Lebanese Soldiers Reportedly Receive Hizballah Missile Training

Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF version W. Thomas Smith, Jr. Hizballah – the Lebanon-based, U.S. State Dept.-designated “terrorist group” – is reportedly training “some Lebanese army personnel” in the operational use of Hizballah’s offensive missiles received from Iran. The training is being conducted in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, specifically the Baalbek district. Hardly a group, Hizballah is best-described as a fully operational terrorist army capable of holding off the legitimate Lebanese army and police forces from the inside-out through Hizballah’s controlling manipulation of the Lebanese government as evidenced by both the inability of the Lebanese army and police to disarm Hizballah as set forth in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, as well as Hizballah’s bloody offensive – with worldwide impunity – against the Lebanese government and citizenry in May 2008. (This is not to suggest that the combination of a well-led Lebanese army and police force does not have the combat power to defeat Hizballah in a pitched battle: It does. But the army is limited to the orders it does – or does not – receive from the government and the senior army commander.) According to sources both in Lebanon and the U.S. (and confirming what already has been reported), “Hizballah has penetrated many elements of the Lebanese army from intelligence to combat arms units; and this is due primarily to the active, though illegal, joint Hizballah-Lebanese Army ‘Operations Room’ established by the Lebanese government and Syria in the 1990s.” (Unfortunately for Lebanon, the government of Fouad Siniora failed to dissolve the joint ‘Operations Room’ after the Hizballah-Israel war of 2006 and the issuance of UNSCR 1701) Our sources also confirm, “The Hizballah missile training involves approximately 100-150 officers and men [of the Lebanese army] who are very close to Hizballah.” These reports, again confirming previous reports, come in the wake of a July 14 warehouse-explosion – which has since been determined to have been a Hizballah weapons cache – in the Hirbat Silm area of south Lebanon. The weapons cache is said to have stored all manner of “rockets, mortars, artillery shells, grenades,” and other munitions smuggled by Iran and Syria to the terrorist group in Lebanon since the Hizballah-Israel war. It has been speculated that the explosion was deliberate – perhaps a result of an Israeli special operation – or an accidental detonation as a result of unstable explosives, fire, etc. At any rate, the explosion “is a glaring example of Hizballah’s use of civilian infrastructure," writes Gabriela Shalev, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. “With more than 20,000 rockets in its possession south of the Litani River, Hizballah gravely endangers the local Lebanese civilian population by turning their houses into military bunkers and storages.” Moreover, upon setting up a security perimeter around the blast site, the Lebanese army blocked soldiers with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) from entering the security zone to investigate. Hizballah on the other hand, was given a green light. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “A senior Israeli officer told reporters the warehouse contained short-range rockets that were smuggled from Syria.” Our sources say Iran and Syria are both guilty. Elements within the Lebanese army (an army which receives direct military support from the U.S.) are complicent. And UNIFIL – 14 of whose soldiers were injured by stone-throwing civilians when they attempted to move against another suspected cache – appears unable to do anything about it. “It’s simple,” says a former Lebanese army officer, “Hizballah is training some Lebanese army officers and soldiers to operate Hizballah missile systems: We know that. In so-doing, Hizballah wants to make sure that the next Hizballah war with Israel becomes a war between Lebanon and Israel.” — Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.