Hizbullah militants regroup amid war jitters
Nicholas Blanford | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
April 14, 2008 edition
- Hizbullah appears to have devised new battle plans that include cross-border raids into Israel and has mounted a sweeping recruitment and training drive, even marshaling non-Shiites and former Israeli-allied militiamen into new reservist units.
- One local commander in south Lebanon said that Hizbullah had fought a defensive war in 2006. "Next time, we will be on the offensive and it will be a totally different kind of war," he says.
- Jawad says that the next war will be "fought more in Israel than in Lebanon," one comment of many from various fighters that suggest Hizbullah is planning commando raids into northern Israel.
- A European diplomat in Beirut, who has been watching Hizbullah’s preparations, likened attacking the organization to "punching a sponge" – it absorbs the blow then bounces back – and questioned whether Israel still fully appreciates what it is up against.
- "Hizbullah will not turn down anyone who wants to join the resistance," says Izzat Qadri, the Sunni mayor of Kfar Shuba and an ally of Hizbullah.
- "There are armed and uniformed Hizbullah men crawling all over the hills. We often hear gunfire and explosions from their training," says one local resident.
Part 1 of 2 part report in Christian Science Monitor April 14, 2008
