Vol. 5 No. 1 | Table of Contents MEIB Main Page | January 2003 |
Hezbollah Preparing for Confrontation with Israel
As the United States mobilizes for war with Iraq, the Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah movement is preparing for a major conflict with Israel. Since early December, United Nations Interim Forces (UNIFIL) observers and local residents have been awakened each night by mysterious explosions in the south Lebanon border region. The blasts, reliable sources later revealed, were being caused by Hezbollah demolition teams building a network of fortified underground tunnels and bunkers along the border with Israel. Some of the tunnels are connected to an abandoned train tunnel, newly renovated by Hezbollah engineers with new rails and a lighting system. It's not much quieter during the day, as convoys of trucks carrying rockets and other heavy weaponry travel from the eastern Beqaa Valley to south Lebanon.
The underground network is designed to solve a logistical problem that has been vexing Hezbollah commanders all year - how to deploy an arsenal of up to 10,000 rockets within range of targets in Israel, so that they can be fired in massive volleys without exposing the launchers to attack by Israeli aircraft.
In order to bolster its combat readiness, Hezbollah has also required all members of the group to undergo a one-week military training refresher course. It also appears that Hezbollah has begun test-firing long-range missiles received from Iran and Syria in recent months.
At around six o'clock in the evening of December 29, residents of the Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon were startled by a thunderous blast in the vicinity of the village of Janta, near the Lebanese-Syrian border. Ambulances racing to the scene were turned away by Hezbollah guerrillas, who sealed off the area around the camps and barred access to traffic for over 24 hours. Local sources said that, prior to the blast, Hezbollah officials had warned them that the group would be conducting training exercises involving the firing of missiles in the area.
If the blast was caused by the firing of a projectile, it was almost certainly a missile or large caliber rocket never before deployed by Hezbollah - area residents, who have become quite acclimated to the sound of Katyusha rockets firing, said that the boom was much louder than anything heard in recent memory.
Hezbollah officials later announced that demolition specialists had been destroying ordnance left behind by Israeli forces during their withdrawal from south Lebanon two and a half years ago. After this claim was greeted with understandable skepticism, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah explained that the demolition experts "blew them up in one go and didn't imagine that it would cause such a noise." In the future, he said, they would avoid this "mistake" by "destroying them in batches."
On January 21, Hezbollah guerrillas fired mortars and 107 mm Katyusha rockets on Israeli troops in the Shebaa Farms area - the first such attack since August 2001 - provoking Israeli air and artillery attacks that left two civilians wounded.
On December 8, Hezbollah was presumed to be responsible for carrying out the first roadside bomb attack against Israeli forces in the border region since the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000. Two Israeli soldiers were wounded by the bomb as they patrolled the Lebanese-Israeli border. The attack was apparently in retaliation for the killing of Ramzi Nohra, a Christian operative of Hezbollah, by a roadside bomb in south Lebanon two days earlier.
Saudi Prince Calls Hariri a "Servant Thief"
In a scathing statement sent to an international news agency on January 17, Saudi Prince Prince Sultan bin Turki, a nephew of King Fahd, condemned his government's extension of a $700 loan to Lebanon during the Paris II conference in November. Sultan accused Prime Minister Hariri of squandering a previous $500 million Saudi loan on the purchase of a Boeing 777 jet and other personal luxuries. "The [Saudi] royal family disburses some 10 million Saudi riyals ($2.6 million) in charity to the Saudis while it grants hundreds of millions of dollars to the servant thief to buy fancy private planes."
Sultan's statement was seen by local commentators as an effort to bolster support for his half-Lebanese cousin, Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, who is said to harbor ambitions to replace Hariri as prime minister.
Three Killed in Family Feud
A gun battle between the rival Jaafar and Zaeiter clans in the village of Majdaloun, near Baalbek, left three people dead and a fourth seriously wounded on January 8. According to security officials, the shootout started when members of the Jaafar clan ambushed a car belonging to the Zaeiters. Mohammed Zaeiter, his brother Helmi, and his wife Badriyah were killed. The attack was apparently in retaliation for the killing of Abbas Jaafar by members of the Zaeiter clan in November.
Israel: Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah Carried Out March Attack
Israel's investigation of a March 2002 cross-border attack from south Lebanon that left six Israelis dead established that the two guerrillas killed in the raid were members of the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, but were armed and trained by Hezbollah.