AFE7FATMAN
08-05-2006, 05:14 AM
Maybe they will stand down because
BENJAMIN HARVEY, Associated Press Writer
from Yahoo news
JERUSALEM - Hezbollah's sophisticated anti-tank missiles are perhaps the guerrilla group's deadliest weapon in Lebanon fighting, with their ability to pierce Israel's most advanced tanks.
Experts say this is further evidence that Israel is facing a well-equipped army in this war, not a ragtag militia.
Hezbollah has fired Russian-made Metis-M anti-tank missiles and owns European-made Milan missiles, the army confirmed on Friday.
In the last two days alone, these missiles have killed seven soldiers and damaged three Israeli-made Merkava tanks — mountains of steel that are vaunted as symbols of Israel's military might, the army said. Israeli media say most of the 44 soldiers killed in four weeks of fighting were hit by anti-tank missiles.
"They (Hezbollah guerrillas) have some of the most advanced anti-tank missiles in the world," said Yossi Kuperwasser, a senior military intelligence officer who retired earlier this summer.
"This is not a militia, it's an infantry brigade with all the support units," Kuperwasser said.
Israel contends that Hezbollah gets almost all of its weaponry from Syria and by extension Iran, including its anti-tank missiles.
That's why cutting off the supply chain is essential — and why fighting Hezbollah after it has spent six years building up its arsenal is proving so painful to Israel, officials say.
Israel's Merkava tanks boast massive amounts of armor and lumber and resemble fortresses on tracks. They are built for crew survival, according to Globalsecurity.org, a Washington-based military think tank.
Hezbollah celebrates when it destroys one.
"A Zionist armored force tried to advance toward the village of Chihine. The holy warriors confronted it and destroyed two Merkava tanks," the group proclaimed on television Thursday.
The Israeli army confirmed two attacks on Merkava tanks that day — one that killed three soldiers and the other killing one. The three soldiers who were killed on Friday were also killed by anti-tank missiles, the army said.
It would not say whether the missiles disabled the tanks.
"To the best of my understanding, they (Hezbollah) are as well-equipped as any standing unit in the Syrian or Iranian armies," said Eran Lerman, a retired army colonel and now director of the Israel/Middle East office of the American Jewish Committee. "This is not a rat-pack guerrilla, this is an organized militia."
Besides the anti-tank missiles, Hezbollah is also known to have a powerful rocket-propelled grenade known as the RPG29. These weapons are also smuggled through Syria, an Israeli security official said, and were previously used by Palestinian militants in Gaza to damage tanks.
On Friday, Jane's Defense Weekly, a defense industry magazine, reported that Hezbollah asked Iran for "a constant supply of weapons" to support its operations against Israel.
The report cited Western diplomatic sources as saying that Iranian authorities promised Hezbollah a steady supply of weapons "for the next stage of the confrontation."
Top Israeli intelligence officials say they have seen Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldiers on the ground with Hezbollah troops. They say that permission to fire Hezbollah's longer-range missiles, such as those could reach Tel Aviv, would likely require Iranian go-ahead.
Nbadan
08-06-2006, 03:47 AM
The end game by Israel is to try and draw Hezbollah in Northern Lebanon to expose themselves by firing their longer range missiles, that way they can sweep through Lebanon, bombing the rest of Beruit along the way, turning public sentiment away from Hezbollah, and eradicating as many sympathizers as they can in the process. Trouble is, Hezbollah isn't falling for it...
The flights of Israeli drones over Beirut had been irregular over the past two weeks. However, that changed on Wednesday as the drones flew for most of that day and into Thursday night. Sources close to the Lebanese intelligence services maintained that this new development had resulted in all Lebanese security forces being put on high alert as a large-scale conflict was now expected.
In this psychological war, neither Israel nor Hezbollah is proving to be foolish. Despite the repeated strikes on Dahieh, Hezbollah's stronghold, the organization has refused to react in the north, as any such reaction would justify Israeli attacks on Beirut. If that were to occur, the people of Beirut who support Hezbollah could turn against the organization as their city became the target of Israeli bombs, missiles and shells.
