Warriors of God

by Nicholas Blanford

  “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.

  Unlike the 1980s, when the arrival of large numbers of fighters in a frontline village told everyone that an attack was imminent, military operations from the early 1990s were planned in great secrecy, with units being briefed on the mission only after the fighters had gathered at assembly points.

  “Hezbollah took advantage of the fact that the IDF is a regular armed force that is large and heavy while the Hezbollah is a small organization whose method is guerrilla and terror,” recalls Colonel Noam Ben-Zvi, a brigade commander in south Lebanon between 1996 and 2000. “He watched and learned the routine of our lives and he tried to hurt us where we were vulnerable. It’s not possible to compare the means between the forces, so they had to be very careful, smart, and quick, otherwise they had no chance of succeeding in engagements.”

  The hazardous edges of the enclave, where Hezbollah fighters often clashed with Israeli troops, was known to the Islamic Resistance as the “yellow zone.” Although Hezbollah fighters were fit, well trained, and highly motivated, it was not easy overcoming feelings of stress and tension when weighed down with weapons and equipment, maneuvering across inhospitable terrain and knowing that a firefight could erupt at any moment. “We reach a point where we can no longer tolerate the burden,” Maher explains. “Then we begin to think of the relatives in the occupied villages. We begin to think that if we execute the operation successfully, God will reward us.”

  Hezbollah tended to avoid prolonged direct clashes with IDF troops on the ground. If a Hezbollah unit was staging a typical ambush of IED followed by small arms fire, it would withdraw from the scene within minutes, before the ambushed IDF troops could rally and to avoid Israeli air and artillery support. The sight of fleeing Hezbollah men on the battlefield was sometimes interpreted by IDF field commanders as a sign of weakness. But the tactic was in keeping with the “thirteen principles”: once the element of surprise was gone, the IDF could begin utilizing its technological advantage.

  “It is hard to describe the feeling when we open fire,” Maher says.

  It gets very tranquil and everything becomes clear in my mind. I get a monumental strength and think of nothing but the battle.… I have two feelings when I kill an Israeli soldier and an SLA militiaman. According to Islam, killing is disturbing. The Koran says killing might be forced upon you, but it’s not something you should like. When I kill an Israeli, I think of what they have done, the shelling, destroying villages.… I kill them to stop them [from] doing more of the same. Killing Israelis is a duty, not a joy.

  Deadly Rocks

  Hezbollah’s deadliest weapon against the IDF and SLA was the roadside bomb, which accounted for the majority of fatalities. The bombs were usually simple homemade Claymore-style directional IEDs, which discharged hundreds of steel ball bearings when detonated. The average-sized bomb had a frontal killing range of up to fifty yards and a rear killing range of about fifteen yards.

  From 1991 on, a technological war of wits began to emerge between Hezbollah’s bomb-making engineers and the IDF. IDF trackers accompanied by sniffer dogs had become too adept at discovering the bombs and the telltale command wires used to trigger them. Hezbollah began hiding the IEDs inside fiberglass “rocks” painted to match the limestone geology of south Lebanon. The rock disguises were simple and effective. UNIFIL dubbed them Debbas bombs, after a store in Beirut that sold the rocks as garden ornaments. The fiberglass shells were packed with insulation foam into which the bomb was fitted. Once the device was placed on the ground, it was almost indistinguishable from a real rock.

  Beginning in August 1991, Hezbollah began regularly detonating bombs by remote radio control, precluding the need for a detectable command wire. The IDF attempted to counter the remote control detonation by sweeping a wide spectrum of radio frequencies from its listening bases on the mountain peaks of Mount Hermon in order to explode the bombs prematurely. The Israelis then flew C-47 aircraft modified for multispectral sensing and electronic reconnaissance above south Lebanon.

  Hezbollah returned to command-wire and pressure-mat detonation for a while before introducing a new coded remote control system in mid-1993. The bombs were fitted with two receivers and scramblers, initially defeating Israeli attempts to reproduce the detonating signals. Hezbollah’s engineers then refined the bombs further by incorporating small jammers and detonating them by computerized multifrequency transmissions.11

  By 1995, Hezbollah was equipping its IEDs with cellular phone receivers to trigger the firing switches. In turn, Israel jammed cell phone frequencies from aircraft flying high above southern Lebanon. As the technology improved and grew smaller, the IDF fitted cell phone jammers into armored personnel carriers and vehicles. Eventually, foot soldiers could carry the equipment in a backpack.

  One of the roadside IED tactics used by Hezbollah was the “seven minute” bomb. The first IED would explode against the target—an IDF patrol, for example—and also trigger a timer on a second device hidden nearby. The second bomb would explode seven minutes later, just as the troops were recovering from the shock of the first blast and beginning to treat the wounded. Another version of the tactic involved planting a roadside bomb in such a way that it could be spotted by an IDF or SLA patrol. While the bomb was being defused, a second, better hidden IED would explode.

