Sources close to Hezbollah stressed to Al-Monitor that the party is fully focused on assessing the possible consequences on Syria and Lebanon of events related to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which now calls itself the Islamic State. 

The leadership of the primary and strongest Shiite organization in Lebanon and the region has, over the past two weeks, embarked on studying the facts of what happened in northwest Iraq — how it happened and its direct and indirect causes — so it can take precautions, according to the sources.

The sources have enumerated the internal causes of the collapse in Iraq. They recognize the fragility of the state that was built in Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s fall, as well as the depth of sectarian conflicts; the corruption in Baghdad; the rash decision to disband the Iraqi army and the faltering attempts to rebuild it; and finally, the dissolution rather than the integration of the Awakening Councils into the state after Abu Musab Zarqawi was killed.

But Hezbollah sources in Beirut also emphasized the responsibility of external forces for recent events. They said Turkey, for example, acted as a safe base and logistical warehouse for ISIS, and that claims to the contrary in the media are for disinformation purposes only, with the sources providing evidence of this claim.