LCCC NEWS BULLETIN
APRIL 9/2006

Below news from miscellaneous sources for 9/04/07
Joseph Attieh First Lebanese Winner of Star Academy Talent Show-Naharnet
Assad won't see Siniora but Bush will-Ya Libnan
Expert: Hezbollah, Hamas abusing immigration-Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Hezbollah Beefing Up Borders-ThreatsWatch.Org
Five Suspects Detained in Murder of Faddoul Brothers in Venezuela-Naharnet
Families of Kidnapped and Detained Lebanese Demand to Know Fate of Loved Ones-Naharnet
Saniora to Hold Talks with Bush in a Show of U.S. Support to Lebanon-Naharnet
YAL Lebanon chapter inaugurated under patronage of Prime Minister- AME Info
Shebaa between Hariri and Nasrallah-Walid Choucair- Al-Hayat
Lebanese minister calls for implementing national dialogue-Kuwait News Agency
Lebanon on a platter-Financial Express
Salloukh in talks with French Ambassador-Bahrain News Agency

Families of Kidnapped and Detained Lebanese Demand to Know Fate of Loved Ones
Relatives of Lebanese kidnapped during the country's 1975-1990 civil war and those detained in Israeli and Syrian jails sent an urgent appeal to political leaders to help them determine the fate of their loved ones.
They demanded that the cabinet, parliament as well as top political leaders meeting at national dialogue talks consider this issue a top priority "because it deals with human lives."Members of three advocacy groups supporting the cause of those kidnapped during the war and prisoners in Syria and Israel made their plea on the occasion of the upcoming anniversary of the Lebanese Civil War that erupted on April 13, 1975.
Wadad Halwani, head of the Committee of Relatives of the Kidnapped and Missing in Lebanon, spoke on behalf of all the families Friday. "We want to remind them of the war so it is never repeated," she said in an open letter to all Lebanese leaders.
Lebanon cannot achieve real national reconciliation without finding a proper closure to the cases of the missing and those held in foreign jails, the designated spokeswoman said.
She reproached participants at the dialogue talks for failing to include this humanitarian cause on their agenda opting instead to concentrate on purely political issues including restoring relations and delineating the border with Syria.
"The case of the kidnapped, missing and detainees is almost the only item that is not getting the attention of officials and their negotiations," said Halwani. She said the key to healthy ties with Damascus should be by putting an end to the case of detainees in its prisons. "This humanitarian issue cannot be postponed anymore, not even for one day. It should be kept clear of political maneuvering," she warned.
In addition to giving the issue top priority, the families demanded proper laboratory tests to help identify the remains that are being unearthed. They also requested the proper safekeeping of mass graves found at Anjar last year as well as the excavation of other burial sites in Beirut. Around 18,000 people went missing during the civil war, when rival militias spared no method of fighting, including taking innocent civilians captive. Many of them are presumed dead.
More than 600 people are believed to be detained in Syrian jails, including Lebanese and Palestinians.
Their fate has come under the spotlight since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri a year ago led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops out of Lebanon last April. Since the pullout, relatives of the missing have been staging a sit-in in front of the Beirut headquarters of the United Nations.
Israel, that occupied the South for 22 years until its withdrawal in 2000, has held hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinians captured in Lebanon it its jails. Only a few remain detained after most were released in different prisoner exchanges with Hizbullah. Beirut, Updated 08 Apr 06, 11:14

Saniora to Hold Talks with Bush in a Show of U.S. Support to Lebanon
President George Bush has invited Prime Minister Fouad Saniora to visit Washington in a show of U.S. support to the fledgling Lebanese government that is seeking to liberate itself from Syrian influence and implement a challenging economic reform program.An Nahar newspaper reported from Washington Friday that Bush is scheduled to hold talks with Saniora on April 18 at the White House, to reaffirm that his administration still considers Lebanon one of the top priorities in the region.
