One of those who recently attended the course was 30-year-old Abdallah al-Sufyani, a lovelorn former university student from Taif.

ECONOMIST: A survey of al-Qaeda

Syria had a lot of ability in the years it was in Lebanon to work with the Lebanese Army, work with various Lebanese intelligence services, protect Hezbollah from the Taif Agreement, which called for the disarming of all militias.

NPR: The Syria-Lebanon Connection