Warriors of God

by Nicholas Blanford

  The idea was expanded upon by Gabriel Siboni, the Israeli military strategist, who recommended swift strikes that prioritized infrastructure assets over rocket launchers.5 In Syria, Siboni added, punishment should be aimed at the leadership, the military, and the state infrastructure. In Lebanon, Hezbollah targets should be hit simultaneously with economic interests and the centers of civilian power that support the organization. “Moreover, the closer the relationship between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government, the more the elements of the Lebanese state infrastructure should be targeted,” he wrote. Siboni’s article was written a year before two Hezbollah ministers joined the coalition government headed by Saad Hariri. “Such a response will create a lasting memory among Syrian and Lebanese decision makers, thereby increasing Israeli deterrence and reducing the likelihood of hostilities against Israel for an extended period,” Siboni added.

  The public threats and articulation of a massive and disproportionate bombing campaign against Lebanon is intended, first and foremost, to deter Hezbollah from launching a war. If a conflict does break out, however, Israeli strategists believe that attempting to crush Hezbollah with militarily force cannot succeed. Hunting for camouflaged and mobile rocket launchers and flushing Hezbollah fighters from their underground lairs is labor-intensive and will incur heavy troop casualties without any guarantee of success.

  “For practical reasons, we cannot defeat Hezbollah,” Giora Eiland, a former Israeli national security advisor during the governments of Ariel Sharon, told me. “We have to define Lebanon as our enemy. The Lebanese government must know that it has only two possibilities: one, to let the relative calm continue, and two, that a war will devastate Lebanon.”

  A foretaste of what the Lebanese can expect in the next war came at the end of December 2008, when Israel launched a three-week ground and air offensive against Gaza. Dubbed by Israel as Operation Cast Lead, the purpose was to inflict massive damage on Hamas, which not only retained a military wing but also had administered Gaza since winning legislative elections in January 2006. Israeli military engineers neutralized many of Hamas’s IEDs by jamming radio frequencies and using brute force, with armored D-9 bulldozers clearing paths for troops. Coordination among separate military units—ground troops, artillery, air force, and navy—was greatly improved. Frontline commanders for the first time were allocated direct control over air support operations, including UAVs, without the need to pass requests through the Israeli Air Force. Many new technological systems were fielded for the first time, including remote control surveillance vehicles and handheld tennis-ball-shaped reconnaissance cameras that could be thrown inside buildings for 360-degree coverage of the interior.

  Hamas’s military performance was poor. The Palestinian group had borrowed some of Hezbollah’s tactics—including the construction of bunkers and tunnels and extensive use of IEDs and antiarmor missiles—while firing rockets into Israel. But the qualitative differences between Hamas’s capabilities and those of Hezbollah, as well as their respective operational environments, were enormous.

  By the time fighting ended on January 17, Israel had achieved a tactical victory over Hamas, helping restore some confidence within the IDF and the Israeli public after the debacle of the 2006 war against Hezbollah.

  But Israel’s use of overwhelming force against Gaza and the high number of Palestinian casualties (around thirteen hundred, mostly civilians) and widespread destruction to property drew international reproach and led to a precedent-setting UN inquiry, the results of which could have legal ramifications for Israel’s future conduct in war. The inquiry headed by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, found that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes, but the bulk of the final report’s criticism was directed at the Jewish state. The Goldstone report could complicate Israel’s plans to implement the Dahiyah doctrine in Lebanon. The promised destruction of Lebanese infrastructure in the next war has already garnered the attention of international human rights groups.

  In some respects, the Dahiyah doctrine is a throwback to the air and artillery offensives the IDF waged against Hezbollah in the 1990s—the seven-day Operation Accountability in July 1993 and the sixteen-day Grapes of Wrath in April 1996. Both operations were intended to inflict punishment on Lebanese civilians and government for supporting Hezbollah’s resistance campaign against the IDF in south Lebanon. They both failed because Israel misunderstood the dynamics between Hezbollah and the civilian population and the realities of the Lebanon-Syria relationship in which Beirut was subordinate to Damascus and could not have blocked Hezbollah even if it had wanted to. Furthermore, Israel’s excessive use of firepower (in which a total of 280 Lebanese died in the two operations) cost the sympathy of the international community.

