One more quick comment

I did transition this blog over to the new google thingy, but I'm still disappointed in the interface. In Firefox, if you highlight text to be used as a link, click on the link button, and type in your URL, it won't reset the button from its pressed state. Yeah, I know, a minor detail....

Its been awhile

Haven't posted for awhile, as you may have noticed....

(the sound of crickets chirping)

I would like to say because there was such a dearth of response to my posts here, but in reality with the pace of events and a day job, it was hard to keep up with things.

That, and there are other people far more eloquent then I writing out there.

For an example see here.

However, as the new year approaches, I will try to do better and post something. Or, at least, reference someone else who has.

For your consideration

There has been a buzz in the blogosphere and in print that Iran is going to be up to something on August 22nd. While browsing Pajamas Media I did notice that there were a few articles today that individually did not seem like much, but together attracted my attention:

Iran to launch major military maneuvers

Total Information Blackout: Iranian Police Destroying Satellite Dishes in Tehran

N. Korea Appears to Be Preparing for Nuclear Test

Interesting.

Mind Terrain

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." - Frank Herbert, Dune

The IDF airstrike on Qana, and subsequent collapse of a building that killed many civilians, illustrates the impact of ideas and perceptions in war. There is the physical terrain that a conflict takes place upon, and there is a terrain of the mind, complete with its own forbidden places. Not suprisingly many have reacted with disgust at the news of the civilian deaths, because in the west a thousand years of tradition have evolved to protect civilians against wanton acts of violence. Hezbollah, knowing this about the west, and seeking to seperate Israel from any potential ally, has been shaping the terrain since the beginning of the conflict. Despite being the initiator, they have built an impressive fortress in the minds of the western observer, founded on the perception that any Lebanese civilian casualty is a grave injustice. Any larger loss of life makes the hill it sits upon taller, and the shadow it casts trouble him more deeply. This is not a new problem, Plato in The Republic makes the analogy of the cave:

"Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets." -- Plato's Republic, Book VII.

To see the truth, the observer must have the will to turn his eyes from the shadows on the wall, and see exactly what the puppeteer is doing behind his back. Will has always been a crucial factor in the ability to make war. The side that doubts itself lacks the resolve to pursue victory, resulting either in stalemate or defeat.

After the Battle

Haaretz reports that Israel is pulling out of the city of Bint Jbail (ht: Pajamas Media):

Israel Defense Forces troops pulled out of the southern Lebanon town of Bint Jbail on Saturday afternoon ... Armored Corps soldiers were still operating around the town, and were in control of certain areas.

This seems to indicate that the IDF is withdrawing from the urban terrain of the city, but remaining perched on the hills to the east, west, and south. The Jerusalem Post reports that the bulk of the forces are redeploying to hit other villages and cities close to the border. Israel has talked about creating a shallow zone in Lebanon for security purposes, but the IDF hasn't had a substantial presence anywhere else in Lebanon. The call up of three more divisions could be to provide enough manpower to accomplish that objective.

The movements of the IDF at first glance would imply that Israel does not plan to use ground troops to deny Hezbollah missile launching sites south of the Litani river. It could also be that this was some sort of probing attack, trying to take measure of just what they were up against in terms of Hezbollah's capabilities and they are planning to go the Litani through a different route.

Any observer, however, must note that Israel has not achieved any of her objectives that she has gone to war for. The IDF has not prevented Hezbollah from launching rockets into northern Israel, nor have they recovered their captured soldiers. Israel's strategy still seems to be to engage the enemy at arms length and avoid any kind of attrition on the ground. Air power still seems to be the tool of choice in suppressing rocket fire, but it is limited in that it can only react most of the time after a launch has revealed its target. Hezbollah, never discounting the efficacy of propaganda, is crowing that, in inflicting eight casualties in a single battle, that they have hit the Achilles heel of the IDF, casualties. From MEMRI via Pajamas Media:

"In the ground war, we will have the upper hand. In the ground war, the criterion is our attrition of the enemy, rather than what territory does or does not remain in our hands, because we are not fighting with the method of a regular army. We will definitely regain any land occupied by the enemy, after inflicting great losses upon it."

Where then, are things going to go from here?

