"Hizbullah is proving to be something...new, an Arab guerrilla arm"

[ProSense]

Eye For an Eye

Israel shadow-boxes with a surprisingly high-tech foe. Inside the new Hizbullah.

By Kevin Peraino, Babak Dehghanpisheh and Christopher Dickey
Newsweek

Snip...

Hizbullah is proving to be something altogether new, an Arab guerrilla army with sophisticated weaponry and remarkable discipline. Its soldiers have the jihadist rhetoric of fighting to the death, but wear body armor and use satcoms to coordinate their attacks. Their tactics may be from Che, but their arms are from Iran, and not just AK-47s and RPGs. They've reportedly destroyed three of Israel's advanced Merkava tanks with wire-guided missiles and powerful mines, crippled an Israeli warship with a surface-to-sea missile, sent up drones on reconnaissance missions, implanted listening devices along the border and set up their ambushes using night-vision goggles.

NEWSWEEK has learned from a source briefed in recent weeks by Israel's top leaders and military brass that Hizbullah even managed to eavesdrop successfully on Israel's military communications as its Lebanese incursion began. When Lt. Eli Kahn, commander of an elite Israeli parachutists outfit, turned a corner in the southern Lebanese village of Maroun al-Ras early in the month-old war, he came face to face with this new enemy. "He had sophisticated equipment like mine and looked more like a commando," he recalled. Lieutenant Kahn ducked back around the corner and reached for a grenade, but before he could pull the pin, the Hizbullah fighter had tossed one around the corner himself. The Israeli picked it up and threw it back, just in time. "They didn't retreat," says Danny Yatom, a former director of the Mossad. "They continued to fight until the death."

Snip...

How did Hizbullah morph from its terrorist roots 20 years ago to the formidably organized force of today? The short answer is: experience, leadership and Iran. The group was first pulled together in 1982 by members of Ayatollah Khomeini's Revolutionary Guards as a way to spread Tehran's influence while fighting against Israeli forces that had laid siege to Beirut. The following year the organization became infamous for the suicide bombing of the U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut that cost 241 Americans their lives, and a simultaneous attack on French forces that killed 56. Soon, Hizbullah added airline hijackings and the taking of American and European hostages to its repertoire.

Snip...

All this cost money, but there was plenty to be had. By Israeli estimates Iran has underwritten Hizbullah with $100 million a year. But Hizbullah also gets contributions and "tax" payments from wealthy Shiites in Lebanon and abroad, and revenues from both legal and illegal businesses worldwide. According to a recent study by terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp at the Swedish National Defense College, its shopping list included night-vision goggles, Global Positioning Systems, advanced software for aircraft design, stun guns, nitrogen cutters, naval equipment, laser range finders and even ultrasonic dog repellers.

more...

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14208385/

[paparush]

1. Israel says it can't bomb its way out of Hezbollah...so...

Israel drops MORE bombs. Man, this Bush Doctrine thing is really working out well.

[neoblues]

3. Sure. Once ALL of Lebanon is 100% Fine Powder...

Pulverized beyond human habitation (preferrably permanently radioactive), then it will be a manageable "safe zone"! This is with or without regard to the occupants (neither is politically possible, but to forcibly remove them all prior to the leveling process would be slighly more politically feasible).

Either that, or if Israel decided to occupy the entire country (to create Greater Israel) and simultaneously totally expel the entire population (what, and start WWIII?).

Of course, it can do neither. Nor can it continue doing what it's doing and what it's doing isn't doing anything to their advantage (certainly nothing by comparison to the cost). They are between an enormous rock and the hardest of hard places (and we are right there with them).

[FlavaKreemSnak]

4. Israel can do anything it wants to

The only way it would not be able to do either of the things you say would be if America told them not to AND took back the weapons and cut off the money. And I don't think it is realistic to think any of those things will happen. For one thing, America and Israel have the same policies for how they want to run the Middle East. Plus anybody that even suggested that they don't agree with unconditional support for Israel will be called an anti-Semite and that person will not be electable. So if they want to cleanse all the Lebanese and put settlers there, then America will help to pay for the weapons to cleanse the Lebanese and the settler relocation packages the Israeli government gives people.

[KoKo]

2. Hyped by Newsweek who still wants to invade Iran and Syria.

I just heard on Propaganda CNN yesterday that the Hezbollah doesn't have "night vision googles" or sophisticated tracking equipment. Now Newsweek claims they have really great stuff...implication being that what Newsweek says they have that's so sophisticated is from Iran.

Newsweek who Pumped WMD that Saddam had! Anyone smell a rat here? Anyone remember Newsweek's pumping of Monica "Blue Dress" via Linda Tripp?

Now all of a sudden they are privy to some huge intelligence about how (supposedly) sophisticated Hezbollah is? Methinks Mega Propaganda!

[neoblues]

5. If IRAN is even merely providing money...

most of the other technology (night vision/body armor/gps/remote spy gear; other than missiles/grenades/rocket launchers/shaped charges/etc) is available right off the internet, shipped overnight (in Lebanon these days, shipping may be delayed a few weeks/indefinitely).