At the same time, Israel is also cautious not to overplay its hand until Hezbollah's strength in the north can be gauged. Israel also clearly understands that many European countries, especially France, have large investments in northern Lebanon and any unjustified military strikes on Beirut would be very bad international public relations. So far, all Israeli attacks have targeted southern Lebanon or suburbs like Dahieh, where the international community is not a stakeholder.
Hezbollah, too, has turned out to be smarter than expected. Despite its popularity among the masses, it has not shown itself outside the south, even in the refugee camps, despite the good PR opportunities there.
Asia Times (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH05Ak02.html)
Nbadan
08-07-2006, 12:25 PM
Dodging drones on the road from hell
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
MARJAYOUN and NABATIYEH, Lebanon - While Israel pushes its ground troops deeper into south Lebanon toward the Litani River, Hezbollah is responding by retreating to the mountains around the towns of Marjayoun and Nabatiyeh, Asia Times Online on-the-ground investigations show.
In preparation for its push north, Israel has dropped pamphlets urging all civilians to leave the cities around and including Tyre and Sidon. This is likely to be followed by heavy aerial attacks, and then the ground troops.
The plan is that once Israeli forces reach the Litani, Hezbollah would have no option but to retreat up to the Bekaa Valley or into northern cities, where its fighters would be more isolated.
However, this is not as simple as it appears, and a visit by thiscorrespondent to the mountain vastness of Marjayoun and Nabatiyeh confirms that the Lebanese resistance also has a two-pronged plan.
According to people close to the resistance, the first stage is to rain rockets on to any Israeli troops in south Lebanon from the Marjayoun area. Then long-range Hezbollah rockets will be fired into Israel.
A journey from hell
The area around Marjayoun, which lies midway between Tyre and Sidon but to the east toward the Israeli border, is not for the faint-hearted: with no understatement it could be described as the hottest war front in the country.
Three of us set out in a black Mercedes - this correspondent, a Dutch photojournalist and a Hungarian documentary maker.
As one gets closer to the border - about 10 kilometers away - the more the towns have been bombed, and the more they are deserted. The aim is to cut off logistical support for Hezbollah.
We proceeded slowly on narrow tracks, but were brought to a halt at a bombed-out bridge that prevented us from crossing the Litani, just 5km from the border.
With the car stopped, the sounds of Israeli drones in the sky above became all too clear. My colleagues refused to go further on foot. As we discussed what to do, the driver, Jehad, announced that we had a flat tire, and the spare was for the wrong make of car.
The driver called civil defense for assistance, but despite their positive reply, he proceeded to drive back with the flat tire. "I swear if we stop here they will bomb the car. We should keep moving," a clearly agitated Jehad insisted.
Soon the tire was in shreds, and we implored him to stop before the rim was damaged. He halted, but the constant sound of the drones above pushed him to move again. He told us to follow on foot if we wanted, which we did.
Only as the car disappeared over a ridge did we realize what a target we must make: three figures walking in the middle of nowhere, lugging bags that could easily be carrying ammunition.
The tension was palpable as we silently trudged on. Then we came across our car, with the welcome sight of civil defense and Lebanese army helpers. The tire was quickly fixed and we drove to the nearby town of Janine.
Our sojourn had not gone unnoticed, though. The civil defense told us later that just 10 minutes after we left the area, Israeli bombs began to fall. Their reconnaissance can't be faulted.
Nevertheless, we pushed on for the city of Nabatiyeh, near the border, another favorite Israeli target.
Passing through the destroyed villages of Marmta and Rehan we were stopped at many checkpoints by civilians and asked to produce identification. At one point we were stopped for about half an hour.
I had only one query for my interrogators when they had finished their inquiries: "If all the routes have been destroyed, how can Hezbollah get supplies and move its men?"
The answer came with a smile: "Mules and donkeys."
But there is more to it than that.
The village of Jarjauh lies on the way to Nabatiyeh. It's a mess; what buildings haven't been totally razed are just piles of rubble. We sniffed around, and in one of the partially damaged buildings we found a brand-new truck, covered with a sheet and clearly loaded with something. I was about to take a picture, but Jehad objected strongly, a terrified look on his face.
"This truck certainly belongs to the resistance, and if they see us taking pictures, they will chop us to pieces. Move!" Without waiting for our protestations, he pushed us into the car and drove off - though we managed to snap a few shots.
