Frightening: was it really "just" a militia?

[Skybird]

It seems many of us have had very wrong views on what kind of militia Hezbollah today is. the follwing description sounds more like that of a very well-structured, well-organized, combat-efficient army woth several branches, that has fully arrived in the HiTech age and that by fighting power may be superior to many regular armies in the Middle East. Maybe even to most. This is no another political essay, but an essay focussing on the military structure. I wonder if the UN is aware of these things.

Hezbollah's transformation is a case study

By Carol Rosenberg
McClatchy Newspapers




TEL AVIV, Israel - The Hezbollah force that fought Israel to a draw in a month-long border conflict is the product of a two-decade, Iranian-nurtured program that took a guerrilla group and transformed it into a full-blown Shiite Muslim army.

Interviews with Israeli soldiers and officers as well as published accounts of battles and analyses by experts on military affairs show that Hezbollah has been able to integrate an astonishing array of military capabilities, far outstripping what many Israelis understood were its abilities.

How Hezbollah grew into what one commentator has called the fifth most powerful army in the Middle East is a lesson sure to be studied not only by Israelis but also by their potential opponents in Gaza and the West Bank and by militia groups the world over. In Iraq, where Iran is deeply involved in political developments, the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is said to have made Hezbollah the model for his Mahdi Army militia.

It also bodes ill for hopes that Hezbollah might be restrained by the presence of U.N. peacekeepers or the Lebanese army, which began deploying in southern Lebanon this week after agreeing not to search for Hezbollah weapons.

"They've been hiding their tracks beautifully," said Timor Goksel, a former U.N. peacekeeper who spent 20 years in southern Lebanon and now teaches a course in ethnic conflict at the American University of Beirut. "Even I'm surprised that they were able to build all these systems."

"This was a real army, a command army, well trained and well equipped," said political scientist Gerald Steinberg, the director of the Conflict Management and Negotiation program at Israel's Bar Ilan University. The Palestinian Hamas movement, he said, "will want it more than they ever wanted it before, and they'll have to work harder than ever to get it. Everybody is going to be much more aware and much more willing to let Israel take action precisely to prevent a situation where Gaza turns into south Lebanon."

To be sure, Israel knew much about Hezbollah's military capabilities. Israeli intelligence had detected a 2003 shipment of long-range, Iranian-made Zelzal-2 missiles, which arrived at the Damascus airport in flights returning to Syria after delivering blankets and other emergency relief supplies to earthquake victims in Iran. Israeli officials said they didn't reveal the shipment at the time because they were afraid of tipping off Hezbollah and its allies to their sources.

Israeli military officers also were aware that Hezbollah was constructing a network of bunkers and tunnels on Israel's northern border. One reserve general called them the "infrastructure of an underground Tehran." They knew as well that Hezbollah fighters were regularly shuttling between Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and Iran for advanced training.

But the depth of Hezbollah's development became clear only once Israel attacked its installations in Lebanon in what some initially envisioned as a one- or two-week campaign. After slightly more than four weeks, Israel agreed to a cease-fire that left Hezbollah intact as the strongest political and military force in Lebanon.

The Israeli invasion showed that Hezbollah, with Iran's help, had taken hundreds of small steps to create a powerhouse. Among them:

-It acquired thousands of Russian-made anti-tank missiles from Syria and Iran, then trained its forces to use them. The missiles were startlingly effective not just against Israeli tanks but also against houses and other buildings where Israeli troops sought shelter.

-It set up a top-down, stealthy military structure that tightly controls operations and is led by a covert chief of staff whose name isn't known to the Israelis or at least isn't made public. Israeli military officials think that some promising Hezbollah fighters have been sent to special Iranian command courses.



-It established a combat-ready organization: a logistics branch to handle the delivery of food, fuel and munitions; a black-clad special forces unit to conduct daring combat missions and abduct Israeli soldiers; navy commandos; and an infantry that trains for complex operations and supports the other units.

-It set up a reserve system that consists of former full-time fighters who can be called back to service and "weekend warriors" who undergo regular training but generally haven't seen combat.


It also created an intelligence unit that recruited a Bedouin spy inside the Israeli army and an air wing that sent drones on test runs over Israel in 2004 and 2005, on flight paths similar to those that its Katyusha rockets followed this summer as they rained down on Israel.

It has Shiite fighters who speak Hebrew, perhaps learned on patrols along the northern border in earshot of Israeli broadcasts. This makes some Israeli soldiers suspect that they were being overheard.

It's also kept its command structure largely secret.


