flashpoint of the Middle East.