  The difference between the 1990s operations and the Dahiyah doctrine is that the former campaigns were tactical knee-jerk responses to deteriorating situations in south Lebanon rather than a component of a long-term strategy. The Dahiyah doctrine has been conceived in a different political environment to that of the mid-1990s. Hezbollah’s popularity has declined since 2000, with the Lebanese today evenly split over Hezbollah’s armed status. Israel anticipates that if the Dahiyah doctrine were implemented against Lebanon, the backlash in the aftermath would further erode Hezbollah’s domestic standing.

  Yet the real utility of the doctrine lies in its powers of deterrence rather than its application. Israel regularly promotes the doctrine to scare the Lebanese and to discourage Hezbollah from creating mischief out of fear of the repercussions on its core Shia constituency. On this level, the Dahiyah doctrine has some purpose. The flaw in the doctrine will emerge, however, if a conflict arises and Israel chooses to launch an overwhelming assault on Lebanese infrastructure. In such an event, Hezbollah will not play by Israel’s rules and merely retire chastened when the IDF decides after a few days that sufficient punishment has been inflicted on Lebanon. On the contrary, Hezbollah will press on with its attack and Israel will be forced to respond and get dragged into an inevitable ground campaign with the resulting high casualties and uncertain outcome.

  “The Last War with Israel”

  Hezbollah’s unprecedented military buildup since 2006 in arms, technology, and manpower, coupled with the IDF’s reconfiguration to fight a war on its northern front and the creation of the Dahiyah doctrine, suggests that the next conflict will be fought with few restraints.

  Hezbollah believes that the scale of the next war will be of such magnitude that the result will change the political shape of the Middle East and will even mark the beginning of the end of Israel. Since 2006, the notion that Israel faces imminent destruction has become a cornerstone of Nasrallah’s speeches. In August 2007, he addressed the Israelis, saying, “If you Zionists think of launching a war on Lebanon, I will not promise you surprises like the ones that happened [in 2006], but I promise you a big surprise that could change the course of the war and the fate of the region.” Nasrallah elaborated on this theme in February 2008, saying that the “elimination of Israel from existence is inevitable because this is a historical and divine law from which there is no escape. This is definite.”

  Other than heavenly decree, Nasrallah listed several more prosaic reasons why he believes Israel is doomed in the long term. Among them were the fact that Israel was an “alien entity” in a region of mainly Arabs and Muslims; the continued determination of the Palestinian people to return to their homeland despite six decades of exile; declining international support for Israel; the higher Palestinian birthrate (the so-called “demographic weapon”); the moral decay he sees within Israeli society; and the waning reputation of the Israeli army.

  Nasrallah argues that if one accepts that the IDF is the backbone of Israel, then its defeat will presage the downfall of the Jewish state. In February 2008, Nasrallah warned Israel it would experience in the next war “a fight that you have never witnessed throughout your history.”

  “Your army, your tanks, the remainder of your standing, and
the remainder of your deterrence will be destroyed in the south, and Israel will remain without an army,” he said. “When Israel becomes without an army, it will no longer exist.”

  Such thunderous and apocalyptic predictions are part of Hezbollah’s skillful information operations, a tool of psychological warfare to help bolster Hezbollah’s deterrence posture against Israel and preserve the “balance of terror.” But for the grassroots cadres of the Islamic Resistance, Nasrallah’s promises of Israel’s imminent destruction are not dismissed as mere rhetorical flourishes but are absorbed and accepted, becoming an article of faith that is further sustained by the intense training programs and exhaustive battle plans for the next war. In numerous conversations with Hezbollah fighters since 2006, I hear the same rigid, unassailable confidence that Israel will be defeated and destroyed in the next war.