With Secretary Rice returning to the region, it would appear that a negotiated ceasefire and settlement could be in the works. It could also be that the IDF is merely planning for a much deeper penetration of Lebanese territory and has temporarily pulled back to prepare. More information should be forthcoming over the next few days.

Continued Fighting in the Bint Jubayl - Maround al-Ras Region

Haaretz gives an after action report on the fighting in Bint Jubayl from dawn to dusk today.

Looking over my post last night I notice that I had implicitly assumed that the IDF had complete control of the town, excepting a group of 100 fighters that were supposedly surrounded in one part of the city. As Bill Roggio notes at the Counter Terrorism blog:

The Israelis have confirmed that Hezbollah is fighting like a professional military. Their units are fighting at the company level at the least (Unit size of approximately 100 men), and perhaps in larger formations. Intelligence also confirms there is specialization within the Hezbollah units, including trained infantry, mortar teams, missile squads, and logistical personal. Iran has trained and organized Hezbollah's army into something far more deadly than a militia force. Hezbollah's core 'active' army is estimated at 3,000 - 5,000, with as many as 50,000 part time militia and support personnel that can be called upon to fight (20,000 is the average estimate).

An IDF infantry platoon was sent in from the hill and ridge north east of Bint Jebayl, and ran into an organized ambush that had on call supporting elements. From the Haaretz article:

The initial battle raged for about an hour. During the next three hours, other platoons entered the area in an attempt to extricate the force that was pinned down. Hezbollah forces fired antitank missiles and threw grenades at the force it had caught in its ambush, and it also used mortars to attack the supporting IDF units.

What was once assessed as a surrounded, soon to be defeated enemy, turns around and shows that it has quite a bit of fight in it yet. From the Jerusalem Post:

Dozens of Hizbullah gunmen armed with antitank missiles and machine guns and geared up in night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests set a trap for a force of Golani infantrymen led by Lt.-Col. Yaniv Asor, commander of Battalion 51.

Eight Israelis were killed, while the IDF claimed that "at least 40" Hezbollah were killed as well.


Reading the accounts of the battle almost seem to be a mixture of "Blackhawk Down" and Stalingrad. A unit gets ambushed and draws in larger and larger forces in the attempts to rescue it. Meanwhile, Bint Jubayl is viewed by one side as a trophy to be captured, and by the other as terrain that must not be yielded. It will be interesting to see if Hezbollah tries to move in more troops and try to hold the Israeli's in position, or if they will instead attempt to fight a battle of posts up the roads leading north to the Litani river. I still think the latter strategy is more likely, but then again I wouldn't have guessed that nine casualties in a single day would take the luster off the IDF in the media.

Just some thoughts.

The Next Line

Over the past 24 hours more information has been flowing from the Bint Jubayl front. According to the Jerusalem Post article, elements of the Golan Brigade, including two battalions of armor screened by airborne and infantry have seized control of Bint Jubayl. The only major concentration of enemy troops mentioned being an estimated 100 Hezbollah fighters surrounded in the town casbah. The Israelis used their advantage in firepower to push Hezbollah units out of their positions, as the supporting artillery battalion fired over 3000 shells during the battle.

Bill Roggio has posted on the Counterterrorism Blog his assessment of how the Israeli's are going to proceed after the seizure of Bint Jubayl. He senses that the Israelis may soon run out of time, and thus are going to try to carve out a small buffer zone that will be turned over to a NATO led force that will replace the UN peacekeepers in the region.

If Israel is interested in getting to the Litani river as quickly as possible, they should start moving north in force over the next 24 to 48 hours. The IDF seems to be taking the local high ground first, which allows them to dominate the villages that are often placed in the valleys. The first signs may occur around the village of Taire as the hill to the north has a commanding view over the nearby towns. The hill to the south of Braachit may also be seized in conjunction with this.

It is going to be interesting to see if the IDF attempts to raise the tempo of their operations over the next few days. If things continue in this sector at the same pace, during the next 48 to 72 hours the IDF should occupy this next line of towns.

A (theoretical) situation map

This is how I view the situation right now. Hard to say what is really going on though. The casualty reports seem to be too low for any kind of hard fighting. It is also difficult to figure out the strengths on either side. For all I know the Israelis could consist of a handfull of companies facing off against several dispersed teams of Hizbollah fighters. There has been no news of any other towns involved in the fighting either. For now it seems both Hizbollah and the Israeli's are content to fight each other at arms length.

