Background and career
Subhi al-Tufayli (Arabic: صبحي الطفيلي; born 1947) is a Lebanese senior Shi'ite cleric and politician who helped found Hezbollah in 1982 and served as its first secretary-general from 1989 until 1991. Early on, Tufayli was respected in the Lebanese Shi'ite community as a learned Shi'ite scholar.
Al-Tufayli is a vocal critic of Iran and the current Hezbollah leadership. Tufayli split with Hezbollah during the 1990s after the death of co-founder Abbas al-Mousawi, when the faction of Hassan Nasrallah favoured by Iran gained dominance. Tufayli claims that Hezbollah is engaging in politics rather than armed insurgency against Israel and using the Palestinians as a pawn. After violent confrontations between Tufayli's followers and Hezbollah members, he was expelled from Hezbollah in 1998.
Tufayli is against Iranian hegemony in the region.
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