  Some roadside bomb ambushes displayed deadly cunning in their execution. On March 21, 1994, SLA militiamen heard the sound of shooting coming from the Litani River valley west of Marjayoun. Fares Abi Samra, the head of the SLA’s 20th battalion in the eastern sector, assembled a patrol to investigate the source of the shooting. A Maronite from Qlaya who had served with the militia since 1976, Abi Samra was a tough, compulsive officer who, against the better judgment of his militia comrades and the IDF, insisted on being among the first to
investigate incidents in his area of responsibility. Slipping a flak jacket over his olive-green uniform and strapping a helmet on his head, Abi Samra clambered aboard one of two armored personnel carriers. The convoy of APCs and two Mercedes cars ground out of the 20th battalion headquarters just north of the border and headed to the location of the shooting in the Litani valley. On arrival, the militiamen spread out into the adjacent meadows to see if any militants were still in the area. A few feet from the road, they discovered spilled blood and an abandoned AK-47 rifle and ammunition pouch. The rifle and ammunition were placed in the back of one of the two Mercedes. Finding nothing else, Abi Samra took off his flak jacket and helmet and climbed into one of the Mercedes for the return journey. The convoy had traveled only a few hundred yards when a powerful IED blasted Abi Samra’s car, killing the SLA commander instantly and wounding two other militiamen. In the wake of the explosion, a suspicious militiaman snatched the AK-47 rifle out of the back of the car to inspect it. But when he cocked the rifle, it blew up in his face, killing him and wounding two militiamen standing nearby.

  The IED ambush was in fact an elaborate trap. Hezbollah knew that Abi Samra had a dangerous tendency to rush to scenes of trouble. A team of Hezbollah fighters had penetrated the zone and planted the IED and booby-trapped AK-47. Chicken blood was splattered on the ground and a few rounds fired into the air to attract attention. The team had watched the arrival of the SLA patrol but only recognized Abi Samra when he removed his helmet.

  The IDF also employed IEDs against Hezbollah fighters, copying the fiberglass rocks and planting them along Hezbollah’s infiltration trails. One IDF roadside bomb discovered in south Lebanon by a demining company in 2001 consisted of a block of explosive weighing twenty-two pounds and shaped like a solid wheel with the rim studded with ball bearings. The IED was fitted with an antitampering device and was connected by “cordtex” (an explosive cable) to nineteen buried antipersonnel mines radiating outward like the spokes of a wheel. The bomb would have been lethal in all directions for up to a hundred yards.

  Balance of Terror

  In keeping with the “thirteen principles,” Hezbollah further diversified its tactics, often acting on real-time tactical intelligence obtained through field observation and from agents living inside the zone. The effect was to keep the IDF and SLA constantly on edge and forced into a reactive role, responding to Hezbollah-initiated operations. On any given day, mortar shells could batter SLA outposts in the western sector, while Hezbollah Special Forces teams were laying IEDs in the mountainous northern tip of the enclave. The next day, the situation could be reversed.

  “Their patience was unbelievable,” recalls UNIFIL’s Timur Goksel. “They attacked targets of opportunity. They would fill the spaces [between quality operations] by firing mortars at the SLA. That wasn’t really resistance, but it kept the pot boiling.”

  Coordination was greatly tightened between separate squads, allowing the Islamic Resistance to launch complex fire-and-movement operations using multiple units. The first coordinated mass attack against IDF and SLA compounds was on September 29, 1992, when at least eleven positions running the length of the zone were targeted by heavy mortar and rocket fire. The operation was significant not only for demonstrating an improved coordination between separate units, but also because it was the first time Hezbollah used AT-3 Sagger antitank missiles in south Lebanon. The AT-3 Sagger is a wire-guided antiarmor missile first introduced in the 1960s by the Soviet Union. Although it was considered obsolete by the early 1990s, Hezbollah’s acquisition of the Sagger required the IDF to improve the defenses of its armored vehicles, particularly the relatively thin-skinned M-113 armored personnel carriers widely used by the SLA.

  In November 1991, Hezbollah fired for the first time a shoulder-launched SAM-7 antiaircraft missile at an Israeli C-47 aircraft on an electronic warfare mission above south Lebanon. It locked on to the target, but the C-47 was flying above the missile’s maximum range. The Israelis temporarily ceased C-47 flights in Lebanese airspace after that incident, but Hezbollah never brought down an Israeli aircraft with one of its SAM-7s.