Quick update:

According to the Jerusalem Post here, the IDF now controls Bint Jbail. Lots of interesting information about what they have found as well. I'll see if I can comment on things a little more thoroughly later.

A quick update

Unfortunately details are still very sparse, but the Jerusalem Post has a news update that says that:

IDF ground forces and Hizbullah guerrillas were engaged Monday morning in a heavy exchange of fire north of the village of Maroun al-Ras, a strongly-contested Hizbullah stronghold.

If you look at a map, north of Maroun al-Ras is the town of Bint Jubayl, which has been described as the nexus of Hezbollah's administration in the region. Strangely enough in the same article they write:

Despite sporadic gunbattles throughout the day in Maroun al-Ras - the scene of heavy fighting last week - the IDF on Sunday dispatched troops to take up positions on the outskirts of Bint Jubayl, a village east of Maroun al-Ras.

From the maps I've been looking at the city of Bint Jubayl is immediately to the north of Maroun al-Ras, not the east. It could be that the journalist happened to get Bint Jubayl confused with its neighbor, roughly 2 km to the east, Aitarun. It could also be that the source of the report was confused as to where they were, and actually on the ridge to the west of Bint Jubayl. Ultimately it is unknowable due to the paucity of information currently available. On a minor note I am uncertain of the proper name of this city. I've seen it spelt Bint Jbail as well as Bint Jbayl. In fact the article spells it two different ways.

I've noticed that the IDF seems to be taking its time here, it could be that they haven't had enough time to build up the forces they want in the immediate area. It could also be that they are scouting out wherever it is they wish to go next. Once they have control of Bint Jbail they will control a major crossroads that will allow them to go north, east, or west.

Quick Update: This would seem to fit right in with Red River's comments at the Belmont Club (second comment down):

This is intricate, set-piece fighting and Isreal is going to take it slow and careful using terrain, overmatch and firepower to grind Hezbollah down.

The Belmont Club: The Path of the IDF

The Belmont Club: The Path of the IDF

Heh, didn't expect this result.

What I was trying to do was use the 'create a link' function to show that my blog had commented on his blog. Anyway, my comments are here.

Seizing the High Ground

This started off as a post over at Wretchard's excellent blog, The Belmont Club.

If you have Google earth, take a look at these coordinates:

Yaroun: 33° 4'54.60"N 35°25'11.00"E
Maroun al-Ras: 33° 6'11.34"N 35°26'43.78"E
Hill 891: 33° 5'46.07"N 35°29'30.44"E

These three coordinates may demarcate the line of the Israeli advance into Lebanon over the last 24 hours (see links here and here (ht: Pajamas Media)). The reasons for them to do so, at least on a tactical/operational level are pretty clear. First, seize the high ground. I dug up a topographic map (via Google here) that gives the peak heights of the surrounding terrain in meters. Assuming that the map is accurate, a brief survey shows that the town of Maroun al-Ras sits on the highest terrain for kilometers around at a peak altitude of 943 meters. Hill 891 which is probably the Israeli right flank has the next highest altitude at 891 meters. Yaroun anchors the Israeli left flank, creating an arc of positions along the ridgeline. For at least several kilometers north and west of there the terrain is either valley, or with a peak altitude no greater then 825 meters. Second, according to this report (ht: Pajamas Media) the town of Bint Jabel is considered by the Israelis to be the “Hizbullah capital.” The town is sheltered in the valley north-west about 1 1/4 miles from Maroun al-Ras and now ripe for an Israeli incursion.

Quick note: I'm new to blogging, still trying to figure out this whole trackback thing. If I mess it up I apologize!

Quick note 2: mnc, in the comments section here points to a newspaper article about the Irish battallion that used to operate in this area, here (registration required).

Hezbollah's strategy

It is becoming evident that Hezbollah has been preparing for a long time for this kind of conflict. It may be that they were just being opportunistic when they seized the Israeli soldiers as hostages, but I have a feeling that Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, and Iran are orchestrating a planned operation. At any rate Hezbollah, and its allies have put a lot of forethought and planning into this. Michael Totten wrote months ago that things were very tense along the border in his article "Everything Could Explode at Any Moment," and explode they have.

