Warriors of God (20 page)

Recruits into Hezbollah's Special Forces unit, the top combat element in the Islamic Resistance, endure an intensive three-month course split into two forty-five-day programs with a five-day break in between. While most Hezbollah combatants are part-timers holding down day jobs or attending college, the Special Forces cadres are full-time combatants
who train relentlessly. Not only are they highly motivated combat fighters, they are also the embodiment of the religious and cultural values that make up the way of Hezbollah. Even within the generally homogeneous ranks of the Islamic Resistance, Special Forces fighters tend to stand out. In person, they are usually polite and modest with a quiet sense of humor while maintaining a level of reserve and distance before strangers.

Hezbollah believes that the unremitting religious and ideological instruction creates a combatant far superior to his opposite number in the Israeli army and helps overcome the organization's material shortcomings in technology, weapons, and funds compared with Israel. Never mind that Israel has Merkava tanks, F-16 fighter-bombers, and Apache helicopter gunships; the Islamic Resistance fighter is taught that God is on his side, an unrivaled affirmation of the sanctity of the cause and the supreme guarantor of eventual triumph over one's enemy. Furthermore, Hezbollah believes that its culture of martyrdom—this “rebellion against fear,” as Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah once put it—bestows upon the individual fighter an unmatched level of bravery, at least in the secular sense of the word.
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After all, how can you defeat an army of fighters who believe their struggle is sanctioned by God and none of whom are afraid of dying in battle?

Hezbollah's leaders maintain that it is the psychological dimension of the individual fighter, rather than the equipment and arms at his disposal, that lies at the heart of the party's battlefield triumphs. “This group of fighters does not go to war in order to flex their military muscles, score a publicity coup or to achieve material advantages; they fight and do jihad with serious intent and a deep conviction that the only way to regain their usurped territory is by waging war on the enemy,” Nasrallah explained.
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While other Islamist militant organizations operating around the world also draw direction from the Koran and pursue jihad, Sheikh Naim Qassem insists that it is the quality of the resistance fighter's faith that is the foundation for Hezbollah's “exceptional particularity.”

“First, [it is] faith in Islam and what this means in connection with God, the exalted, and attaining a moral state that gives one self-confidence,
strength, hope for the future, readiness to sacrifice [oneself] … development, and self-improvement. This is something essential that we have,” he told me.

The second component, Qassem continues, is “readiness for martyrdom” and an understanding that “martyrdom neither shortens nor prolongs life because the timing of death is predestined by God.… Since the outcome of this martyrdom is a divine reward in Heaven, this is something quite important when it comes to mobilization, especially that we have historic leaders who have presented this example, such as the Prophet Mohammed, Imam Ali, and Imam Hussein and others.”

The third advantage is the quality and integrity of Hezbollah's leadership, Qassem adds, citing the martyrdom of Sayyed Abbas Mussawi in 1992 and of Nasrallah's eldest son, Hadi, in combat in 1997 as examples of the leadership's willingness to stand in the same trench as the rank-and-file fighter.

The combination of these three assets—faith in Islam, readiness for martyrdom, and “honest, confident … enlightened” leadership—ensures that the “limited [material] capabilities or potentials [of a nonstate actor] become of value.”

“Imagine the single machine gun with a faith in God and readiness for martyrdom and a faith in, and interaction with, the leadership, and then you have a person of great power who does not fear death,” Qassem explains. “This differs from the enemy on the other side that does many calculations [to protect itself]. Then our machine gun becomes more powerful than their artillery. This moral issue is quite essential.”

Of course, it takes more than a well-trained and motivated fighter to wage a successful campaign of resistance. By 1992, with Hezbollah's resistance priority assured, the Islamic Resistance commanders drew up a more focused campaign against the Israeli occupation. They understood the need to develop flexible tactics to fulfill a fixed strategy: namely, to expel Israeli forces from south Lebanon through force of arms—no negotiated
settlement, no compromises, no conditions. Israel was to be humiliated and chased out of Lebanon by the Islamic Resistance.

To achieve that goal, Hezbollah would apply the tactics of attrition, capitalizing on the IDF's Achilles' heel: the Israeli public's aversion to casualties. All the Islamic Resistance had to do was to remain patient, stay one step ahead of the IDF's offensive and defensive measures, and keep sending Israeli soldiers back across the border in body bags. “We organized ourselves to serve that foremost priority, which is to resist the enemy and expel the troops of the occupation from Lebanon,” Nasrallah told me in 2003. “We focused on striking at the enemy's main point of weakness, which is his inability to bear extensive human losses.”
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A document captured by Israeli troops, entitled “The Principles of Warfare,” reportedly compiled by Khalil Harb, from 1995 the head of military operations in the western sector of south Lebanon, illustrates Hezbollah's understanding of the elements of asymmetrical warfare:

Gone were the costly human wave operations of the 1980s, when dozens of fighters bravely but recklessly charged well-defended hilltop outposts. Instead, Hezbollah operated in small units, staging hit-and-run raids against Israeli and SLA patrols. Field security was tightened, and a much greater emphasis was placed on intelligence gathering, both through observation and reconnaissance and by establishing spy cells among the civilian population of the occupation zone—and even by penetrating the ranks of the SLA.

The military wing was separated from the main body of the organization, with the secretary general, as nominal head of the Islamic Resistance, providing the only link between the two. The
tabbiyya
, the part-time combatants in the village guard units, were also split from the Islamic Resistance. Separation served the dual purpose of compartmentalizing the Islamic Resistance for security considerations, and also granting greater autonomy to the military commanders in directing the reinvigorated resistance campaign.

