In the wake of the assassination of Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah faces the enormous challenge of stemming infiltration into its ranks, which has allowed its arch-enemy Israel to destroy weapons sites, scuttle its communications and assassinate the veteran leader. Permission was granted, whose hideout was under tight security. Mystery for years.
Nasrallah’s killing at command headquarters on Friday came barely a week after Israel fatally detonated hundreds of stranded pagers and radios. It was the culmination of a rapid series of attacks that eliminated half of Hezbollah’s leadership council and destroyed its top military command.
In the days before and hours after Nasrallah’s killing, Reuters spoke to more than a dozen sources in Lebanon, Israel, Iran and Syria who described damage by Israel to the powerful Shiite paramilitary group, including its supply lines. Order Structure. All requested anonymity to speak on sensitive matters.
A source familiar with Israeli thinking told Reuters less than 24 hours before the attack that Israel had spent 20 years focusing intelligence efforts on Hezbollah and could attack Nasrallah whenever it wanted, including its headquarters. Is included.
The person called the intelligence “brilliant” without giving details.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ministers close to him authorized the attack on Wednesday, two Israeli officials told Reuters. The attack occurred while Netanyahu was in New York to speak at the United Nations General Assembly.
Nasrallah had avoided public appearances since the last war in 2006. According to a source familiar with Nasrallah’s security arrangements, he had been under surveillance for a long time, his movements were restricted and the circle of people he saw was very small. The source said the killing showed that his group had been infiltrated by informants for Israel.
Hezbollah leaders had become even more cautious than usual after the September 17 pager blasts, out of fear that Israel would try to kill them, a security source familiar with the group’s thinking told Reuters a week ago at the commanders’ funerals. Was told citing absence. And a pre-recording of his speech broadcast a few days ago.
Hezbollah’s media office did not respond to a request for comment for this story. US President Joe Biden on Saturday called Nasrallah’s killing “a measure of justice” for his many victims, and said the United States fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Iranian-backed groups.
Israel says it attacked Nasrallah by bombing his underground headquarters beneath a residential building in southern Beirut.
“This is a major blow and intelligence failure for Hezbollah,” said Magnus Ranstorp, a veteran Hezbollah expert at the Swedish Defense University. “They knew he was meeting. He was meeting with other commanders. And they just went for him.”
Israel’s military, including Nasrallah, says it has killed eight of Hezbollah’s nine most senior military commanders this year, mostly in the past week. These commanders led units ranging from rocket divisions to the elite Radwan force.
About 1,500 Hezbollah fighters were injured by explosions of pagers and walkie talkies on 17 September and 18 September.
On Saturday, Israel’s military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, told reporters at a briefing that the military had “real-time” information that Nasrallah and other leaders were gathering. Shoshani did not say how he found out, but said the leaders were meeting to plan an attack on Israel.
Brigadier General Amichai Levin, commander of Israel’s Hatzerim air base, told reporters that dozens of munitions hit the target within seconds.
According to Levin, “The operation was complex and had been planned for a long time.”
finished
Hezbollah has shown an ability to quickly change commanders, and Nasrallah’s cousin Hashem Saffieddine, also a cleric who wears a black turban denoting his lineage to Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, has long been considered his successor. Has been going.
“You kill one, they find a new one,” said one European diplomat about the group’s approach.
The group, whose name means Party of God, will fight: Before the current surge it had about 40,000 fighters, according to US and Israeli estimates, as well as large weapons stockpiles and an extensive tunnel network near the Israeli border.
Founded in Tehran in 1982, the Shia paramilitary organization is the most formidable member of Iran’s so-called anti-Israel Allied Irregular Forces Axis of Resistance, and an important regional player in its own right.
But in the last 10 days it has become physically and psychologically weak.
According to US estimates, due to decades of support from Iran, Hezbollah was one of the world’s best-armed non-conventional armies before the current conflict, with an arsenal of 150,000 rockets, missiles and drones.
According to Israeli estimates, this is ten times the size of the arsenal the group possessed during its last war with Israel in 2006.
In the past year, even more weapons have flowed into Lebanon from Iran, as well as significant amounts of financial aid, said a source familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking.
There has been no detailed public assessment of how much damage the arsenal has suffered from last week’s Israeli attack, which targeted Hezbollah strongholds in the Bekaa Valley, not far from Lebanon’s border with Israel.
A Western diplomat in the Middle East told Reuters before Friday’s attack that Hezbollah has lost 20%-25% of its missile capability in the current conflict, which has also included hundreds of Israeli strikes this week. The diplomat did not provide evidence or details of his assessment.
An Israeli security official said “a very respectable part” of Hezbollah’s missile stockpile had been destroyed, without giving further details.
In recent days, Israel has attacked more than 1,000 positions of Hezbollah. When the security official was asked about the military’s extensive target lists, he said Israel had matched Hezbollah’s two-decade build-up to prevent its rockets from being launched in the first place – the Iron Dome air defense. A complement of systems that often shoot down missiles fired at the Jewish State.
Israeli officials say the fact that Hezbollah was able to launch only a few hundred missiles a day last week is evidence that its capabilities have diminished.
Iran connection
Before the attack on Nasrallah, three Iranian sources told Reuters that Iran was planning to send additional missiles to Hezbollah in preparation for a long-term war.
The first Iranian source said the weapons to be provided included short- to medium-range ballistic missiles, including Iranian Zelzales and an advanced precision version known as the Fateh 110.
Reuters was unable to reach sources after Nasrallah’s killing.
While Iran is willing to provide military assistance, two Iranian sources said it does not want to get involved in a direct confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel. The sharp increase in hostilities last week comes after a year of clashes linked to the Gaza war.
Iranian Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Abbas Nilforoshan was killed in Israeli strikes on Beirut on Friday, Iranian media reported on Saturday, citing a state TV report.
A senior Syrian military intelligence source said Hezbollah may need some weapons and missiles, along with drones and missile parts, to compensate for weapons destroyed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon last week.
In the past, Iranian supplies have reached Hezbollah by air and sea route. Lebanon’s transport ministry on Saturday told an Iranian plane not to enter its airspace, a ministry source told Reuters, after Israel warned air traffic control at Beirut airport that the plane would land if it landed. He will use “force”.
The source said it was not clear what was on the plane.
An Iranian security official told Reuters this week that land corridors are currently the best route for missiles, parts and drones, through Iraq and Syria, with the help of allied armed groups in those countries.
However, a Syrian military source said Israeli drone surveillance and attacks targeting convoys of trucks had compromised that route. This year, Israel stepped up attacks on weapons depots and supply routes in Syria to weaken Hezbollah before any war, Reuters reported in June.
As recently as August, an Israeli drone attacked weapons hidden in commercial trailers in Syria, the source said. This week, Israel’s military said its warplanes bombed unspecified infrastructure used to transfer weapons to Hezbollah on the Syria-Lebanon border.
Joseph Votel, a former Army general who leads US forces in the Middle East, said Israel and its allies could now well intercept any missiles Iran sends from the ground to Hezbollah.
“Clearly, that may be a risk they’re willing to take,” he said.