Its uniforms have no emblems and insignia that could help Israeli soldiers sort out the commanders from the rank and file in combat. If Israeli intelligence has an organizational chart, it hasn't made it public.


"It's a well-organized army, unified, well-equipped - a big Shiite army," said Iftach Shapira, an analyst for The Middle East Military Balance, a publication of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv. "It happened slowly. We knew this army was being built, but I think we didn't appreciate just how strong it was."

Israelis think that Iran is intimately involved in training Hezbollah, which was founded largely at the behest of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Muslim cleric who toppled the shah of Iran in 1978 and died in 1989.

At the time of Hezbollah's beginnings, Israel occupied southern Lebanon and the United States had sent peacekeeping forces in an effort to separate warring Lebanese sides in a civil war. Hezbollah's first homegrown military leader, Imad Mugniyeh, a Shiite who served with the Palestine Liberation Organization's elite bodyguard unit, is thought to have planned the suicide bombings in Beirut of the U.S. Embassy and the Marine barracks.

Iran dispatched an estimated 100 Revolutionary Guards to help Hezbollah set up military camps in the Bekaa Valley, where they provided ideological and Islamic education and boot camp-style training.

Since then, according to Israeli military intelligence estimates, as many as 1,000 Lebanese recruits a year have been sent to Iran for specialty training in using rockets, anti-tank missiles and other weapons.



To reinforce the recruits' fervor, their Iranian hosts take them on pilgrimages to shrines and mosques around the Shiite heartland, according to Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, until recently Israel's chief of intelligence analysis.

The pilgrimages are important, Kuperwasser said, to provide a religious underpinning to their training.

"The main thing they teach is brainwashing them with their Islamic interpretation of the Quran," he said. "A soldier without motivation is not a soldier."

Much of Israel's freshest information on Hezbollah presumably is coming from the 20-plus Hezbollah fighters it took prisoner in the conflict. Israeli television aired a seven-minute clip from one such interrogation, and provided McClatchy Newspapers with an English-language transcript.

In the clip, the prisoner, Hussein Ali Suleiman, 22, said he joined Hezbollah when he was 15 and studied Hezbollah ideology at a night school until, at age 17, he was sent to 45 days of basic training at a Hezbollah base in Baalbeck, in the Bekaa Valley.

Later that year, he and 40 to 50 others traveled to Iran, first by four-wheel-drive to Syria along a military lane that didn't require passport checks, then aboard a flight to Iran. There, he got advanced training in operating and firing anti-tank missiles in a four-man unit.

He said his unit was deployed twice to southern Lebanon to snatch Israeli soldiers. The first mission was unsuccessful. On the second, on July 12, they killed three soldiers and abducted two others. That raid touched off the most recent fighting.

His assignment: If Israeli armor pursued Hezbollah kidnappers, his unit would fire missiles at the tanks to immobilize them.

Israeli military officers said Suleiman's story illustrated the sophistication of Hezbollah's planning. They noted that not only was he briefed on his role but that his unit also practiced the operation four days before the border incursion.

Israeli officials acknowledge that intelligence gaps led to casualties. For example, Israel didn't know that Hezbollah had acquired sophisticated C-802 land-to-sea guided missiles, one of which struck an Israeli navy ship, the Hanit, off the Lebanese coat, killing four sailors.

Had Israel known about it, officers said, the ship's captain would have engaged an anti-missile system that would have averted the strike.

Israeli intelligence officers won't discuss whether Israel has penetrated Hezbollah successfully. But news accounts make it clear that Hezbollah has infiltrated Israel.

In one case Hezbollah recruited a spy, Israeli army Col. Omar al Heib, a Bedouin scout and Israeli citizen, who provided insights into how the army operated in exchange for heroin and hashish. He was discovered and convicted of espionage last year, and is serving a 15-year sentence.

Hezbollah also made use of unmanned Muhajir aircraft obtained from Iran and capable of carrying camera equipment to over-fly Israel. One of the drones passed over northwestern Israel in April 2005, hours before President Bush and then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon held a news conference in Crawford, Texas.

Israeli soldiers have been stunned by Hezbollah's first-strike strategy. First Sgt. Guy Nehama's paratroop unit lost its commander, a lieutenant, when Hezbollah commandos fired an anti-tank rocket through the wall of a house in the village of Ait a Shaab where they were staying during the third week of the conflict. The impact sent shards of metal flying, decapitating the commander before his eyes.

"Maybe the IDF knew," Nehama said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces. "But the people of Israel didn't know that the Hezbollah got so much stronger."
Goksel, the former U.N. peacekeeper, said that every Hezbollah member in south Lebanon had three changes of clothing in his closet: dress uniforms for parades, fatigues to fight in and the ordinary civilian clothes he wears by day to mask his membership.