It quoted sources as saying that the U.S. president will assure the premier that "Lebanon is still one of the main concerns for the United States in the Middle East."The sources said Bush will emphasize his country's "strong support for Lebanon in its path towards complete liberation from Syrian hegemony and its remnants."
The talks will also include helping Lebanon implement its economic reform plan as well as U.S. military aid to the country.
During his visit, the premier is also scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley in addition to other U.S. officials, An Nahar said.
Al Mustaqbal newspaper quoted sources in Saniora's office as saying that the premier will also travel to New York where he will hold talks with representatives of countries that are expected to take part in a donor conference for Lebanon.
Saniora's U.S. visit comes as Lebanon's top rival leaders are discussing divisive political issues that have catapulted the country into a crisis. The talks that started on March 2, have achieved breakthroughs on some issues but have made little progress on the fate of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud that the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority is seeking to remove from power.
The participants have set April 28 as the deadline to continue discussions on this issue. The talks will then tackle the weapons of the resistance or Hizbullah, a major concern for the United States.
Washington, that considers the group a "terrorist organization" has been adamant on seeing the full implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 that calls for the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon and free and fair presidential elections. An Nahar's sources said the Bush administration believes the time is ripe for Saniora's visit to the U.S. to discuss the situation in Lebanon in light of regional developments. The sources said that Rice's recent statement on Hizbullah's relationship with Iran and Syria and the role that the two regional powers are playing in the country, is an indication that the situation in Lebanon is now a major U.S. concern.
Rice has said that the Party of God's ties with Tehran and Damascus "are the biggest problem that the Lebanese are facing at this time." She expressed concern about the two counties' intervention in Lebanon. Syria, the major power broker in Lebanon for decades, pulled its forces out of the country a year ago under international pressure and after mass protests that followed ex-premier Rafik Hariri's assassination in Feb. 2005. In spite of the withdrawal, Damascus is still accused of interfering in the country through its allies, mainly Hizbullah. Arms shipments to the group are reported to come through the border with Syria.
Lebanon is attempting to demarcate its frontier and establish diplomatic relations with its neighbor, but it has so far been met with stiff resistance.Iran, Hizbullah's main financial backer, is allegedly trying to fill the vacuum in Lebanon left by Syria, with whom it has forged a strategic alliance. Beirut, Updated 08 Apr 06, 08:47

Shebaa between Hariri…and Nasrallah
Walid Choucair Al-Hayat - 08/04/06//
In late March this year, two striking stances surfaced in Lebanon, without being noticed in the midst of the heated dispute between the President of the Republic Emile Lahoud and his proponents and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his supporters. The row engrossed the country and heightened the harsh political discourse.
The first stance was taken by the leader of the "Future Bloc" MP Saad Hariri; it was revealed in an interview with the "Al Jazeera" satellite channel (on the eve of March 29). During the interview, MP Hariri explained that substantiating the Lebanese identity of Shebaa farms by means of a document obtained from Syria, according to the decision of the National Dialogue Meeting, will allow Lebanon to implement UN resolutions 1559 and 425 on Israel. Thus, the Lebanese will be armed with two international resolutions in their favor, since the first resolution also stipulates the pullout of the foreign forces from its territories. Although the intended party, upon the issuance of the resolution, was the Syrian army, this generalization provides for the implementation of this clause in its provisions on Israel as well. This is possible when the international community will call for the evacuation of the farms area, after rectifying the maps held by the UN, through a Lebanese - Syrian agreement, and reinstating the farms in the Lebanese map.
Those who heard Hariri's statement noted his ability to invest the international resolution that he never endorsed openly, as his father did, since it targets, among others, the arms of the resistance. Both Hariri Senior and Junior believed that dealing with this issue is a Lebanese affair. In fact, the young leader tried to convince Washington and Paris to discard the matter and leave it to the local parties to discuss and agree upon. They also noted that the young leader is reviving his father's refined style in adapting the international stances pressuring Lebanon with the Lebanese interest. Just as his father was able in 1996 to play a major role in taming the negotiations in order to reach the so-called "April agreement", with the cooperation of "Hezbollah" and Syria to bring it into line with legitimizing the resistance and "Hezbollah," Hariri Junior found a way to alleviate the situation, by bringing about an additional international framework to pressure Israel to withdraw from the Lebanese territory.