  “The next war will be the last war with Israel. We will liberate Palestine. We truly believe that,” said Khodr, the stocky, muscular young combatant we met in chapter 3, who by 2011 had attended multiple training sessions in Iran and was a fully qualified member of Hezbollah’s antitank unit. He fixed me with an unflinching gaze to emphasize the import of what he had just said. “The mujahideen are completely focused on the next war, even ignoring families and friends,” he continued. “They are just waiting for the next war.”

  But Khodr was a university student, an educated young man. How could he relish the prospect of another war with Israel, one that promises to be the most destructive ever inflicted upon Lebanon?

  Khodr took a sip from a can of cola and thought for a moment before replying slowly in English.

  “I have two lives going in parallel. I have my studies at university and my family, but I also have the life of jihad and preparations for the coming war,” he said. “I consider my jihad duties as something joyful. You cannot understand the joy of jihad unless you are in Hezbollah. The atmosphere within Hezbollah is very spiritual. Jihad is a very pleasant state of mind.”

  Sentiments such as these underline the yawning gulf that separates the Hezbollah combatant from most other Lebanese. Khodr yearns for the next war because he will be fulfilling his jihadist obligations and he believes that it will lead to the destruction of Israel. But Khodr’s youthful non-Hezbollah contemporaries in Lebanon are more interested in finding decent jobs and homes and raising families as well as enjoying the sybaritic pleasures that the country offers with its golden beaches, snow-capped mountains, and frenetic nightlife. Did Khodr have any empathy with those Lebanese who are horrified at the prospect of another war with Israel?

  “These people don’t know what they are talking about,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “They think all they have to do is work and enjoy life. Well, we work and enjoy life too, but they don’t realize that Israel can do what it wants to the country unless we resist.”

  This cold-blooded detachment from the prevailing sentiment in Lebanon is chilling and hard to fathom, but it underlines the single-minded dedication of the Hezbollah fighter. The “Chief,” the tall, gregarious unit commander we also encountered in chapter 3, took a car ride with me in early 2010, and as we passed through Beirut’s southern suburbs with their bland concrete high-rises, he said nonchalantly, “Take a good look around you, because next time all this will be gone.”

  This was his neighborhood, home to his family and friends. Was he not worried about the prospect of the area’s being flattened by Israeli bombs in the next war?

  “We can always rebuild,” he replied. “Our dignity is more important than roofs over our heads.”

  “We Will Go into Palestine Next”

  Only Hezbollah’s top level military commanders have a clear picture of how the organization will fight the next war. On the broader level, the strategy probably will remain much the same as in 2006: striking targets in Israel with accurate and sustained rocket fire while robustly confronting any ground invasion by the IDF. The chief difference is that Hezbollah will probably go on the offensive next time, rather than wage the defensive war it fought in 2006. Instead of reacting to Israeli actions, Hezbollah will attempt to seize the initiative and dictate the pace of the conflict.

  Hezbollah officials and fighters repeatedly allude to “surprises” that they say will give the organization an edge in the next war, leaving analysts to ponder exactly what they have in mind. The obvious possible “surprises” are related to new weapons systems—guided surface-to-surface rockets capable of hitting specific military and infrastructure targets the length of Israel, extended-range antiship missiles, new air defense systems to dent Israel’s aerial superiority.

  But Hezbollah may be planning to “surprise” Israel not only with new weapons but also with innovative tactics. Since 2006, Hezbollah fighters have repeatedly hinted to me that they are being trained to launch commando raids into northern Israel.

  “God willing, we will go into Palestine next. No more south Lebanon. That’s why training is so intense and there is so much of it,” said one fighter. He added that the training included learning how to seize and hold ground, a tactic not normally found within the canon of traditional guerrilla warfare, which tends to emphasize hit-and-run operations.

  Another fighter told me that the next war “will be fought more in Israel than in Lebanon.” Abu Khalil, the shaven-headed veteran unit commander from the 1990s, once quipped, “You will see that next time maybe the UN will ask us to withdraw from northern Israel rather than Israel withdraw from south Lebanon.”

  Even Nasrallah eventually referred to a cross-border campaign by Hezbollah as a highlight of one of his periodic “deterrence” speeches. “I tell the resistance fighters to be prepared for the day when war is imposed on Lebanon. Then the resistance leadership might ask you to lead the resistance to liberate Galilee,” he said in February 2011.