[TteFAboB]

Ah, how interesting:

Originally Posted by ttefabob

(...) we had three levels of popular organization: strikes, terrorism and difuse guerrillas, "foquismo" (Che Guevara) or rural guerrilla (Maoist), and finally constituting a 'libertation' army. The latter should progressively evolve into a regular armed force as the enemy hesitated (or the contrary if the enemy responded succesfully).

The Hizbollah seems to lie at this last stage. (...)

Who is going to disarm and dismantle this army? The Lebanese army is a hostage to it (If the Lebanese army attacked the Hizbollah the Lebanese Head of State would quickly become Nassan Nasrallah). The Hizbollah has already gone into hiding. If I were in their position, I'd let the UN aprehend some rifles, hand grenades and a few katyushas to satisfy the global opinion and generate support for this UN mission. The best thing for me is to keep the Israelis far, far away and in their place have this UN force which has both hands tied to its back while giving the impression I am weak and fragile. It's not a human shield, it's a large human wall. Time is on my side and I must survive to see Iran acquire a nuclear weapon. Untill then (or untill the next window of opportunity), re-organize, re-arm and capitalize on this victory for more popular support and volunteers.

[Skybird]

It seems Hezbollah not only was strong by itself, but was strong also because Israel was somewhat weak. If I were a planner in Washington, this war would give me serious headaches with regard to this ally in the ME.

The more I think of it, the more likely it seems to me that one day historians will look back to this war and mark it as the beginning of the end of Israel. The motivation coming from this for Israel's enemies, and the conclusions one needs to draw from this war for the future, and it's conflicts in which Israel's chances are not as good anymore as one has believed, cannot be overestimated. Trying to do it with airpower alone was the worst case scenario i had in mind and directly led to what I see as a top-rank desaster for the interests of Israel. And if you look into history, and ancient empires, you will often see that once the army of an empire had lost it's nimbus of being invincible, it shifted the balance in favour of it's opponents, forever, and that empire slowly but surely started to sink. In my perception, Israel even has not started to see the longlasting negative consequences of this military desaster, and politicians try to turn it into a victory by doing a bodycount. Hezbollah played a Gambit, and won, it'S opponent's strategic position has been severly weakened for the rest of the match. Israel easily could suffocate from the lessons it's enemies have learned, for the damage to it's deterrence is very significant.

Meanwhile, cleaning the kitchen after the party has begun. But many glasses and dishes seem to be broken.

Hezbollah likely to retain weapons
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

The lackluster resolution
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...E1ZThkMGZjMjM=

The Olmert government must go
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

The political fallout of the Lebanese War has, however, much wider connotations than on our own particular brand of infighting. We are not the only ones concerned with Hizbullah. The Iranian-Syrian-Hizbullah axis is seen as a danger for the Sunni regimes of our region. Their leaders have realized that, in the words of The Times article, "Jews constitute no threat to mainstream Sunni Islam. The Shi'ite challenge is another matter." Iran, not Israel, is the danger, and Hizbullah are its shock troops. The sparring has already begun. Syrian President Bashar Assad's speech on Wednesday raised a howl of fury and protest throughout the Sunni countries. Bashar, carried away by his own eloquence, called the Arab leaders who had criticized the kidnapping of our soldiers "half men." For an Arab head of state to name Saudi, Egyptian and Jordanian leaders "half men" is really stretching diplomatic niceties to the extreme.