As for the second stance, which surfaced a few hours after Hariri's statement, it was the announcement of the Secretary General of "Hezbollah" Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (Thursday March 30th during the convention of the Lebanese parties in support of the resistance) that the US side has previously offered him a deal. The latter includes removing the party from the terrorist list, guaranteeing an Israeli pullout from Shebaa farms, releasing the Lebanese detainees from the Israeli prisons and "paying a substantial amount of money… and opening the whole world before the party… in exchange of giving up resistance and handing in arms."
As much as the supporters of Hezbollah valued his steadfastness in facing the US temptations, keeping the arms, and clinging to the resistance, the question raised by those who express the stance of another category of the Lebanese public was: If the offers include Lebanon recuperating the farms, why doesn't the party handle or ask the Lebanese government to negotiate thereon? Why was this offer neglected especially that it did not include a condition to demarcate its borders with Syria?
It is obvious that Sayyed Nasrallah avoided, in his objection to this offer, to negotiate over the arms, which are being discussed within the agenda of the national dialogue, by linking it to "a defensive strategy to face the Israeli violations and aspirations."
The difference between the statement of MP Hariri and that of Hassan Nasrallah sums up the current conflict between the Lebanese over the role of the resistance's arms. The first one fathoms the benefit from the sacrifices of the resistance, its arms, and the power it is endowed with in order to reclaim the farms, following the liberation victory in 2000, via the international community, without having to make any concession, since it has become possible to invest two international resolutions in this respect. It is a stance that suggests that taking a unified stance towards those present on the round table over the defensive role of the arms, under the leadership of the government and the Lebanese army, legitimizes keeping the arms within the frame of the Lebanese government as an authority, not the party.
As for the second stance, it keeps the fate of the arms pending and rules out linking the issue to the Israeli pullout from Shebaa farms and transferring the authority to the State. It is a stance that doubts the readiness of the government to stand up to Israel, failing to differentiate between the government of 1943 and the government of the Taef agreement. In fact, the agreement defined the identity of Lebanon and its foe and set up a new distribution of the sectarian partnership. Thus, the notion that Lebanon's power lies in its weakness no longer applies.
If all this keeps the role of the arms and its authority "ambiguous," it becomes natural for "Hezbollah" to support keeping President Emile Lahoud in his position, since the man linked the issue of the arms to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Joseph Attieh First Lebanese Winner of Star Academy Talent Show
A Lebanese has for the first time won the top prize in the talent show Star Academy after fans voted for Joseph Attieh giving him an overwhelming majority over the other contestants.
Attieh, 19, got 55,15 percent of the votes that qualified him by a large margin to win the title of "Star" in the show's third year that ended Friday. The radio and TV production student received a trophy, $50,000 in cash and a brand new car.
Attieh's competitors Hani Hussein from Egypt and Hana el-Idrissi from Morocco respectively received 29.2 and 16.65 percent of the votes. The reality TV show, hosted by Lebanon's LBCI satellite television network, is an Arabic adaptation of the French television show Star Academy. It was launched in 2003 and has become one of the most widely viewed programs all over the Arab world. Youth from all over the region participate in the contest that is broadcast to almost all Arab countries. Viewers call in or send text messages to choose their favorite candidates. After four months of tough competition, a winner is announced. The first year Mohammad Attieh from Egypt grabbed the title and was succeeded by Saudi Arabia's Hisham Abdel Rahman. Lebanese youth jubilated after one of their own was selected as this year's "star." In Attieh's northern coastal hometown of Batroun, thousands of people gathered outdoors Friday night anxiously awaiting the news on a huge screen.