Nasrallah admitted to me in a 2003 interview that he played an indirect role in military affairs, with operational decisions left in the hands of the Islamic Resistance commanders, including Imad Mughniyah, who became Hezbollah's chief of staff sometime around 1993 or 1994. “The one who is in charge of all the resistance is the secretary general of Hezbollah. And under his command are a number of officials who assume different responsibilities,” he explained. “Therefore, there are not one, two or three [but many]. Of course, our experience teaches us that we cannot centralize our actions within one person, because this is a very sensitive and dangerous issue and we are confronting the Israelis in a real battle.”

As for his own leadership, Nasrallah said his role was one of “politics and guidance.” He continued,

There was no tangible barrier marking the front line of Israel's occupation zone. The roads leading into the zone were sealed with earth berms and land mines except for five crossing points guarded by SLA checkpoints. The approximate perimeter of the zone followed the forward positions of the IDF and SLA. The compounds for the most part were separated by an inhospitable terrain of deep wadis smothered in a thick undergrowth of stubby Mediterranean oak trees and thorn bushes, which could only be traversed by foot and even then with difficulty. The rugged terrain and absence of barriers and defending troops allowed Hezbollah fighters to slip between the outposts into the enclave with relative ease, often to a considerable depth, to meet with agents inside the zone, stash weapons, plant IEDs, or carry out lengthy reconnaissance missions.

Usually, three or four fighters at a time would carry out reconnaissance, creeping close to IDF and SLA outposts, often using darkness or poor weather conditions to mask their approach. They set up small surveillance posts, usually hidden in bushes camouflaged with netting. Using binoculars, SLR cameras, and, by the mid-1990s, video cameras and military-grade night vision goggles, they would monitor the positions, looking for routine and assessing troop numbers, armaments, and potential avenues of approach for bomb-laying missions on the supply routes. All information was diligently written down in notebooks. It was dangerous and uncomfortable duty, and often very boring. Fighters tucked copies of the Koran and other religious books into their backpacks so that they could continue their studies in the field. They had to contend with the blazing heat of summer and the bitter cold of winter nights, especially at the higher altitudes in the northern sector of the zone. One valley was known as “the wadi of the snakes” because of the
large number of poisonous vipers; each fighter carried antivenom shots in his first aid kit.

“It takes a very special person, very religious and strong to stay there a month with the wild animals in the bush,” says Abu Khalil, a tall, shaven-headed unit commander who organized reconnaissance missions. “Observation was a very big weapon for us against the Israelis.”

Hezbollah fighters like to recount a tale from the 1980s about a colleague who had spent days monitoring an SLA-defended outpost on a rocky mountain in the northern sector. After his food and water ran out, he sneaked up to the outpost and scrambled over the ramparts. Seeing no one around, he dodged into a kitchen area and began helping himself to eggs, tins of tuna and sardines, and mugs of water. As he ate, an SLA militiaman walked into the kitchen and in a surprised voice asked him who he was. The quick-thinking Hezbollah fighter said he was part of an SLA intelligence unit visiting the outpost. Furthermore, the fighter added, what the hell was the militiaman doing wandering around the kitchen when he should be watching out for Hezbollah fighters? The chastened militiaman apologized and walked away.

“The
mujahid
returned to his observation position with a full stomach and a big smile on his face,” said the fighter who told me the story.

The in-depth reconnaissance, which often saw several teams deployed in the enclave at any one time, provided a wealth of tactical intelligence that fed into operational planning. “The information we collected would be relayed to the military command and they would use it to draw up appropriate plans to achieve the best results with the minimum casualties,” says Maher, the sector commander.

The infiltration trails winding through the undergrowth were also used by Hezbollah teams to penetrate the zone for combat missions, perhaps laying roadside bombs or staging ambushes. Each fighter in a combat unit carried a minimum of forty pounds of equipment and sometimes as much as sixty or seventy, depending on the mission. By the early 1990s, the Hezbollah combatant was wearing full military camouflage fatigues, boots, and helmet rather than the ad hoc 1980s “militia look” of jeans and T-shirt overlaid with webbing and ammunition pouches. The helmets usually were old IDF-issue ones that had
fallen into Hezbollah's hands over the years. The combatants carried a choice of AK-47 or M-16 assault rifles. Some preferred the AK-47 for its robust reliability, others the M-16 for its greater accuracy and higher rate of fire on those rare occasions when they might flip the fire selector switch to fully automatic. Another important consideration was the weight of the ammunition. The M-16 fires a 5.56 mm round, compared with the AK-47's larger 7.62 mm round, giving the M-16 operator a weight-to-round advantage.

Other than ammunition, the rest of the standard gear included hand grenades, water, first aid kit, and walkie-talkies, plus food if the mission was to last a day or more. Additional equipment could include night vision binoculars; metal detectors and wooden probes to navigate through minefields; homemade Bangalore torpedoes to blast through barbed wire obstacles and to detonate land mines during assaults on SLA compounds; light machine guns and ammunition; antitank missiles; rocket-propelled grenades and launchers; and IEDs. Some IEDs weighed twenty pounds or more, consisting of casing, explosive, shrapnel of hundreds of steel ball bearings, detonating cord, and antipersonnel mines to plant separately or rig up to the main IED charge.