After just 500 meters we were again face-to-face with some men wanting to check us out. They were carrying radio sets, but were friendly and guided us all the way to Nabatiyeh.
As we were leaving Jarjauh we saw the yellow smoke trail of a Hezbollah missile arcing from a nearby mountain toward Israel. The driver stepped on the gas.
Earlier, near Farfilla village, we came across two lads walking on the road. They were injured. They had been driving a car, but became spooked by the drones overhead and spun off the road down a 50-meter slope. We gave them some water and food and informed the civil defense of their location.
We roamed all over Nabatiyeh and found virtually all houses and shops destroyed. Nabatiyeh was the main financial artery of the resistance, deriving much of its wealth from the diamond trade, especially with East African countries. Most of the city dwellers have now fled. Some of the few remaining residents sat on the sidewalk of an empty market, drinking tea and waiting for more bombs to fall.
Suddenly, we heard of some casualties and we ran toward a hospital managed by the Iranian Red Crescent. Apparently four guerrillas had been wounded in air strikes. On their way to hospital they were spotted by the ever-vigilant drones and their car was hit by a bomb right in front of the hospital.
Dozens of bearded lads had descended on the hospital. They prevented the press, including us three and a cameraman from Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV, from entering the emergency area. They only allowed us to take shots of the destroyed car. The wounded men were not hurt further in the second attack.
Apart from our mishaps and constant nagging fear, the journey was illuminating in that it revealed to us how Hezbollah has dug in deep across the countryside, and is still capable of launching missiles. They command the high ground of a ridge overlooking Israel.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at
[email protected].
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing .)
boutons_
08-07-2006, 01:01 PM
"Hezbollah has drones"
Those oil $Bs pumped into Iran by the Repugs can buy anything.
It's certain that Hezbolloah has world-class anti-tank weapons this time around.
====================
August 7, 2006
The Militia
A Disciplined Hezbollah Surprises Israel With Its Training, Tactics and Weapons
By STEVEN ERLANGER and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
JERUSALEM, Aug. 6 — On Dec. 26, 2003, a powerful earthquake leveled most of Bam, in southeastern Iran, killing 35,000 people. Transport planes carrying aid poured in from everywhere, including Syria.
According to Israeli military intelligence, the planes returned to Syria carrying sophisticated weapons, including long-range Zelzal missiles, which the Syrians passed on to Hezbollah, the Shiite militia group in southern Lebanon that Iran created and sponsors.
As the Israeli Army struggles for a fourth week to defeat Hezbollah before a cease-fire, the shipments are just one indication of how — with the help of its main sponsors, Iran and Syria — the militia has sharply improved its arsenal and strategies in the six years since Israel abruptly ended its occupation of southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah is a militia trained like an army and equipped like a state, and its fighters “are nothing like Hamas or the Palestinians,” said a soldier who just returned from Lebanon. “They are trained and highly qualified,” he said, equipped with flak jackets, night-vision goggles, good communications and sometimes Israeli uniforms and ammunition. “All of us were kind of surprised.”
Much attention has been focused on Hezbollah’s astonishing stockpile of Syrian- and Iranian-made missiles, some 3,000 of which have already fallen on Israel. More than 48 Israelis have been killed in the attacks — including 12 reservist soldiers killed Sunday, who were gathered at a kibbutz at Kfar Giladi, in northern Israel, when rockets packed with antipersonnel ball bearings exploded among them, and 3 killed Sunday evening in another rocket barrage on Haifa.
But Iran and Syria also used those six years to provide satellite communications and some of the world’s best infantry weapons, including modern, Russian-made antitank weapons and Semtex plastic explosives, as well as the training required to use them effectively against Israeli armor.
It is Hezbollah’s skillful use of those weapons — in particular, wire-guided and laser-guided antitank missiles, with double, phased explosive warheads and a range of about two miles — that has caused most of the casualties to Israeli forces.
Hezbollah’s Russian-made antitank missiles, designed to penetrate armor, have damaged or destroyed Israeli vehicles, including its most modern tank, the Merkava, on about 20 percent of their hits, Israeli tank commanders at the front said.
