Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !
Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Hez Housecleaning: The Sequel
2006-09-07

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Spy fever sweeps Hizballah after breaking up two Israeli Mossad rings which included Lebanese Shiite agents
Here's some follow-up on the article I posted about Hezbollah being penetrated by Mossad elements.
Hizballah’s dreaded Special Security Apparatus is reported by our intelligence sources in Beirut and Israel as having broken up two spy rings of Lebanese agents which the Israeli Mossad planted inside Hizballah before and during the Lebanon war. One worked out of Beirut, the second in South Lebanon. The two networks, according to DEBKAfile’s sources, planted bugs and surveillance equipment at Hizballah command posts before and during the war. They also sprinkled special phosphorus powder outside buildings housing Hizballah’s war commands and rocket-launchers as markers for air strikes.

Israel warplanes and helicopters were able to hit these locations with great accuracy. Well before the war, the Beirut ring had penetrated the inner circles of Hizballah high-ups and was reporting on their activities and movements to Israeli controllers. Its center was located in Beirut’s Shiite district of Dahya, the Hizballah stronghold. Short anonymous phone calls would give agents their rendezvous for picking up orders and spy equipment and dead drops for relaying their information. The second network was composed of two cells operating out of the village of Itrun opposite Kibbutz Yaron and Bint Jubeil further west. Run by veterans of the South Lebanese Army (the force Israel created during its occupation), its job was to “paint” targets for the Israeli Air Force and artillery. Their leader was Mahmoud al-Jemayel. Envelopes with their orders and espionage devices were left at a pre-assigned spot along the security fence on the Lebanese-Israeli border.Halil Mantsur, an Itrin villager, was in charge of communications through the security fence; Muhammed Bassem, a Shiite from Bin Jubeil, ran field operations. The ring had 20 operatives recruited from South Lebanese villages and a number of Palestinians from the camps around Tyre and Sidon. They were paid $500 per month for spying on Hizballah. A local taxi driver drove the operatives to their assignments and returned them to their homes.

The Beirut ring was the more sophisticated. In addition to tactical intelligence-gathering, its wings spread outside Lebanon. Its leader, Faisal Mukleid, 29, a Shiite from Jarjuara village, was captain of small freighters which carried smuggled drugs and stolen goods between Mediterranean ports on the Italian and Egyptian coasts. In 2000, Mukleid was picked up by the Italian navy in a customs raid. In a cell awaiting trial, he was contacted by the Mossad. In no time, he was sprung and flown to Israel where he spent several months learning how to use eavesdropping and surveillance equipment. The Lebanese Shiite sea-captain’s first mission in Lebanon was to recruit relatives and fellow Shiites and get them planted inside the Hizballah leadership. Towards the end of the year, he and his wife joined up as members of Hizballah. Their devotion and zeal was such that they were soon promoted to the high ranks of the organization. Together with the agents they recruited, they quickly reached positions on the personal staffs of top political and military leaders, whom they accompanied more than once on trips to Tehran.

Exposing the Israeli spy rings in their midst has made Hizballah’s top people extremely jumpy and suspicious. One of their discoveries from an inquest of the war they fought with Israel in July and August is that their command structures in South Lebanon were heavily penetrated by agents working for Israel intelligence. Now they are looking over their shoulders for spies they may have missed. Tuesday night, Aug. 29, Hizballahs’ security officials detained two non-Lebanese Arabs wandering around the ruined Dahya district, taking photos and drawing maps. Several forged passports were found in their possession. The captured Israeli agents are locked up in Hizballah jails awaiting their fate. The Hizballah security service has drawn up dossiers for their indictment, but is uncertain how to proceed. The Lebanese prosecution authorities, once dominated by Syrian influence, can no longer be counted on for convictions.
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Qatar to rebuild Lebanese war-hit town of Bint Jubeil
2006-08-20
DUBAI — Qatar will rebuild the Lebanese town of Bint Jubeil and restore its public utilities, the official Qatar News Agency reported yesterday. Qatari relief and medical teams have helped in humanitarian operations and medical aid following the war in southern Lebanon.

The Qatari teams have also been helping in restoring two hospitals in Bint Jubeil and a government hospital in Sidon.
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
DEBKA: Bin Jubeil - Lessons Learned
2006-07-25
After overwhelming the Hizballah stronghold of Bin Jubeil in southern Lebanon Tuesday July 25, Israeli armed ground forces and tanks are preparing to sweep forward to sanitize the town’s satellites. Israel lost two tank personnel: 1st Lieutenant Lotan Slavin, 21 from Moshav Hatzeva, and 1st Sgt Kobi Smileg, 20, from Rehovot. Hizballah is reported by IDF sources to have lost 100-120 Hizballah fighters.

Israel’s immediate military mission now is to capture or subdue Bin Jubeil’s five satellite villages, where 300 Hizballah fighters are sheltering: Ain Ebel, Hannine, Deble, Yaroun and Rmaich, the latter two very close to the Lebanese-Israeli border.

