Many rockets remain

Hezbollah's intense bombing campaign yesterday is meant to signal that it still has strong military capability, experts say

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI | Newsday Middle East Correspondent

August 3, 2006

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Despite the intense Israeli bombardment of the past three weeks, Hezbollah still has several hundred medium-range rockets and a few dozen longer-range missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv and other cities in central Israel, according to a senior Lebanese security official.

By unleashing its heaviest salvo of rockets yet on northern Israel yesterday, Hezbollah was trying to prove that its missile stockpiles and overall military capability have not been as severely damaged as the Israelis say. The barrage came as thousands of Israeli troops invaded south Lebanon in a dramatic escalation of the Israeli offensive.

Before war broke out on July 12, Hezbollah had an arsenal of up to 12,000 rockets and missiles. About 10,000 of those were inaccurate Katyushas - with a range of 12 miles - that military experts say pose only a modest threat to Israel because they cannot be guided.

But the Shia militant group also had several hundred Iranian-made Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 rockets, with ranges of 22 miles and 45 miles respectively.

And the most potent weapons in Hezbollah's arsenal were several dozen Zelzal missiles, which have a range of 120 miles and can carry 1,300 pounds of explosives.

"Hezbollah is still capable of hitting Tel Aviv," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "It had taken steps to protect the most powerful missiles."

It also still has a "handful" of radar-guided C-802 anti-ship missiles, the official said. A C-802 was fired on July 14 against an Israeli Saar 5-class missile boat off the coast of Beirut, killing four sailors. Israeli and U.S. officials were stunned that Hezbollah had acquired the Iranian-made C-802, which has a range of 70 miles.

By last night, Hezbollah had fired at least 230 rockets into Israel - the highest single-day total since the war began. Hezbollah rockets also penetrated deeper into Israel than ever before, landing near the town of Beit Shean, about 45 miles from the Lebanese border.

Hezbollah's television network, Al-Manar, announced that the group used Khaibar-1 rockets in that attack. Israeli officials say the Khaibar-1 is actually a renamed Fajr-5 rocket. The Khaibar-1 was first used last week in an attack on the Israeli town of Afula.

After Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12, Israel launched its most intense attack since it invaded Lebanon in 1982. The offensive has killed more than 475 civilians, crippled the country's infrastructure and cut off Lebanon from the world.

With yesterday's barrage, Hezbollah had launched more than 2,000 rockets, killing 19 Israeli civilians.

Israeli officials claimed last week that they had destroyed half of Hezbollah's rocket arsenal. But the group's volleys into northern Israel have not slowed down, averaging 80 rockets a day.

On Sunday, after an Israeli air attack on the southern village of Qana killed 54 people - mostly women and children - Hezbollah fired more than 160 rockets at Israel.

"Hezbollah is trying to show the Israeli public that its missile capabilities have not been diminished," said Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese army general. "This is part of the propaganda and psychological war."

On July 17, Israeli military officials said their fighter jets had destroyed a Zelzal missile that Hezbollah was preparing to deploy from south Lebanon. The missile could, in theory, reach Tel Aviv, Israel's economic hub and home to about 1 million people.

Hezbollah is believed to have built up its missile arsenal after the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000. Most of the rockets came from Iran, either by ship or by land through Syria. U.S. and Israeli officials say some of the Katyusha rockets in Hezbollah's stockpiles are Syrian-made.

Israel has disrupted what it claimed were Hezbollah's supply lines by repeatedly bombing the main highway between Beirut and the Syrian capital, Damascus, and by imposing a naval blockade on Lebanon. But the Lebanese security official said Hezbollah is still capable of receiving supplies through back roads and age-old smuggling routes in the mountains that separate Syria from Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.

"It's disingenuous of the Israelis to say that the supplies were moving along the main highways," the official said. "There were always other routes, and those still exist."

Hezbollah has other military capabilities beyond its rockets: unmanned drones, the ability to deploy guidance systems on some missiles, and a highly disciplined guerrilla force. It also has two decades of experience in guerrilla warfare against Israel, developed during the 1982-2000 Israeli occupation of south Lebanon. That experience taught it to conduct surveillance, monitor the Israeli media, develop traps and ambushes and produce powerful improvised explosive devices.

For Israeli officials, one of Hezbollah's most troubling abilities is its launch of unarmed drones, which have penetrated Israeli airspace twice in the past two years.

E-mail

Single page

Reprint

Hezbollah's intense bombing campaign yesterday is meant to signal that it still has strong military capability, experts say

Related links

Popular stories

Hampton Roads Facts, Data and Statistics

Blogs