United Nations troops patrolling southern Lebanon have found few arms caches there. That has heightened concerns about Hezbollah making preparations elsewhere for another war with Israel. About 13,000 U.N. troops have been tasked with creating a weapons-free buffer zone north of the Israeli border. They say they have found little in the area besides abandoned bunkers and spent missile launchers. "The vast majority of bunkers, positions and facilities that we've come across are those which are redundant. There is no sign of maintenance," says Liam McDowall, a spokesman for the U.N. force in Lebanon. "And the vast majority of explosive devices, improvised explosive devices, shells, missiles, again, are inoperable."
Hezbollah has openly bragged of stockpiling 33,000 missiles and regrouping its fighters in case of another war with Israel. "We openly declare that we have weapons, that we are completing our preparedness for a greater and more dangerous stage," Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, said last month.