Hezbollah wants the world to know it still wants death to Israel, it’s just really busy right now. As Iranian and P5+1 negotiators met in Vienna against a looming deadline and prospects for a deal over Tehran’s nuclear program seemed increasingly dim, Iran’s primary militant proxy — Lebanese Hezbollah — chimed in with news of its own. In an interview with Iran’s Tansim news agency, Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem announced that with Iran’s help the group had acquired advanced Iranian missiles with “pinpoint accuracy” that it could use in any future war with Israel. In other words, should negotiations fail Israel should think twice before carrying out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

This is not exactly an empty threat — though in point of fact Hezbollah has been making noise about its continued focus on fighting Israel for some time now, despite (or perhaps because of) its strong desire to avoid a full-fledged war with Israel at the present time.

In case it wasn’t already clear, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah wants anyone who’s listening to know this: Hezbollah stands fully prepared to fight Israel despite the group’s deep involvement in an entirely different battle in Syria. At least that was the message of Nasrallah’s annual speech marking the Shiite holy day of Ashura in November. What he didn’t say, and is loath to publicly admit, is that Hezbollah desperately wants to avoid a full-blown military conflict with Israel right now and is therefore limiting its attacks on Israel to small and infrequent roadside bombs along the Lebanese border and attacks by local proxies on the Golan Heights.

In the hornet’s nest that is the Middle East, filled with splinter terror groups of all persuasions, Hezbollah — long financed and supplied by Iran and based in Lebanon — has proved one of the most resilient, adaptable, and deadliest. Now, in its newest evolution, instead of its traditional strategy of attacking Israel and, occasionally, Western interests, Hezbollah has found itself consumed by the three-year-old war against Bashar al Assad’s regime in Syria where, together with Iranian operatives, it’s squaring off against Sunnis of all stripes, from Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIL to moderate Sunni rebels, in defense of the Syrian regime.

Read the article in full at the Washington Institute.