Monday, September 04, 2006
Hezbollah: A stealth retreat?
A Stratfor sitrep of a few hours ago brings some interesting news:
Hezbollah forces have been quietly retreating from Sunni and Christian villages south of the Litani river, sources in Lebanon said Sept. 4. Hezbollah has reportedly dismantled its positions in the disputed Shebaa Farms area and is regrouping in the Bekaa valley, particularly in the Baalbek-Hirmil area.
It is by no means a given that this is an accurate report, but suppose for a moment that it is. What does it mean? Is Hezbollah indeed in a weaker position than its supporters, the media, and even many good friends of Israel have argued? Now that the passions have cool a bit, is Hezbollah less popular than was widely alleged only a couple of weeks ago? Or has it retreated to shorten its supply lines, which reach into Syria? The shorter the weapons shipments have to travel once inside Lebanon, the less chance that they will be detected by some nosy Italian soldier.
Your added information, keen insights, and out-of-the-box speculation are more than welcome.
6 Comments:
By 
Papa Ray, at
Tue Sep 05, 02:16:00 AM:
Well, being as how you have to take a lot of salt with most everything you read nowadays, it's difficult to say...as you say.
I'd heard that they had moved a lot of their forces from the south to the north west. Which didn't make sense to me. I also read that the IDF had destroyed most of their bunker complexes in the south, so maybe they are looking for a place to R&R that has a bed and a roof.
I have also read that they have their flags flying at the new posts that the Lebonese Army has set up in the south. So does that mean that they are bunkmates and sharing chow and Intel among other things?
See, that is the problem with this ME situations, no reliable human intel. We know what the Hez did to the Lebonese informers that they have rooted out in the last couple of weeks. It's hard evidently to be a spy nowadays over there.
We already know that our CIA is a bust for the forseeable future, I don't know about the Military Intel's abilities, except that they most likely wouldn't do something like spying on the ground in Lebanon.
My bet is they pulled back to re-arm, rest and train new recruits for the upcoming battle.
Papa Ray
By skipsailing, at
Tue Sep 05, 09:45:00 AM:
The news about hezbullah abandoning its Shebaa farms facilities was posted on Michael J Totten's web site last week. I have to admit that I don't quite understand this move, if it's to be believed at all
By 
, at
Tue Sep 05, 10:04:00 AM:
Hezbollah withdrawing reflects both a military and political reality. Primarily militarily.
Militarily, they lost somewhere upwards of 500-600 fighters and who know how many wounded? These cannot be replaced instantly and therefore they surely must withdraw from some of their military positions due to lack of personnel to maintain all the positions they had before. So why not withdraw from areas people don’t support you from first? Also, it will take a bit to train new personnel and the depleted fighters in the field coming back to the Bekaa Valley will probably help spin up the new recruits. First and foremost, it’s a numbers game. At the moment, Hezbollah’s numbers are depleted and need replacements.
(As a side note it also reflects how sophisticated Hezbollah is as a fighting force. These guys aren’t just thrown into the field just because they are full of spirit to kill Jews, they must first be sent through “boot camp’ like Western armies and given basic training.)
In addition, it reflects a certain politic reality. After the initial euphoria, people in Lebanon have gone back to their old thinking about Hezbollah: Christians, Druze and Sunni don’t like them. With all the media attention, I would think Hezbollah would start to “lay-low” for a while and not make their situation worse. And actually, Hezbollah probably extracted something useful from the Lebanese government in “exchange” for this withdrawal from the non-Hezbollah strongholds. I would speculate that they received certain guarantees from the Lebanese government not to mess with Hezbollah nor pressure them politically, nor undermine them in secret.
All in all, Hezbollah is certainly licking their wounds but this “retreat” does not signal a weakness, it signals a determination of Hezbollah to adapt and reconstitute for the next attack which will surely come. Certainly, Hezbollah will learn many lessons to their advantage from this limited war with Israel. Next time they will be a tougher nut to crack. This quiet redeployment of forces somehow fits into this larger strategic thinking for the next war, but it is too early to speculate on how.
By demosophist, at
Wed Sep 06, 06:29:00 PM:
Actually, I can see why they might be more than willing to take up positions in their stronghold. The primary disadvantage of doing so is that it places them farther away from the Israeli populations, so the critical questions concerns the range of the missiles they've been able to acquire from Iran through Syria.
The other issue that might motivate a "redeployment" is that they don't yet want to trigger and end to the ceasefire, because it serves their interests. If Israel perceives that they've made a mistake in signing on to the ceasefire then it's in Hez's interest to minimize excuses Israel might need to restart the war. Peace, right now, is on their side.
By , at
Thu Sep 07, 12:09:00 PM:
Interesting. It may be that now that they've used up most of their short range rockets, they can back off into the Bekaa, regroup, load up on Iranian long range rockets, and attack from there.
Just as the Israelis predicted - the UN is just going to count the number of rockets flying over their heads. Now the Isrealis can't pour over the border - they'll have to rely on air power and paratroopers.
By , at
Fri Sep 08, 03:38:00 AM:
The Hezzies sound like they're falling back to more defensible positions, and reforming their supply lines.
Some of the Druze and Christian villages they originally occupied had to be giving them a security nightmare.
Who knows how many of the Hezzies were killed by villagers, who've simply been biding their time just to get some payback.
I also think the Hezzies want to see how strict the new UN forces are going to be when they are deployed into the border areas.
All the Hezzies would have to do is quietly infiltrate the villages again, if the UN deploys another "paper tiger" force.
