Commandos, Rumors, and Foregone Conclusions

Stratfor yesterday:

An unconfirmed report originating inside Hezbollah indicates that the real objective of an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raid Aug. 19 near Baalbek in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley was to secure the release of the two captured Israeli soldiers. According to the report, one of the two Israeli soldiers actually managed to run away from his captors and head toward an Israeli helicopter that had landed before he was seized again by Hezbollah.

Although unconfirmed, the information does offer a plausible explanation for Hezbollah's heavily fortified presence in Baalbek and IDF's continued focus on the area. The Israeli raid, which was never intended to be leaked to the press, took place in Bodai, a town near Baalbek in northern Lebanon. In spite of the cease-fire, Israeli warplanes reportedly launched missile attacks against a Hezbollah facility near Bodai while Israeli commandos were dropped from helicopters in the area for a brief time, clashing with Hezbollah fighters, according to Hezbollah's Al Manar television.

IDF said the raid was strictly intended to prevent Hezbollah fighters from receiving arms shipments from Iran and Syria. However, it is important to note the intense IDF focus on Baalbek before the cease-fire. One of the highlights of Israel's war against Hezbollah was the Aug. 2 Baalbek raid near the Dar al-Hikmah hospital. IDF sent dozens of attack helicopters to the site and engaged in a large-scale operation in the vicinity, but only ended up capturing five low-level Hezbollah militants. There was some suspicion that senior Hezbollah figure Sheikh Mohammad Yazbek was being treated at the hospital or that the facility was a major Hezbollah command center. However, the operation's abundant resources and high level of risk did not add up -- unless IDF believed the heavily guarded location was where the Israeli captives were being held.

Israel's continued interest in Baalbek and its environs, despite the cease-fire, suggests that something of high strategic value remains in the area. Israel has a pressing need to rescue the kidnapped soldiers and thereby deprive Hezbollah of any bargaining chips and give Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert a boost at home. There is a strong likelihood that Hezbollah has moved the Israeli soldiers out of the vicinity by now, but Israel will not allow the cease-fire to prevent it from conducting raids in Lebanon to secure their release.

There's more than meets the eye here. Even if this report is not true regarding the real purpose of the raid, precise commando raids generally mean that Israel had active intelligence sources in the area, regardless of the reason for which they were utilized. Hizbullah certainly demonstrated their acknowledgement of such a phenomenon immediately after the raid, as their fighters were seen setting up check points and questioning individuals who they recognized as not from the area.

Having said that, intelligence can come from a number of types of resources - visual observation, intercepted communications, the result of interrogations, and reports from willing individuals, just to name a few. It is still highly likely that Israel retains intelligence assets inside this part of Lebanon (meaning the Bekaa Valley and environs), considering that they had them there during heat of battle and may still consider the strategic importance of the territory in the Bekaa Valley to be worth the potential risk to personnel and equipment involved in such activities as concealed observation posts and tactical signals intelligence missions. This concept of risk to personnel and equipment pertains to highly trained personnel such as commandos as well. The IDF will not risk these personnel without confirmation of intelligence from multiple sources; that is to say that an intercepted telephone call is not enough to generate a commando raid. Whatever the purpose of the mission, the raid itself probably resulted from several different intelligence sources reporting the same information. This does not automatically mean that Israel maintains many active intelligence assets in the Bekaa Valley, but it certainly increases the likelihood that they do. Put it this way: it is nearly impossible that they have none.

Some sectors of the Israeli government and military have blamed the IDF's lackluster performance against Hizbullah on a dearth of good information on how and where Hizbullah operates - on a lack of good intelligence, if you will. Israel remains in a position in which it must still consider Hizbullah to constitute an active threat to its security. Therefore, the presence and utilization of Israeli intelligence assets in Lebanon goes far beyond such short-term projects as supporting commando raids and small incursions. As I have argued in previous posts, Israel will eventually seek a second round against Hizbullah as a matter of its own security almost as certainly as Hizbullah ultimately seeks a decisive round against Israel as a matter of purpose. For that, Israel must seek strategic advantages. It is already clear that Hizbullah has taken such steps already. Both sides will seek what military strategists call intelligence prep of the battlefield; most likely we are getting fleeting glimpses of such activity now. That Lebanon itself remains and will remain a battlefield is, unfortunately, a foregone conclusion.