Hezbollah has also used antitank missiles, including the less modern Sagger, to fire from a distance into houses in which Israeli troops are sheltered, with a first explosion cracking the typical concrete block wall and the second going off inside.
“They use them like artillery to hit houses,” said Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, until recently the Israeli Army’s director of intelligence analysis. “They can use them accurately up to even three kilometers, and they go through a wall like through the armor of a tank.”
Hezbollah fighters use tunnels to quickly emerge from the ground, fire a shoulder-held antitank missile, and then disappear again, much the way Chechen rebels used the sewer system of Grozny to attack Russian armored columns.
“We know what they have and how they work,” General Kuperwasser said. “But we don’t know where all the tunnels are. So they can achieve tactical surprise.”
The antitank missiles are the “main fear” for Israeli troops, said David Ben-Nun, 24, an enlisted man in the Nahal brigade who just returned from a week in Lebanon. The troops do not linger long in any house because of hidden missile crews. “You can’t even see them,” he said.
With modern communications and a network of tunnels, storage rooms, barracks and booby traps laid under the hilly landscape, Hezbollah’s training, tactics and modern weaponry explain, the Israelis say, why they are moving with caution.
The Israelis say Hezbollah’s fighters number from 2,000 to 4,000, a small army that is aided by a larger circle of part-timers who provide logistics and storage of weapons in houses and civilian buildings.
Hezbollah operates like a revolutionary force within a civilian sea, making it hard to fight without occupying or bombing civilian areas. On orders, some fighters emerge to retrieve launchers, fire missiles and then melt away. Still, the numbers are small compared with the Israeli Army and are roughly the size of one Syrian division.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards have helped teach Hezbollah how to organize itself like an army, with special units for intelligence, antitank warfare, explosives, engineering, communications and rocket launching.
They have also taught Hezbollah how to aim rockets, make shaped “improvised explosive devices” — used to such devastating results against American armor in Iraq — and, the Israelis say, even how to fire the C-802, a ground-to-ship missile that Israel never knew Hezbollah possessed.
Iranian Air Force officers have made repeated trips to Lebanon to train Hezbollah to aim and fire Iranian medium-range missiles, like the Fajr-3 and Fajr-5, according to intelligence officials in Washington. The Americans say they believe that a small number of Iranian operatives remain in Beirut, but say there is no evidence that they are directing Hezbollah’s attacks.
But Iran, so far, has not allowed Hezbollah to fire one of the Zelzal missiles, the Israelis say.
The former Syrian president, Hafez al-Assad, was careful to restrict supplies to Hezbollah, but his son, Bashar, who took over in 2000 — the year Israel pulled out of Lebanon — has opened its warehouses.
Syria has given Hezbollah 220-millimeter and 302-millimeter missiles, both equipped with large, anti-personnel warheads. Syria has also given Hezbollah its most sophisticated antitank weapons, sold to the Syrian Army by Russia.
Those, General Kuperwasser said, include the Russian Metis and RPG-29. The RPG-29 has both an antitank round to better penetrate armor and an anti-personnel round. The Metis is more modern yet, wire-guided with a longer range and a higher speed, and can fire up to four rounds a minute.
Some Israelis say they believe that Syria has provided Hezbollah with the Russian-made Kornet, laser-guided, with a range of about three miles, which Hezbollah may be holding back, waiting for Israel to move farther into southern Lebanon and extend its supply lines.
Despite Israeli complaints to Moscow, “Russia just decided to close its eyes,” a senior Israeli official said.
In its early years, Hezbollah specialized in suicide bombings and kidnappings. The United States blames it for the suicide attacks on the American Embassy in Beirut and a Marine barracks in 1983. The group became popular in the Shiite south and set up its mini-state there, as well as reserving to itself a section of southern Beirut, known as Security Square.
Until 2003, Timur Goksel was the senior political adviser to Unifil, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which monitors the border. He says he knows Hezbollah well and speaks with admiration of its commitment and organization.
After fighting the Israelis for 18 years, “they’re not afraid of the Israeli Army anymore,” he said in a telephone interview from Beirut. Hezbollah’s ability to harass the Israelis and study their flaws, like a tendency for regular patrols and for troop convoys on the eve of the Sabbath, gave Hezbollah confidence that the Israeli Army “is a normal human army, with normal vulnerabilities and follies,” he added.
