Militant promises more attacks

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI | Newsday Middle East Correspondent

July 17, 2006

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Once again, the leader of Hezbollah showed yesterday that he can rattle Israel with a precision attack and new military capabilities.

By targeting a rail yard in the northern Israeli city of Haifa with a large rocket - killing eight people and injuring dozens - Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah made good on repeated threats that Hezbollah will have "surprises" in its war with Israel.

A few hours after the attack on Haifa, Nasrallah appeared on television and vowed that five days of intense Israeli bombardment had not diminished Hezbollah's capability. He threatened Israel with more "surprises" if it kept up its offensive, which has crippled Lebanon's infrastructure and physically isolated it from much of the world.

"When the Zionists behave like there are no rules and no limits to the confrontation, it is our right to behave in the same way," he said in a stern voice.

Nasrallah, 46, a Shia Muslim cleric, continued to act as the de facto ruler of Lebanon, as he has done since the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel exploded into war last week.

Israel launched its most intense attack on Lebanon in 24 years on Wednesday after Hezbollah fighters abducted two Israeli soldiers in a daring cross-border raid and brought them back into Lebanon. The Israeli offensive has killed more than 120 Lebanese - nearly all civilians - displaced thousands of people, and destroyed dozens of bridges and roads across the country. Israel also has tried to choke off Lebanon, imposing a naval blockade and bombing seaports and Beirut's international airport.

Since Wednesday, Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and missiles at northern Israel, killing at least 12 civilians and injuring dozens. But for each attack by Hezbollah, Israel has exacted far greater reprisal on Lebanon. Israeli leaders vowed yesterday that they would respond severely to the Haifa attack.

The two sides have seemingly unbridgeable demands. Hezbollah insists that it will return the two abducted soldiers only in return for three Lebanese prisoners being held by Israel. Israel insists that it will not end its offensive until Hezbollah is disarmed and withdraws its fighters from southern Lebanon, an area that the group has controlled since 2000. That was when Israel withdrew from a self-declared "security zone" in the south after an 18-year guerrilla war with Hezbollah.

But the conflict is at an impasse: Few Lebanese expect Hezbollah to surrender its weapons, and Israel is unlikely to end its attack without displacing the guerrillas from its northern border. Lebanon and its government are caught in the middle, unable to forcibly disarm Hezbollah without risking a civil war and unable to withstand much more of Israel's bombardment.

"Hezbollah has always acted outside the confines of Lebanon's political system," said Hazem Amin, an expert on the Shia at the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat. "This is the problem that many Lebanese have with Hezbollah: It doesn't have to answer to anyone for its actions."

In his speech yesterday, Nasrallah tried to answer such criticism, portraying the battle with Israel in existential terms.

"We are in our full strength and power," he said. "Hezbollah is not fighting a battle for Hezbollah or even for Lebanon. We are now fighting a battle for the entire Islamic community."

Many Arab countries have distanced themselves from Hezbollah in recent days, saying it provoked the Israeli attacks on Lebanon with its "miscalculated adventures." But while Arab rulers have been largely silent, their people are voicing strong support for Hezbollah and its leader.

Nasrallah, who was already wildly popular in the Arab and Muslim worlds for leading Hezbollah's guerrilla war in the 1990s, has become even more of an icon in the current conflict. Many Arabs celebrated Hezbollah's missile attack Friday on an Israeli ship that was in the waters off Beirut.

"We're seeing the rising power of guerrilla groups like Hezbollah and Hamas," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a political science professor at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. "These nonstate actors are challenging the role of the weak Arab state."