  Taking the fight across Lebanon’s southern border into Israel in some respects is the next logical step in Hezbollah’s military evolution. Hezbollah would be forcing the Israelis to fight on their own territory, reversing the established Israeli doctrine of fighting its wars on the soil of its neighbors. The number of targets available to small squads of well-armed Hezbollah fighters is limited only by the imagination. Bridges and roads could be dynamited or booby-trapped with IEDs, ambushes conducted against military convoys, electricity and telephone pylons toppled, gas stations blown up. Israel’s air control base atop Mount Meron lies only nine miles south of the border, separated by a rugged terrain of wooded valleys that could provide ample cover for infiltrating commando units. Other military facilities, such as the Israeli Air Force base at Kiryat Shemona, are within easy reach of the border. The Israeli frontier settlements are even more vulnerable, especially those such as Manara and Misgav Am that abut the boundary fence. Imagine the reaction in the Israeli defense ministry when senior IDF officers following the progress of their armored columns charging into Lebanon suddenly learn that Hezbollah has stormed a settlement and taken hostage a dozen or more households. Imagine, too, the electrifying effect on public opinion in the Arab and Muslim worlds if combat cameramen accompany the commando squads and beam out images of Hezbollah fighters brandishing yellow party flags surging through Israeli towns and villages.

  Dispatching commando units into Israel will not win the war for Hezbollah—most, if not all, of the fighters slipping across the border will surely not make it back. But the tactic is more than justified from Hezbollah’s perspective as an element of psychological warfare—causing chaos and panic in northern Israel and rallying popular support for Hezbollah throughout the region.

  This tactic, in fact, may not be that new. I first heard about it from sources in south Lebanon as long ago as 2002 and wrote in The Daily Star that Hezbollah might be planning to storm border settlements and seize hostages in the event of a full-scale war with Israel. The revelation raised some eyebrows at the time, but not anymore.

  As for the feasibility of infiltrating Israel, Hezbollah secretly built a network of tunnels
between 2000 and 2006 along the border from east to west. Who is to say that they did not also dig some tunnels running south, beneath the fence? Taking the idea a step further, could Hezbollah have borrowed a terrifying and destructive tactic of trench warfare from World War I and tunneled beneath Israeli positions in order to blow them up at a later date with a large quantity of explosives? The former battlefields of northern France are still scarred by massive craters left over from the detonation of trench mines, some resulting from as much as forty thousand pounds of dynamite packed beneath the German front line. There is a precedent for such a tactic in the Middle East. In December 2004, five Israeli soldiers were killed when part of an IDF outpost near Rafah in the Gaza Strip was blown up after Palestinian militants tunneled beneath the position and planted an explosive charge.

  The IDF may have discovered one such Hezbollah tunnel during the 2006 war. An Israeli TV news crew reportedly caught on microphone a conversation between an IDF officer and a wounded soldier. The soldier told the officer that a tunnel discovered north of the border in Lebanon ran south to beneath an IDF outpost. Nothing more was heard about the revelation.6

  Other than ground infiltrations of Israel, Hezbollah’s amphibious warfare unit could launch seaborne incursions along the coast of northern Israel. According to a private briefing paper I obtained, compiled by the IDF’s Operational Theory Research Institute, Hezbollah’s amphibious warfare unit includes a “divers unit” of combat frogmen and a “vessels unit” responsible for “attack craft” and training on the systems. It is unclear what sea vessels, if any, have been transferred to Hezbollah beyond Zodiac inflatable boats. However, Iran and North Korea operate midget submarines and a number of torpedo-armed semisubmersible and submersible fast attack craft. Iran also manufactures a Swimmer Delivery Vehicle (SDV), a twenty-four-foot torpedo-shaped submersible that is operated by a crew of two and can carry up to seven additional divers. Small fast attack craft, mini-submarines, and SDVs would suit Hezbollah’s operational needs for sabotage operations in Israeli harbors or for infiltrating commando teams onto the beaches of northern Israel.