Hizballah commando units slip back into South Lebanon – with upgraded missiles, new Iran-built military highway network

No Israeli response According to two Lebanese dailies As Safir and Al Akhbar, Hizballah is staging the biggest military maneuver in its history under the eyes of UNIFIL and Lebanese army in S. Lebanon. They disclose that the Iran-backed terrorists’ three day-exercise, including anti-tank anti-air, missile, engineering and logistical units, is overseen by Hizballah secretary Hassan Nasrallah.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that these largely inaccurate reports aim at boosting Nasrallah whose prestige took a knock recently when Tehran replaced him as Hizballah’s military commander with the ace terrorist and abductor Imad Mughniyeh. The goal of the exercise he is supervising in the last ten days is to train Hizballah fighters in the use of the fast military highways Iranian engineers have been laying. They are also testing Israel’s response to the southward transfer of Hizballah commando units including missiles in broad daylight, for the first time since Hizballah agreed to withdraw from South Lebanon under the 2006 UN-brokered ceasefire.
Six Israeli fighter-bombers executed several low passes over South Lebanon Sunday, Nov. 4, and the Hizballah troop movements halted. But the units and missiles already transferred have stayed put.

Nov. 1, DEBKAfile revealed that since May Hizballah has augmented its fighting strength by 20 percent, including anti-air units freshly-trained in Iran and armed with Iranian anti-air missiles and guns. Iranian engineers are also paving 1,000 km of strategic highways across Lebanon to speed up military convoy movements.
Israeli military circles are perturbed by the Olmert government’s laxity and inertia in the face of Hizballah return to South Lebanon on Israel’s northern border, “rearmed at a level higher than prior to the conflict,” as the UN Secretary reported last week, with missiles that can reach Tel Aviv. The government equally is failing to address the Hamas buildup in the Gaza Strip on Israel’s southwestern border. Military experts say that Israel’s passivity serves only to encourage the cooperation between the two terrorist groups and their willingness to confront Israel on two fronts. The guerrilla exercise Hamas carried out in Gaza on Oct. 30 followed the same training format as Hizballah and focused on maximizing troop casualties and abductions. Israeli leaders’ lame pretext for inaction is the approaching Annapolis peace conference whose significance fades day by day.