from: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

Soldiers returning from the war in Lebanon say the army was poorly prepared, slow to rescue injured comrades and suffered from a lack of supplies so dire that soldiers had to drink water from the canteens of dead enemies. "We fought for nothing. We cleared houses that will be reoccupied (by Lebanese Hizbullah guerrillas) in no time," said Ilia Marshak, a 22-year-old infantryman who spent a week inside Lebanon. Marshak said members of his unit were hindered by a lack of information, poor training and untested equipment. The war was widely seen as a just response to a July 12 cross-border attack during which Hizbullah gunmen killed three soldiers and captured two. But Israel's wartime solidarity quickly crumbled after Israel agreed to pull its army out of south Lebanon without crushing Hizbullah or rescuing the captured soldiers. A total of 118 soldiers were killed in the fighting, and the army was frequently caught off guard by a well-trained force backed by Iran and Syria that used sophisticated weapons and tactics. Soldiers, for instance, complained that Hizbullah fighters disguised themselves in IDF uniforms. Military experts and commentators have criticized the army for relying too heavily on air power and delaying ground action too long. They say the army underestimated Hizbullah's abilities, and that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert set an unrealistic goal by pledging to destroy the guerrilla group. Some of the harshest criticism has come from reservists, who form the backbone of the army.Newspapers quoted disgruntled reservists as saying they had no provisions, were sent into battle with outdated or faulty equipment and insufficient supplies, and received little or no training. "I personally haven't thrown a grenade in 15 years, and I thought I'd get a chance to do so before going north," a reservist in an elite infantry brigade told the Maariv daily. Yediot Ahronot, quoted one soldier as saying thirsty troops threw chlorine tablets into filthy water in sheep and cow troughs. Another said his unit took canteens off the bodies of dead guerrillas. "When you're thirsty and have to keep fighting, you don't think a lot, and there is no time to feel disgusted," the unidentified soldier said.The newspaper said helicopters were hindered from delivering food supplies or carrying out rescue operations because commanders feared the aircraft would be shot down. In some cases, soldiers bled to death because they were not rescued in time, the newspaper said. Comrades of the two soldiers captured by Hizbullah sent a petition to the prime minister on Thursday accusing the government of abandoning their comrades. "We went to reserve duty with the certainty that all of Israel's citizens, and the Israeli government, believe in the same value that every combatant learns from his first day in basic training - you don't leave friends behind," the soldiers wrote. "This is a moral low point. The government has abandoned two IDF combatants that it sent on a mission." The petition was still being circulated Friday and it was unclear how many soldiers had signed.While such sentiments weren't shared by all soldiers, even some senior commanders acknowledged the army came up short in Lebanon. When combat soldier Gil Ovadia returned home, his commander made no mention of victory in an address to their battalion. Instead, the commander informed them the war was over, said they did a good job, and told them to be prepared to come back soon and fight again. "We'll be back in Lebanon in a few months, maybe years," Ovadia said.

from: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

[Yahoshua]

Yes...this is a disastrous defeat for Israel.

What should've happened was a SWARM of infantry and armor to attack Hizbullah. To hammer them into the ground until they have nothing left to fight with. Damn the opinion of the U.N. and France and all the rest. Their opinions are about as strong as their will to retain their own society: Worthless.

Olmert is lefty, and he either needs to be taken out of office, or buried in a discreet place. Israel will be back in Lebanon. It may be a few months, a couple years or 10 years from now, but she will be going back. And it may be much more painful the next time.

Rant over.

[Skybird]

I think, and some commentators said somehting like that, too, that he hoped to parade into office like Thatcher once did, by winning a war.

This would explain the bad preparation, due to lack of time: the kidnappings were taken as a trigger, to use the opportunity demanded a quick reaction. Actually, I think the war was long wanted before and had nothing to do with the kidnapped soldiers.

A guerilla army cannot be defeated by huge ground battles, it tends to come back and to be more mobile, and mind you: IDF complains about being caught by surprise by Hezbollah's "strike first"-tactics. Hezbollah clearly had the initiative on the ground. It is beyond me why this was not corrected during the first week of the war. I supported the war, not because the kidnappings, but because the real reason of it: weakening Hezbollah's military potentials. but the longer it went on, the more my suppoort turned into disgust about the IDF's incometence. Especially the IDF I would have expected to know it better. But then again, i did not learn until some days ago that there have been massive cuts in defense budget, fundings for reserve units, reservist training and their equipment. Obviously no one had expected that Israel again would need to fight wars in the style of those that now lie in the past. The IDf had turned into a heavily armed police force, it seems.

Back then I said how it should have been done, in my eyes: the same ammount of aerial attacks, but for better targetting and taregt identification, more eyes on the ground would have been needed. Massive mobilising of ALL available reservists, finishing the process in the middle of the 1st week (you cannot do it in advance, before the war is launched, since this would have sent a warning message to Hezbollah). Flooding southern Lebanon with troops (eyes), rushing north in a small corridor to the Litani, and seal it off, isolate the South effectively and preventing escape and resupply, then dealing with the south en detail. While strategic bombing in the north continues, troops search every squaremeter, and when making contact, retreat far enough not to launch a battle, fix the enemy and call in artillery and air and shatter the enermy by overkill dosis of weaponry. Only in this way all the small hideouts and hidden facilties and storage places could be found and destroyed while minimizing own losses.

Lebanon war is a prime example of how one needs to fight in order to guarantee failure. Olmert must go, and the complete leadership of the armed forces as well. they screwed up, with very severe and lasting longterm consequences for Israel.