Now, however, “Hezbollah has much better weapons than before,” he said.
Mr. Goksel describes Hezbollah much as the Israelis do: careful, patient, attuned to gathering intelligence, scholars of guerrilla warfare from the American Revolution to Mao and the Vietcong, and respectful of Israeli firepower and mobility.
“Hezbollah has studied asymmetrical warfare, and they have the advantage of fighting in their own landscape, among their people, where they’ve prepared for just what the Israelis are doing — entering behind armor on the ground,” Mr. Goksel said.
“They have staff work and they do long-term planning, something the Palestinians never do,” he said. “They watch for two months to note every detail of their enemy. They review their operations — what they did wrong, how the enemy responded. And they have flexible tactics, without a large hierarchical command structure.”
That makes them very different from the Soviet-trained Arab armies the Israelis defeated in 1967 and 1973, which had a command structure that was too regimented.
In 1992, when Sheik Hassan Nasrallah took over, he organized Hezbollah into three regional commands with military autonomy. Beirut and the Hezbollah council made policy, but did not try to run the war. Sheik Nasrallah — said to have been advised by the secretive Imad Mugniyeh, a trained engineer wanted by the United States on terrorism charges — thereby improved Hezbollah’s security and limited its communications.
It set up separate and largely autonomous units that live among civilians, with local reserve forces to provide support, supplies and logistics. Hezbollah commanders travel in old cars without bodyguards or escorts and wear no visible insignia, Mr. Goksel said, to keep their identities hidden.
Hezbollah began by setting up roadside bombs detonated by cables, which the Israelis learned to defeat with wire-cutting attachments to their vehicles. Then Hezbollah used radio detonators, which the Israelis also defeated, and then cellphone detonators, and then a double system of cellphones, and then a photocell detonator — like the beam that opens an automatic door. Now, Mr. Goksel said, Hezbollah is working with pressure detonators dug into the roads, even as the Israelis weld metal plates to the bottom of their tanks.
Hezbollah, Mr. Goksel says, has clear tactics, trying to draw Israeli ground troops farther into Lebanon. “They can’t take the Israelis in open battle,” he said, “so they want to draw them in to well-prepared battlefields,” like Aita al Shaab, where there has been fierce fighting.
He added: “They know the Israelis depend too much on armor, which is a prime target for them. And they want Israeli supply lines to lengthen, so they’re easier to hit.”
Israeli tanks have been struck by huge roadside bombs planted in expectation that Israeli armor would roll across the border, said one tank lieutenant, who in keeping with military policy would only give his first name, Ohad.
At least two soldiers from his unit have been wounded by snipers who are accurate at 600 yards. The Hezbollah fighters “are not just farmers who have been given weapons to fire,” he said. “They are persistent and well trained.”
Another tank company commander, a captain who gave his name as Edan, said that about 20 percent of the missiles that have hit Israeli tanks penetrated the Merkava armor or otherwise caused causalities.
Col. Mordechai Kahane, the commander of the Golani brigade’s Egoz unit, first set up to fight Hezbollah, told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot of one of the worst early days, when his unit went into Marun al Ras in daylight, and lost a senior officer and a number of men.
“Hezbollah put us to sleep” building up its fortifications, he said. “There’s no certainty that we knew that we were going to encounter what it is that we ultimately encountered. We said, ‘There is going to be a bunker here, a cave there,’ but the thoroughness surprised us all. A Hezbollah weapons storeroom is not just a natural cave. It’s a pit with concrete, ladders, emergency openings, escape routes. We didn’t know it was that well organized.”
General Kuperwasser, too, respects Hezbollah’s ability “to well prepare the battlefield,” but says, “We’re making progress and killing a lot of them, and more of them are giving up in battle now and becoming prisoners, which is a very important sign.”
Steven Erlanger reported from Jerusalem for this article, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. from Zarit, Israel. Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting from Washington.
====================
A cease fire agreed to by the Israelis ? I doubt it. Israel is at mortal risk.
Distance from Israel's border to the Litani River is about equal to the distance Windcrest - New Braunfels.
Iran/Syria putsch to kick the Jew dogs into the sea has begun.
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