• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Analysis: Hezbollah's Shadow War

Council on Foreign Relations

May 30, 2008
Author: Greg Bruno

If politics were its principle yardstick, Hezbollah's new ability to veto the decisions of the Lebanese government might seem conclusive. After clashes in west Beirut last month, some analysts declared Hezbollah the victor of the internecine crisis (NYT). Others, including Daily Star opinion editor Michael Young, see the resolution as more of a draw. Either way, Hezbollah's leaders want more. As Hassan Nasrallah said on May 26, the true measure of Hezbollah's worth remains its ability to wage armed resistance against Israel.

Measuring Hezbollah's capabilities on that count has long been a focus of Israeli military analysts, and the mass and sophistication of Hezbollah's missile arsenal in the 2006 summer war with Israel raised eyebrows beyond the region, too. The missile barrages that struck deep into Israeli territory, even in the final days of the three-week conflict (al-Jazeera), changed international perceptions of the group from an organization focused primarily on guerrilla and terrorist capabilities to one which can project power, perhaps on behalf of Iran, well beyond its Lebanese base.

Details on Hezbollah's current military capabilities remain sketchy (IHT), and disagreement reigns. For instance, an October 2007 UN report, drawing solely from Israeli intelligence, concludes Hezbollah "has rearmed itself to a level higher" than before the 2006 war. New long-range rocket supplies, including hundreds of Iranian-built Zilzal and Fajr rockets, enable them "to reach Tel Aviv and points further south." UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in his February 2008 report to the Security Council (PDF) on the situation, noted that Hezbollah "has replenished its military capacity since the 2006 war" and expressed concern that the Syria-Lebanon border remains vulnerable to smuggling. But the secretary-general also noted that Israeli reports of renewed Hezbollah military activity in southern Lebanon have not been corroborated by UNIFIL peacekeepers.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.