* Lebanese Islamist group whose ideology was modeled on that of the late Ayatollah Khomeini
Islamic Amal was a Lebanese Islamist group consisting of almost 500 members. It was led by Husayn al-Musawi, who was also a leading figure in Hezbollah. He left the Amal movement in 1982 to protest its newly secular orientation. A former schoolteacher, Musawi modeled Islamic Amal’s ideology after the theocratic, anti-Western doctrines of the late Iranian dictator, Ayatollah Khomeini. Islamic Amal was principally based in Baalbak and maintained close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (an Iranian militia sent to Lebanon in 1982 and mostly withdrawn in late 1991).