When the results were finally announced, festivities spread to neighboring towns and villages where people poured into the streets and celebrated by dancing the traditional Lebanese "Dabkeh" and lighting fireworks.
Star Academy 3 began on December 23 featuring a group of 19 young men and women. Their number declined as each participant was voted out on every prime show aired Friday evening. Beirut, Updated 08 Apr 06, 08:50

Assad won't see Siniora but Bush will!
Friday, 7 April, 2006
Beirut & Washington, DC - US President George W. Bush has invited Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to visit Washington in a show of U.S. support to the fledgling Lebanese government that is seeking to liberate itself from Syrian influence and implement a challenging economic reform program. An-Nahar newspaper reported from Washington Friday that Bush is scheduled to hold talks with Siniora on April 18 at the White House, to reaffirm that his administration still considers Lebanon one of the top priorities in the region. It quoted sources as saying that the U.S. president will assure the premier that "Lebanon is still one of the main concerns for the United States in the Middle East."
The sources said Bush will emphasize his country's "strong support for Lebanon in its path towards complete liberation from Syrian hegemony and its remnants." The talks will also include helping Lebanon implement its economic reform plan as well as U.S. military aid to the country. During his visit, the premier is also scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley in addition to other U.S. officials, An Nahar said.
Al Mustaqbal newspaper quoted sources in Siniora 's office as saying that the premier will also travel to New York where he will hold talks with representatives of countries that are expected to take part in a donor conference for Lebanon.
Siniora's U.S. visit comes as Lebanon's top rival leaders are discussing divisive political issues that have catapulted the country into a crisis. The talks that started on March 2, have achieved breakthroughs on some issues but have made little progress on the fate of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud that the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority is seeking to remove from power.
The participants have set April 28 as the deadline to continue discussions on this issue. The talks will then tackle the weapons of the resistance or Hezbollah, a major concern for the United States. Washington, that considers the group a "terrorist organization" has been adamant on seeing the full implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 that calls for the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon and free and fair presidential elections.
An Nahar's sources said the Bush administration believes the time is ripe for Siniora's visit to the U.S. to discuss the situation in Lebanon in light of regional developments. The sources said that Rice's recent statement on Hezbollah 's relationship with Iran and Syria and the role that the two regional powers are playing in the country, is an indication that the situation in Lebanon is now a major U.S. concern.
Rice has said that the Party of God's ties with Tehran and Damascus "are the biggest problem that the Lebanese are facing at this time." She expressed concern about the two counties' intervention in Lebanon. Syria, the major power broker in Lebanon for decades, pulled its forces out of the country a year ago under international pressure and after mass protests that followed ex-premier Rafik Hariri 's assassination in Feb. 2005. In spite of the withdrawal, Damascus is still accused of interfering in the country through its allies, mainly Hezbollah. Arms shipments to the group are reported to come through the border with Syria.
Lebanon is attempting to demarcate its frontier and establish diplomatic relations with its neighbor, but it has so far been met with stiff resistance. Iran, Hezbollah 's main financial backer, is allegedly trying to fill the vacuum in Lebanon left by Syria, with whom it has forged a strategic alliance. In a separate development Syria’s president Bashar el Assad has turned down Siniora ’s offer to visit Damascus and meet with him to discuss future relationships.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al Moualem yesterday poured cold water on calls by Lebanese political leaders to establish diplomatic relations with Damascus, saying such moves were premature. Communication and trade channels are already developed enough to make opening embassies unnecessary, although Damascus does not rule out setting up diplomatic missions at some time in the future, Moualem said. "It's premature. What Syria and Lebanon have is far more important than embassies - bilateral agreements are much more advanced than diplomatic relations," Moualem said in his first interview since becoming foreign minister in February.
"The idea can be studied if we find it will improve relations. The existing institutions are much more important than two traditional embassies," said Moualem, a former ambassador to the United States. Lebanon's political leaders have entrusted Prime Minister Fouad Siniora with seeking diplomatic ties with Damascus but no formal request has been made yet to Syria's government. Anti-Syrian factions consider Syria's refusal to establish embassies a sign of its unwillingness to open a new chapter in relations following the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon last year.
