Hezbollah Hit Targets of Opportunity on Blue Line

Hizbullah will keep up pressure along border
Group to strike 'targets of opportunity'

By Nicholas Blanford
Special to The Daily Star



Interview


BEIRUT: Lebanon's southern border will remain a line of active confrontation with Israel because the plight of the Palestinians is a cause that affects the entire region, says Hizbullah's deputy secretary-general.

Sheikh Naim Qassem said Hizbullah has a "religious and moral" duty to provide assistance to the Palestinian intifada and will not limit itself to liberating "a few kilometers" of Lebanese territory, a reference to the Shebaa Farms.

In an interview with The Daily Star on the eve of the party's internal elections, Qassem said Hizbullah's battle-readiness is better than ever.

"We are now highly prepared to face Israel. We are more highly prepared than at any previous time," Qassem said. "The battle with Israel is not at an end. We are always in expectation of an Israeli attack in Lebanon. That's why Hizbullah continues with its logistics and training to prepare its members for any eventuality in facing attacks by Israel."

The organization uses the United Nations-delineated Blue Line as a locus for direct military confrontation with Israel. That confrontation generally takes either the guise of retaliation for Israeli actions in Lebanon and further afield, or consists of Hizbullah-instigated attacks, such as those in the Shebaa Farms.

Following last month's assassination of Ghaleb Awali, a senior Hizbullah official who was involved in supporting the Palestinian intifada, the party's command decided to avenge his death by killing one or more Israeli soldiers along the Blue Line. Instructions were relayed to the fighters deployed along the border to seek out and attack "targets of opportunity" wherever they occurred. The Israeli Army was on high alert in anticipation of a Hizbullah reaction, making the task of killing soldiers that much more difficult. Security sources believe that Hizbullah's fighters had several options for cross-border retaliation, such as anti-tank missiles, snipers or roadside bombs, arrayed at key locations along the Blue Line waiting for an opportunity to strike.

In the event, it was a Hizbullah sniper that took advantage of a mistake by the Israelis in allowing two soldiers, neither wearing helmets nor body armor, to climb on top of an outpost in the western sector to fix a broken antenna. Whether the sniper was already in place or moved swiftly into position after the soldiers were spotted is unknown. But The Daily Star has learned that the sniper killed the soldiers with three rounds - two head shots and one in the chest - from a distance of 500 meters, a considerable feat of marksmanship.

The deadly shooting was the third time since the beginning of the year that Hizbullah has capitalized on Israeli errors along the Blue Line. In January, Hizbullah fighters killed the driver of a military bulldozer with a TOW anti-tank missile after the vehicle had strayed a few meters across the Blue Line while removing a roadside bomb. The bomb was one of several positioned alongside the border to needle Israeli troops patrolling the other side of the fence.

In May, Hizbullah set a sophisticated trap in the Shebaa Farms, luring a patrol of Israeli Egoz commandos across the Blue Line then hitting them with mortars and roadside bombs as the soldiers returned to their base. One soldier died and 13 others were wounded.

Qassem makes no apologies for Hizbullah's constant efforts to seek out and exploit deficiencies in the Israeli Army's defenses along the border.

"The battle is open with Israel," he said. "We are not supposed to make them comfortable. It is a basic rule of combat to make the enemy nervous. And we try to achieve this with whatever tool we have at our disposal, be it political or military. Israel must understand that the resistance is present and watching and can reach them at any time."

The Blue Line also witnesses bouts of violence that have no direct connection to developments in Lebanon. The assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin in March and the Israeli air raid against an old Palestinian camp outside Damascus last October in response to a suicide bombing both resulted in retaliatory attacks along the Blue Line.

"There is no difference between the Palestinian territory and the rest of the Middle East," Qassem said. "Israel's attacks effect the whole region and it's natural that a reaction happens here (along the border)."

He added: "It's not fair that Lebanon takes on the burden of the tension. But this should not excuse Lebanon from shouldering its responsibilities" toward the Palestinians.

In his funeral oration for Awali, Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah gave his clearest confirmation yet of the party's direct involvement in the Palestinian intifada, saying the slain official was a member of the "team that dedicated their lives in the last few years to support their brothers in Palestine."

Israel for months has been detailing Hizbullah's penetration of the West Bank and Israeli Arab communities. Israel's Yediot Ahronot daily on Tuesday quoted a "security official" as saying that the military no longer believes it is dealing with Fatah and Hamas in the Nablus casbah, but instead with "Hizbullah's mercenary army."

Admitting Hizbullah's involvement in the intifada, Qassem said that "the Palestinian cause is a cause for the whole region."

"The central point is that Israel occupies Arab land and launches attacks against the region. That's why we consider the problem is not only one of a few kilometers occupied by Israel (the Shebaa Farms). We believe we should stand by the side of the Palestinians because it is our cause too, for religious reasons ... and moral reasons. That's why we support the intifada with all the means we can."

Does that include weapons, training, guidance and funds?

"You can put anything you want under 'all,'" he said. "How can Israel receive all this support from the United States but the Palestinians don't even receive the support of the countries in the region?

We are not ashamed of supporting the intifada. We would be ashamed if we were not supporting it."