  The introduction of the Sagger and SAM-7 into the Lebanon theater was not a game changer for Israel, but it did represent a worrying improvement in Hezbollah’s arsenal, suggesting that it was only a matter of time before the Lebanese group obtained weapons that would pose a real threat to the IDF. Certainly, the size of Hezbollah’s arsenal was increasing rapidly, thanks to Iranian generosity. Iran Air Boeing 747s adapted to carry freight were flying in to Damascus airport between one and four times a month in the early 1990s. Each flight carried large quantities of ammunition and weapons, including Saggers and Katyusha rockets. The Syrians made little attempt to disguise the purpose of the shipments, and American and European diplomats in Damascus could monitor the flights with relative ease.

  Although Hezbollah was beginning to acquire more sophisticated arms to attack the occupation forces in south Lebanon, the judicious use of the relatively unsophisticated 122 mm Katyusha rocket came to plague successive Israeli governments more than any other weapon. Hezbollah had fired Katyushas into Israel for the first time in February 1992 in response to Mussawi’s assassination. Those opening salvos had been a spontaneous reaction of anger toward the death of the Hezbollah leader rather than the calculated launch of a new tactic.

  But over the next two years, a clear pattern of reciprocity began to emerge. Whenever Israel or its SLA allies caused civilian casualties, Hezbollah would fire rockets across the border. The tactic imposed constraints upon an IDF that was already struggling to check Hezbollah’s intensifying resistance campaign. The stated reason for the IDF’s presence in south Lebanon was to protect the residents of northern Israel from attack. But from now on, the IDF understood that if it acted rashly against Hezbollah in south Lebanon and civilians were harmed, it could incur rockets falling into northern Israel, thus defeating the purpose of the Israeli presence in south Lebanon in the first place.

  Nasrallah publicly confirmed the Katyusha policy for the first time in March 1995, when Hezbollah fired a salvo of rockets into Israel following the helicopter assassination of a senior resistance commander. The Hezbollah leader justified the rocket barrage as a reaction, not to the assassination, but to a list of complaints in which Israel since the beginning of the year had killed 16 civilians, wounded another 60, and bombed 75 villages, leaving 212 houses destroyed or damaged. “There is no safety for anyone if our people are not safe,” he said. “Zionist settlers in northern Israel should know that their racist and aggressive government, their settlements and the residents inside, will not be in a better condition than our towns and their residents.”

  With the Katyusha taking on a greater importance in the resistance campaign, Hezbollah’s artillery unit was reorganized and given intensified training. Speed of firing and accuracy were the key requirements, according to Abu Khalil, the unit commander. Fighters passed through four levels of instruction, much of it classwork followed by practice rocket-firing in the field watched closely by instructors.

  A standard Katyusha launch usually involved two separate groups. The first was the full-time artillery unit specialists who set up the launchers in olive groves and valleys facing the occupation zone. Engineers would ensure that the launch tubes were correctly elevated and aimed, checking targeting data on laminated range cards. The first group would then disappear, and a second group would carry out the actual launch mission.

  Although the IDF had no defensive system that could intercept the Katyushas in flight, its counterbattery radars could pinpoint the origin of a rocket firing within seconds, allowing artillery gunners to retaliate with a bombardment of the area. To avoid being caught in a retaliatory shelling, Hezbollah sometimes fitted simple wristwatch and battery timers to Katyushas, enabling the fighters to be gone long before the rockets were fired.

  A Huge Psychological Effect

  The IED may have been the deadliest tactical weapon in Hezbollah’s ars
enal, but arguably the most effective strategic weapon was the camera. From 1991, Hezbollah fighters wielding simple handheld video cameras filmed many of their attacks inside the occupation zone with the footage later broadcast on the organization’s flagship Al-Manar (the Beacon) television station.

  Typical combat footage would show uniformed Hezbollah fighters saluting a party flag planted on the ramparts of a seized hilltop outpost, or an antitank missile streaking across open countryside and exploding against an IDF armored vehicle, or a patrol of Israeli soldiers blasted by a roadside bomb. Sometimes the footage was broadcast on television before the IDF had notified the families of soldiers killed in the videotaped attack. Hezbollah had managed radio stations and published a weekly newspaper since the 1980s, but it expanded its propaganda machine significantly in 1991 with the launch of Al-Manar. With initial annual running costs of about $1 million, Al-Manar broadcast a combination of political talk shows, Arab soap operas, children’s programs, religious programs, and heavily censored (for sexual content rather than violence) Hollywood movies. But it was the combat videos that captured the imagination of the viewers both in Lebanon and around the region. Al-Manar, after all, was not intended as a purveyor of impartial journalism, but as a tool to spread the message of jihad and resistance and rally support for Hezbollah’s struggle to liberate south Lebanon. “Al-Manar is an important weapon for us,” Nayyaf Krayyem, the chairman of Al-Manar, told me in 2001. “It’s a political weapon, social weapon, and cultural weapon.”