Syria and Lebanon, which share a 250km border, have not had embassies on each other's territory since Western powers carved the two states out of the remnants of the Ottoman empire in 1920. The Higher Syrian-Lebanese Council, based in Damascus and headed by a Lebanese, oversees bilateral ties. Damascus, however, has dominated ties since Syrian forces entered Lebanon in 1976 during the Lebanese civil war. Relations between the two countries deteriorated last year after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al Hariri. A UN investigation implicated Syrian security officials in the assassination. Syria has denied involvement.
Under international pressure, Damascus pulled its troops out of Lebanon a few months after the Hariri killing, which threw Lebanon into a political crisis. Lebanese leaders have been meeting since last month to stabilize the political system. They have so far failed to solve the most critical issues, which are:
1- Resignation of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud
2- Disarming of Hezbollah, a Shi'ite group with links to Tehran and Damascus.
Moualem said Syria wants the meetings to succeed. "The stability of Lebanon is important to Syria and vice versa. The situation is getting complicated in Lebanon because of foreign interference which prevents (us) reaching a national consensus," Moualem said, referring to the US.
Washington, which considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization, has been putting pressure on Syria to abandon its support for the group.  Moualem dismissed suggestions that Syria might accept ending its backing for Hezbollah in return for the United States reducing pressure over the Hariri killing.
"Syria is not ready to enter into any deal that could hide the truth and at the expense of just causes," Moualem said.
"President Bashar el Assad has said many times Syria is innocent of this crime and that we have been harmed the most from it," he said. Many political analysts in Lebanon also think it is not time to mend relations with the current Syrian regime as long as it remains a prime suspect in the murder of former premier Rafik al-Hariri. These analysts have called on the Arab countries that are pushing for reconciliation to concentrate instead on getting Syria to cooperate with the UN investigation team that is charged with finding out the killers of Hariri. Sources: Ya Libnan, Naharnet

'Iran's Front Line'? Font Size
By Nicholas Blanford : BIO| 07 Apr 2006
South Lebanon is a long way from Iran, but if the United States or Israel decides to mount an attack against Iran's nascent nuclear industry, part of Tehran's retaliation may well come along this volatile 70-mile frontier.
From the chalk cliffs of Ras Naqoura on the Mediterranean coast in the west to the soaring snow-streaked limestone peaks of the Mount Hermon foothills in the east, the battle-hardened fighters of Lebanon's Hizbullah organization face off against the Israeli army, separated only by an electrified fence.
The Israeli army recently has been on high alert along the border in expectation of a possible Hizbullah attack. On Wednesday, Israel's Northern Command concluded a three-day exercise along the border to test "operational readiness" to face "possible threats in the Golan and terrorist acts that Hizbullah may stage from Lebanon".
Hizbullah has been busy along the border too, bolstering its series of observation posts and bunkers spanning the frontier.
"There has been a lot of construction activity recently. They are reinforcing and expanding their positions all along the Blue Line," says a United Nations peacekeeper in south Lebanon referring to the UN's name for the boundary corresponding to the Lebanon-Israel border.
The uncomfortable proximity in which these bitter foes find themselves is best illustrated on this wind-swept hill-top 2,400 feet above the plain of northern Galilee, a patchwork quilt of well-irrigated fields, marshes, woods and meadows stretching eastward to the distant Golan Heights. Nestled against the Israeli side of the fence is a massive concrete structure, like a beached battleship, bristling with antennae, cameras and rotating radar dishes -- the observation slits draped in camouflage netting. Yards away on the Lebanese side is Hizbullah's bunker consisting of two medieval-looking circular metal look-out turrets, salvaged from abandoned Israeli military positions in south Lebanon, which Hizbullah has had fitted with thick mirrored bullet-proof glass windows. The turrets are surrounded by ramparts of bulldozed earth reinforced with concrete blocks and smothered in the ubiquitous camouflage netting. Closer to the fence, Hizbullah has erected two poles some 20 feet high carrying surveillance cameras pointed at the Israeli position and the approach road. Directly facing the Israeli compound is a billboard displaying gruesome pictures of dead and dying Israeli soldiers, victims of confrontations with Hizbullah in the 1990s when Israel occupied south Lebanon. "Sharon! Your soldiers are still in Lebanon," reads a message in Hebrew and Arabic.
