Hezbollah Report on the IDF Presence on the Lebanese Border; The Hezbollah-Iran Relationship

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) maintains a large presence on the Lebanese border. This includes watch posts, fences, radar stations (both land and air) and the use of numerous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Unfortunately for Israel, Hezbollah has a very good idea of the extent and capabilities of the IDF. Ronen Bergman in today’s Yedioth Ahronoth has an important article detailing Hezbollah penetration and observation of IDF activities and presence along the border. Bergman notes:

The document reached Yedioth Ahronoth and is now being revealed for the first time. It underscores the extent to which the enemy's intelligence has succeeded in infiltrating the IDF and proves that Nasrallah’s people have rather good intelligence sources. The report, which spans 150 pages (the table of contents alone is four pages), lists in detail the IDF's deployment on the northern border as well as the mechanisms it operates there - in the air, land and sea. "My heart sunk just by reading the document's table of contents," said this week a source who had served in an extremely high position in the Northern Command.

The document includes photographs from both the Israeli and Lebanese sides of the border, as well as IDF procedures for shift changes and drills, the escorting of engineer and maintenance personnel to the border, technical aspects to the security fence, and so on. Bergman remarks that:

The document is based on a wide array of human sources - spies operated by Hezbollah within the IDF and in Israel's territory - alongside gathering of visible data and listening in on Israel's open - and also possibly encrypted - communication networks. It is hard to believe, but the Hezbollah intelligence sources who wrote the document seem to have copied from internal documents belonging to the Northern Command.   

This is a major problem for Israel. The effects of Hezbollah infiltration and widespread surveillance of IDF border embankments and actions are a security issue of immense proportion.

In related news, yesterday four Lebanese civilians were sentenced to death for spying for Israel, while on Tuesday IDF Chief of Staff Ashkenazi observed that Hezbollah possesses missiles capable of striking Tel-Aviv. Earlier in the week, Hezbollah joined the newly formed Lebanese government with two cabinet portfolios out of a total of 30.

However, there is another part of the story.  Hezbollah is still actively arming itself. But in the last few weeks it has had two weapons shipments from Iran captured, one by the US and the other by Israel. In July a large explosion rocked a Hezbollah weapons depot in South Lebanon. These events paint a picture of a Hezbollah that has suffered some setbacks, though it remains an integral component of a Lebanese unity government. 

Looking to the future, in more ways than one Hezbollah is constrained by the domestic sphere. In a news analysis piece in today’s Yedioth Ahronoth, also written by Ronen Bergman, he comments that following the Lebanese war in 2006:

Hezbollah has since rebuilt its military might, the range of its missiles is greater, but today it is at a crossroads. A short time after the war ended, bitter voices began to be heard among some of the Lebanese public, which suffered badly from the war and accused Nasrallah and said he had caused Israel to bomb Lebanon. Nasrallah himself said that had he known that Israel would respond this way to the kidnapping of the soldiers he would have thought twice. Then the bosses from Tehran came along with no less harsh claims. Hezbollah, in the Iranian perception, has to maintain its forces against Israel to be used as a "Judgment Day weapon" - revenge in case of an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. According to the Iranian foreign minister, the war unnecessarily revealed Hezbollah’s abilities.

The Iran relationship is arguably the most important for Hezbollah, perhaps only challenged by the Syrian one. However, the ideological and historical connections between the Iranian revolutionary guards and Hezbollah are long, deep and extensive. The assassination of Hezbollah terrorist mastermind Imad Mughniyah in February of 2008, one of the key links between Hezbollah and Iran, as well as Syria, was extremely damaging. Israel and the US are at the top of the suspect list. In fact, it has shocked the Israelis that the long anticipated Hezbollah response has yet to materialize. As a former Mossad agent stated to Bergman:

"I don't know why there is no terror attack, but I know that if Mughniyah were here to avenge his death, we would have already felt it." In other words, Mughniyah's absence is felt very strongly.

Adding to this element, it must trouble Hezbollah greatly to see some possible winds of change blowing across Tehran. The turmoil after the recent Iranian election this summer revealed that the regime is not on as solid footing as Hezbollah would conceivably like. So, Bergman concludes:

The indulgent support of Tehran no longer seems that certain, and Iran, in any case, is troubled by its own domestic affairs. In light of all this, there are those who think that Hezbollah’s joining an Iranian revenge if its nuclear facilities are attacked, is no longer a sure thing. Nasrallah will think twice before he initiates any clash with Israel.