These fighters know they are trapped in a tight noose; they cannot escape or hope for help, whether in the form of reinforcements or weapons. Monday night, Israeli forces dropped leaflets over these villages offering them the option of laying down their arms and saving their lives. The language was deliberately vague. It was not clear whether the men who surrendered would be allowed to go back to their families or, more likely, taken prisoner to be held against the release of Israel’s kidnapped soldiers. The Olmert government would thus hold a card for overruling the Hizballah condition for jailed terrorists to be freed as the price for the Israeli hostages, which with Israeli prime minister has rejected, and offer instead an exchange of war prisoners.

The Bint Jubeil operation taught Israeli war planners three lessons:

1. It did not help reduce the rocket fire against Israel. The number of launchers and rockets found in the small town was minimal. Any missile crewmen who may have been deployed there had moved to other locations ahead of the Israeli assault.

2. Bin Jubeil and its satellite villages are only one small center at the southern end of the central sector of the south. There are dozens such clusters across the region. they will have to be flushed out one by one, entailing prolonged military action and exposing the troops to more casualties.

3. The IDF found that certain local elements, which once cooperated with Israel forces during their 24-year occupation of South Lebanon until the May 2000 withdrawal, were still willing to be helpful. Their assistance shortened the Bint Jubeil operation and made its completion possible barring scattered gunfire early Tuesday, July 25.

Hizballah too had some lessons to draw:

While inflicting losses on Israel forces in the battles for towns and villages, Hizballah’s losses are many times greater. They cannot stand up to the superior firepower leveled against them by a combination of tanks, special operations units and air force. Therefore fighters in the south have been instructed to discontinue face-to-face combat with Israeli troops. Instead, they were told to withdraw from the bult-up areas and wage guerrilla warfare from woods, forests, dry river beds, and fruit orchards. Israeli forces are therefore braced for stealthy Hizballah strikes from ambush against tanks, infantry and command posts.

Once they have cleansed the five villages around Bin Jubeil, Israeli war commanders face a choice of one out of three options, given the limitation of the small number of troops on the ground:

First: The Western Sector running from the orchards and banana groves south of Tyre which includes the Palestinian Rashidiya refugee camp up to Mansoura, where Hizballah has concentrated a large force, and including Burj a-Shamali and Zabqine, southeast of Tyre. This large enclave of southwestern Lebanon is saturated with Hizballah rockets launchers of different types and fighting strength.

Second: The Central Sector, which would entail the Israeli Bin Jubeil force heading north to take over Tebnine and deepening its thrust into South Lebanon up to 20 km from the Israeli border.

Third: The Eastern Sector, where Israeli forces would home in on Khiam on the road between the Israeli border town of Metula to the Lebanese village of Marjayoun which commands the Hatzbani River. From there, they way would be open to the Nabatiya plain and Hizballah’s main South Lebanon command center near the village of Taibe. Monday, morning, Israeli warplanes struck Nabatiya. Lebanese sources report seven people were killed.

DEBKAfile’s military sources describe the Hizballah command center as housed in a fort called Beck House which belongs to the As’ad clan, for many years the feudal lords of all southern Lebanon.

Whichever direction Israel’s high command chooses for the next stage of the war will necessitate proceeding at a slow pace, whether because of an insufficiency of men on the ground, the risks of troop and civilian casualties or the complexity of their missions. The snail’s pace of the IDF’s advance means that Hizballah’s rocket offensive against northern Israel cannot be completely disabled in the near term, and that Hassan Nasrallah and his overlords in Tehran and Syria have enough time to come up with fresh initiatives while topping up Hizballah’s resources as they are depleted.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hizballah Brings Iwo Jima Tactics to Baffle Israeli Forces
2006-07-24
Israeli forces have pushed forward from the mountaintop village of Maroun er Ras captured Sunday to the fringes of Bint Jubeil, Hizballah’s south Lebanese capital. Monday they suffered nine wounded in face to face combat. Whereas TV cameras showed much footage of the Maroun er Ras engagement, the IDF’s other battle pockets are kept under wraps.

Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who has an overall view, warned Israel in an interview to the Lebanese A Safir Monday, July 24, that its ground incursions in Lebanon would not stop Hizballah rocket fire against its cities. He certainly meant this as a morale-depressant for Israel troops. At the same time, DEBKAfile’s military experts say that what he says is correct and must be taken into account in any diplomatic formula sought to end the warfare.
1. He could go on firing his rockets even when a multinational force is posted on the Lebanese-Israeli border. The force currently contemplated by Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert at this early stage of international diplomacy would consist of German, French and Czech units.

2. And even if multinational troops were deployed additionally on the Lebanese-Syrian border, they would not hamper Hizballah’s rocket offensive. Therefore a buffer zone would offer no solution to a cessation of cross-border hostilities.
Link



Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-4 More