Hizbullah mans some 25 to 30 observation posts along the border, not all of them as well-entrenched as the example on Sheikh Abbad hill, and conducts regular patrols of the frontier fence by vehicle and foot.
The border has remained tense although generally calm since Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in May 2000, ending a 22-year occupation. Since then, fighting between Hizbullah and the Israeli army has been confined mainly to the Shebaa Farms, a remote unpopulated 12-square mile mountainside located along Lebanon's southeastern border with the Golan Heights.
The last serious flare-up along the border was in November when Hizbullah attempted to abduct Israeli soldiers from the Israeli-occupied village of Ghajar lying at the foot of the Shebaa Farms hills. The coordinated assault by several Hizbullah squads was foiled, however, and four of the attackers were killed. The fighting lasted nine hours and over 800 tank shells, mortar rounds and Katyusha rockets were traded by both sides. An Israeli jet bombed a small road bridge crossing the Hasbani river 1.5 miles north of Ghajar.
Four months later, the bridge has yet to be repaired. Instead, the sparse traffic in this rural corner of Lebanon is forced to detour from the road down a rutted dirt track and across a temporary earth and concrete bridge. On the eastern bank of the river, cut into the rich chocolate-colored soil is a track that hugs the meandering river southward to the northern tip of Ghajar. Hizbullah built the access track to allow fighters and supplies to reach its base in Ghajar without being spotted by the Israeli position on the village's eastern outskirts and other outposts that dot the Shebaa Farms mountain peaks 3,000 feet above the grassy plain to the east.
Ghajar is a curiosity along Lebanon's southern frontier, the only place where you can find a Syrian with Israeli citizenship living on Lebanese soil. The southern two-thirds of the village lie in Israeli-occupied Syria and the remaining third is in Lebanese territory, an anomaly caused by the northward expansion of the small village when Israel occupied south Lebanon from 1978 to 2000. When the UN delineated the Blue Line in the spring of 2000 prior to the Israeli withdrawal, it discovered that the border now cut through Ghajar rather than skirting the northern edge as it once had done.
The Israeli army was deeply unhappy at leaving the northern "Lebanese" third unfenced from the southern two-thirds, describing Ghajar as "Israel's soft underbelly" -- and with good reason too. Hizbullah soon deployed into the northern part of the village, setting up a command post in an old bomb shelter. Unlike most of the disheveled and poor villages in this corner of Lebanon, Ghajar consists of neat houses, many painted in pastel shades, lining streets smothered in bougainvillea. Ghajar owes much of its wealth to drug smuggling, having been for years a major conduit for Lebanese hashish and heroin into Israel. After 2000, Hizbullah co-opted the existing drug smuggling connections, allowing the trafficking to continue in exchange for intelligence on Israeli military and civilian sites in northern Israel.
On Monday, the British Daily Telegraph quoted an Israeli army officer as saying that through Hizbullah Iran has established a "network of control towers and monitoring stations" along the Lebanon-Israel border.
"This is now Iran's front line with Israel," The Telegraph quoted an Israeli officer as saying. "The Iranians are using Hizbullah to spy on us so that they can collect information for future attacks. And there is very little we can do about it."
