Hizbullah’s sprawling financial empire looks newly vulnerable

Residents of Beirut are, by now, used to warnings from the Israel Defence Forces ahead of bombing runs. Typically, these instruct locals to stay away from a tower block suspected of harbouring fighters, or perhaps a school said to double as a weapons cache. The warning on October 20th was a little different. It told people to steer clear of branches of al-Qard al-Hassan (AQAH), a bank.