By Corneliu Pivariu, CEO INGEPO Consulting, MG (two stars general – ret.)
The civil war in Syria has been closely followed by Israel. Of course this is not only a contemplative attention, Israel is acting especially by political and diplomatic means so to that end of this conflict does not represent a new threat to its existence.
In this regard the Israeli leadership develops close ties with Russia especially to prevent as much as possible a dangerous increase of the support that Moscow gives to the Lebanese Hezbollah
The Hezbollah has a great influence in the political and social life of Lebanon, it has an important presence in the Lebanese parliament deputies and the election of general Michel Aoun, which is a political all as president mars a further strengthening of its position in Lebanon.
The Hezbollah is present not only in southern Lebanon but also in the south of Beirut, Bekaa Valley and the mountainous region of Hermel, featuring an impressive infrastructure socio-economic activities (schools, hospitals and other social services, companies, stores) media (radio, TV, newspapers) telephone networks (including a land network of its own and intelligence and military components of.
The Hezbollah as a whole is classified as a terrorist organization in the US, Israel, Canada, France, the Netherlands, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Arab League. Its military component is considered terrorist by Britain and the European Union.
Hezbollah’s main foreign ally is Iran, which has offered since its creation financial, military and logistical support and expertise. Syria had a great contribution in this respect; the beginning of the military cooperation between Iran-Hezbollah-Syria can be set in with the establishment of the paramilitary camp in the immediate vicinity of the springs of the Barada river northwest of Damascus near the border with Lebanon.
At the beginning of the wrongly named “Arab Spring” the Hezbollah has followed the developments with some distance, but the beginning of the civil war in Syria and the relationships it has with the Assad clan and of course those with Iran, led Hezbollah to engage directly militarily on the side of a Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The official recognition of this involvement happened in with the battle of Qusair (a Syrian locality near the border with Lebanon) where it had a key role in the annihilation of the Syrian opposition in this area. From that time until now, the Hezbollah has lost at least 1,000 fighters and a number of commanders in the battles fought on the Syrian territory including in the area of Aleppo. The military component of Hezbollah acquired a great military experience.
According to the latest public data, in 2016 the Hezbollah had 45,000 fighters of which 21,000 were in active duty. About 8,000 of them are deployed in Syria (the figure is apparently the double of the combatants of the organization involved in the conflict with Israel in 2006). The level of weapons and military equipment has been improved in terms of quality and quantity after the 2016 conflict with Israel.
Hezbollah’s military budget in 2016 was almost one billion dollars. It is generally considered that the Hezbollah has about 100,000 unguided reactive rockets and missiles able to hit Israel up to 150 km (Iranian Zelzate-1 missiles) thousands of antitank missiles of various types (from the Russian AT-3 Sagger to its Iranian version Raad and MILAN) a strong component of air defense (SA-7, SA-14, SA-18, SA-22- from Russia, Stinger from Afghanistan via Iran, Vanguard from China via Syria); nearly 100 T-55 and T-72 tanks offered by Syria; C-802 anti-ship missiles (of Chinese origin via Iran) and P-800 Oniks from Russia. Iran has provided the Hezbollah at least four Mohajer-4 UAVs.
Under these circumstances Israel believes that the Hezbollah represents one of the biggest military threats. If at the end of the civil war in Syria the Hezbollah manages to maintain its combat capability, even if Israel will preserve its superiority in many aspects, a new conflict in southern Lebanon will produce a lot more losses and will be more expensive than the one in 2006, one of the reasons for that being the fact that the Hezbollah will act in a territory where the population supports it.
We consider that at least on the medium term, a new conflict between the Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon is very unlikely. A possible trigger may occur after a new rearrangement of the balance of forces in the Middle East .
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About the author:
Corneliu Pivariu, former first deputy for military intelligence (two stars general) in the Romanian MoD, retired 2003. Member of IISS – London, alumni of Harvard – Kennedy School Executive Education and others international organizations. Founder of INGEPO Consulting, and bimonthly Bulletin, Geostrategic Pulse”. Main areas of expertise – geopolitics, intelligence and security.
Photography by INGEPO Consulting. Photographer: Ionus Paraschiv.
This article has been published in www.ingepo.roGeostrategic Pulse, No 226, Monday 5 December 2016