The article vastly over-exaggerates the reality along the Blue Line. One of the "control towers" cited in the piece is the four-foot high metal turret surmounting Hizbullah's bunker on Sheikh Abbad hill described above, actually of Israeli origin, not Iranian, having been abandoned in south Lebanon by retreating Israeli troops in May 2000. Indeed, the recent reinforcing of Hizbullah's border posts has little military value. The fighters tend to vacate their posts an hour or two prior to their comrades mounting an operation in the Shebaa Farms knowing full well that Israel will take advantage of Hizbullah's attack to destroy as many border positions as it can. Furthermore, Hizbullah's jerry-built surveillance camera platforms and routine patrols along the Blue Line pale into insignificance compared to Israel's sophisticated integrated intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance border security system known as "Solid Mirror" which grants the Israeli military an operational strategic depth of about 5 miles into Lebanese territory. That's not to mention the near daily aerial reconnaissance patrols flown by Israeli jets and drones in Lebanese airspace, which the UN routinely condemns and Hizbullah seizes upon to justify retaining its military wing to defend against Israeli "aggression."
Still, the media rhetoric and well-publicized states of alert and military exercises along Israel's northern border feed into the expectation that the frontier will become a theater of conflict should the cold war between the West and Iran suddenly become hot. It is in this context that much attention is paid to Hizbullah's arsenal of long-range rockets which could be deployed against targets in Israel as part of an Iranian-backed retaliation to a US or Israeli attack.
Hizbullah typically remains tight-lipped on its weapons inventory, although it is certain that the organization has amassed a considerable number of long-range rockets, including the 240mm Fajr 3 with a 26 mile range, its big brother the 333mm Fajr 5 with a 43 mile range and 220mm Katyusha-style rockets. This arsenal brings much of northern Israel within range, including the coastal port of Haifa and its industrial suburbs.
Although Hizbullah possesses an enormous quantity of more conventional weapons such as mortars, anti-tank missiles and Improvised Explosive Devices, it's the rocket arsenal that gives the organization strategic leverage and is Israel's principle concern. At present, Hizbullah is under intense international and domestic pressure to disarm in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1559 of September 2004. Hizbullah refuses, arguing that its weapons are a necessary component of Lebanon's defense strategy, a somewhat disingenuous argument, but one that resonates with the Shia community, Lebanon's largest sect.
The principal purpose of the long-range rocket arsenal is to deter Israel from retaliating disproportionately to Hizbullah's periodic attacks in the Shebaa Farms. If Israel was to target Lebanese infrastructure in response to mortar attacks against Israel positions in the Farms, Hizbullah would unleash its rockets against northern Israel. That "balance of terror" has helped prevent the sporadic clashes along the border from spilling out of control. But there is also no doubt that Hizbullah's rockets serve as an element of Iranian deterrence to an attack on its nuclear installations, a reality that US and/or Israeli planners have to take into account when drawing up options for a strike on Iran.
Although there seems little prospect of Hizbullah's disarmament in the near to medium term, the intense pressure on the organization and the need to preserve its grassroots support does represent a restraining factor on Hizbullah's margin of maneuver. Lebanon's Shia may support Hizbullah's anti-Israel agenda, but they would have little sympathy for the organization if it was to jeopardize Lebanese stability by attacking Israel in a knee-jerk defense of Iran's nuclear ambitions.
A decision to "open up" the Lebanon-Israel front following an attack on Iran would have to be weighed carefully against alternative Iranian reprisals, of which there would be no shortage. The danger, however, is that even if Iran and Hizbullah declined to retaliate via Lebanon, the US or Israel might launch a pre-emptive strike against Hizbullah's suspected rocket facilities in order to degrade Iran's retaliatory options simultaneous with -- or just prior to -- an attack on Iran.
Such a development would guarantee a powerful Hizbullah counter-strike into Israel -- endorsed by Lebanon's Shiites -- igniting a conflict which would have disastrous consequences for both Lebanon and Israel.
***Nicholas Blanford is a Beirut-based correspondent for British and American newspapers and has extensively covered Hizbullah for over 10 years. He is the author of "Killing Mr. Lebanon: The Assassination of Rafik Hariri and its Impact on the Middle East" to be published by I.B. Tauris in August 2006.