We have become too kind for war.

Future prospects: Hezbollah fighters will stay and live where they are. There will be no disarmament. they have more support now than before. New and more sophisticated weapons of longer range will be smuggled in. The UN force will be unable to prevent this (look at that landscape and you know why). Sooner or later Hezbollah will start launching missiles at Israel again - over the heads of the UN troops in their puffer zone. UN positions will again be abused for hiding. If the UN troops are stupid enough to use military force to counter Hezbollah'S strategic interests, they will be bombed out of the country like in 1983 the americans and French. This troop has no use, and no realistic mission, and Annan already has ruled out that it will use military force. I wonder why it is being send. It is irresponsible to do so, imo, and proves bad leadership and no sense of responsebility for the wellbeing and elemental security neefds of those men and women being sent. If you risk their lifes, give them a mission that is nworth it, and not this foolish nonsens mandate. Else all sacrifices of theirs will be in vain - unacceptable. New schools and hpsitals will be build on top of ammo bunkers. The next attack against Israel already is prepared.

For the perspective of an American war against Iran, the attempt to get rid of a risky second front at Israels flank has failed. The Iran war will see adjustements in it's planning.

American'S strategic trust into it's ally in that region without doubt must be shaken. It remains to be seen how this affects Washingtons future approaches to ME politics. It will not give it up, but it will not trust into Israel'S strength so much anymore.

Annan is a great hoper. I hate people hoping all day long, loosing all sense of realism in that process. Hopes are for dreamers.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Yahoshua

Yes...this is a disastrous defeat for Israel.

What should've happened was a SWARM of infantry and armor to attack Hizbullah. To hammer them into the ground until they have nothing left to fight with. Damn the opinion of the U.N. and France and all the rest. Their opinions are about as strong as their will to retain their own society: Worthless.

Olmert is lefty, and he either needs to be taken out of office, or buried in a discreet place. Israel will be back in Lebanon. It may be a few months, a couple years or 10 years from now, but she will be going back. And it may be much more painful the next time.

Rant over.

Correct. For Israel to claim victory, it had to destroy Hizbullah. It did not, and could not given the excecution of the offensive. What has happened is that the IDF has lost some of it's luster in the eyes of the Islamists. They will return, enboldened and in greater numbers.

[Yahoshua]

"Dig your foxholes.......it'll be our graves." -unknown

[XabbaRus]

Lack of time to prepare as far as aI ma aware from varous sources Israel had planned this attack for about a year now and were waiting for a trigger to go in.

Thing is Hizzbullah have won the PR battle, who has moved in to start rebuilding houses, schools and hospitals? The Lebanes govt? The UN? no Hizbullah, so people are now singing their praises so hizbullah get stronger along with their Iranian and Syrian backers.

I think France has been dispicable in only promising 200 troops. The UK can't afford to provide any and wouldn't be welcome anyway. The euro forces do have the ability to get into Lebanon quickly, it's not like it's that far away. I also think it is daft that Malaysia and Indonesia have even been considered since they don't recognise Israel as a state. This is an opportunity for Germany, France and other euro govts whose troops aren't stuck in other places to take some leadership and sort out the situation.

What a FUBAR.

[Skybird]

I cannot be angry at any nation not embarking on this UN mission. Also, I think a majority of Europeans is against this madness, too, and at least in democracies governments shouldn't work against the will of their people - although that has become a bad habit. Several polls in Germany showed that between 60 and 80 percent of Germans are against any form of participation at all, even when it is about navy units only. Only less than 10% believe that that mission eventually could produce something good. I cannot imagine that it is much different in other Westeuropean countries. I cannot criticise the French: they once were there, and got burned badly and had major casualties, all for nothing. They probably remember quite well what kind of madhous the ME and especially Lebanon is. Since madman Annan already has ruled that these troops should only act as moving targets that are forbidden to use military force, all this is irresponsible madness. The best scenario is that the war will continue overhead of the the UN soldiers. The worst scenario is that Hezbollah will eat them up.

[scandium]

France is getting nailed to the wall over this in the international media, and even in their own domestic media. Some American papers are especially vitriolic in their criticism, this fanning the flames over French 'obstructionism' during the attempt to get a 2nd resolution on Iraq, and on this I am with the critics.

France brokered this peace, offered to lead it, said it would take 15,000 men, and now they offer up 200. Pathetic.

[Skybird]

they shouldn't have made promises, and shouldn't have supported the brokering of that resolution. In so far I agree. It is a result of their traditional anti-anglosaxon and anti-Israel, pro-Lebanese attitude.