After reading this Jerusalem Post article this morning, I reflected that Hezbollah has adopted a basically defensive strategy of four parts:

First keep lobbing in artillery rockets whenever possible to keep the Israeli's engaged. Its not going to do much real damage, but it will show them as striking back and fighting the enemy.

Second, keep lines of communication open to the outside media. They can be powerful allies in shaping world opinion. The more pictures of dead and mutilated civilians you can show to the world, the easier its going to be for your natural allies to voice the opinion that either Israel is being "disproportionate" or engaged in the "annihilation" of an entire people. The Israelis of course realize this which has led to some drama around the Al-Manar television tower:

Earlier in the day, the IAF bombed the building in Beirut from which the Hezbollah-run television station, Al-Manar, is broadcast.

The station went off the air for a short while after the airstrike but then resumed broadcasting about six minutes later. The station is Hizbullah's main communications link, and most of the information the world has received from the group about recent fighting has been issued by Al-Manar.

It was the fourth time in recent days that the IDF has targeted the building.

I've heard that most journalists get their information from official sources, the Al-Manar feed is probably an important source for those who are currently reporting and shaping the ongoing story in Lebanon. More importantly it is also an important source of information for the local bloggers, and is probably a large factor in how they are beginning to perceive how the conflict is unfolding.

Third, Hezbollah has developed an official presence in various parts of the country. Not only do they control the border with Israel, they also have their own the fief in the Bakaa valley in the east. Official buildings and headquarters also exist in Beirut, along with hardened installations that the Israeli's have been striking with bunker-buster bombs:

A senior IAF officer revealed to the Post on Sunday afternoon that the IDF was using bunker-buster bombs to strike at senior Hizbullah officials in hiding throughout Beirut and Lebanon. According to the officer, several of the bunker hideouts were hidden under civilian parking lots.

By integrating themselves as much as possible into the rest of Lebanese society they were trying to gain a bit of a deterrence factor against the Israelis. They probably hoped that maybe they would not strike at them in Beirut, and occupy themselves with the terrain at the border. Israel has chosen not to be deterred against Hezbollah, and thus Hezbollah has had lots of opportunities to amplify any civilian casualties that will occur.

Fourth, buried in the article was the note that:

Al-Arabiya television reported that the Syrian military was mobilizing its own reserve divisions.

Now at the time its not clear if this is just saber rattling or if the operational plan calls for an overall escalation against the Israelis by an assault on the Golan Heights (admittedly unlikely) or a return of the Syrian Army to Lebanon. It could be that this entire operation is just so that Syria and Hizbollah can drag all of Lebanon back kicking and screaming into the fold.

Rocket Artillery

Woke up this morning and of course the first thing I do is check the news to find out that Hezbollah got in another artillery rocket strike on Haifa, killing eight. (ht: Pajamas Media) Meanwhile it would seem that Israel and Hezbollah are playing a game of cat and mouse, Hezbollah trying to get rockets off at various Israeli targets while the Israeli airforce attempts to destroy the launchers in their positions (ht: Pajamas Media).

Feudal Lebanon

I've put up some links to what I feel are the best sites on the web for tracking what is going on in Lebanon. Wretchard at the Belmont Club has written several cogent articles that have spawned a long chain of commentary. Pajamas Media also has a good selection of news and commentary, while the Truth Laid Bear is tracking a wide variety of blogs from the region and elsewhere. Open Lebanon is also a good aggregate of blogs just from Lebanon.

A reflection:

It is interesting to see how the relationships between Hezbollah, the Lebanese national government, Syria, and Iran could almost be termed feudal. You could say that Hezbollah is nominally a vassal of the Lebanese national government, but in reality is a vassal to Syria and Iran. The Lebanese government had been a vassal of Syria, but has supposedly broken the relationship. Now Hezbollah has gone and triggered a war with Israel. Israel demands that Lebanon, Hezbollah's legal liege, restrain them and restore peace. Unfortunately Lebanon doesn't have the will nor capability to force Hezbollah into submission. International diplomacy also seems to be stuck on the concept of the sovereign nation-state, the language to describe other realities long atrophied from disuse.

First Post

Read blogs long enough and you itch to start your own. At least thats how I got started on this.

Don't expect this blog to be updated often.....

Topics will probably be very random.....

Now lets figure out the rest of this blogger thing.