Hezbollah relishes the grinding street fights

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI | Newsday Middle East Correspondent

July 27, 2006

BEIRUT, Lebanon - When Israeli planes were bombarding southern Lebanon and the outskirts of Beirut last week, Hezbollah's leader lamented his group could do nothing to stop it.

"From the first day, I never claimed that we could shoot down F-16s," Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah said then in a television interview. His message to the Hezbollah faithful was: Wait until the ground war.

"When the Israelis enter south Lebanon," he said, "they must pay dearly in terms of their tanks, officers and soldiers."

Israel began sending several thousand troops and dozens of tanks into the south on Sunday, and since then has suffered daily casualties. Nine Israeli soldiers were killed and more than 20 injured in fighting yesterday - the highest single-day toll for Israel since war broke out July 12.

This is the kind of war Hez- bollah wants: to confront Israeli forces in grinding street battles, where its fighters would be well-fortified inside southern villages and Israel would sustain significant losses trying to pry them out. And the militia was well-prepared for this battle, according to Lebanese officials. Its guerrillas hid light arms, anti-tank missiles, ammunition and even night-vision equipment in a network of bunkers and tunnels near the Israeli border.

"Hezbollah appears ready for extensive fighting on the ground," said Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese general. "It has small, well-trained units who are well-supplied. And they know the area better than the Israelis."

The Shia Muslim group also draws many of its fighters from the very villages and towns where they are now fighting. Like a classic guerrilla movement, its members blend with the civilians and sometimes rely on them for food and shelter.

"These are small groups of maybe 12 people who are well-trained and well-organized. They work out of their home villages," said Timur Goksel, who served two decades as a senior United Nations adviser in south Lebanon. "They have local support networks and they're very difficult to dislodge."

Hezbollah chose a symbolic place to make its first stand in the ground battle against Israeli forces: Bint Jbeil, a city of 40,000 people that lies about three miles from the Israeli border. During Israel's 18-year occupation of south Lebanon, Bint Jbeil provided dozens of fighters to Hezbollah. It was dubbed the "capital of resistance" - and signposts in the city display that moniker.

The day after Israeli troops withdrew from the self-declared "security zone" in May 2000 - forced out by a long guerrilla war with Hezbollah - Nasrallah rushed to Bint Jbeil to hold his first victory rally in the south.

"Our fighters are resisting fiercely in Bint Jbeil because we want its people to know that Hezbollah will not abandon them," said a senior Hezbollah official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

On Tuesday, two Israeli soldiers were killed during fighting in Bint Jbeil. Of yesterday's nine Israeli casualties, eight were killed there, according to Israeli officials.

The battle in Bint Jbeil, according to Lebanese analysts, shows that Hezbollah's military capabilities and command structure survived the intense Israeli air bombardment of south Lebanon and Beirut's Shia-dominated suburbs.

"Why are the Israelis so surprised by Hezbollah's tenacity?" Goksel asked. "They fought a long guerrilla war, where Hezbollah showed the Israelis that they can always use new methods."

At any one time during the guerrilla war, according to Lebanese officials, Hezbollah maintained about 1,000 full-time fighters. Israel usually kept 1,500 troops, backed up by a 2,500-member proxy militia, known as the South Lebanon Army. Over 18 years of fighting, Israel lost several hundred soldiers, while Hezbollah lost about 1,200 guerrillas.

Today, Hezbollah is believed to have 1,000 guerrillas - some trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards - and reserves of up to 5,000 fighters. Israeli officials claim they have destroyed nearly half of the estimated 10,000 to 12,000 rockets and missiles that Hezbollah has stockpiled. But the group's rocket barrages on northern Israel have not slowed down.

As Israeli forces were pinned down in Bint Jbeil and other areas, Israeli leaders modified their statements about wanting to occupy a new "security zone" in south Lebanon. Last week, they spoke of driving Hezbollah out of a 12-mile area from the border. Yesterday, they described a zone less than two miles deep - keeping Hezbollah's missiles well within reach of northern Israel.

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