Hezbollah's Intelligence WarAssessment of the Second Lebanon War By Col. David EshelUntil the fateful date of July 12, 2006, when the Hezbollah triggered the Second Lebanon War, Israel was accounted an important world power in the development of electronic warfare systems – so much so that a symbiotic relationship evolved for the research and development of many US and Israeli, combat-proven electronic warfare systems. But the first indication of something amiss on the Israeli side already showed up on day three of the Lebanon War. Israeli commanders were certain, having cast an electronic blanket over South Lebanon jamming all Hezbollah communications and telephone networks, including even mobile phones. The IDF general staff were under the illusion that they had also knocked out the communication links between Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut and his local commanders in the combat zone. But they were wrong.It took them a while to discover that with help of Iranian electronic warfare specialists, Hezbollah had chalked up a major success in, their "Harb Tammus" or the 2006 summer Lebanon War. They had prevented Israeli electronic warfare units from jamming Hezbollah’s communications networks in the battle zone of south Lebanon. In fact, these continued functioning even at the toughest fire-beaten strongholds holding out against Israeli attackst in the combat zone. However, to their surprise, after a fierce battle at Qantara just south of the Litani River, soldiers found the bodies of three Iranian intelligence officers with documents of identification and gear that indicated them as operators of local networks for jamming Israeli radar and communications. Israeli forces searching through the bunkers they cleaned out in South Lebanon were amazed to discover that many contained subterranean state- of the- art communications rooms fitted out with advanced instruments with Iranian encoding equipment.Brigadier-General Gal Hirsch, the commander of the IDF's 91 Division, told the press, on 25 July that his troops found rooms full of Iranian-made equipment during the battle for Bint Jbeil (an especially tough Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon), which included eavesdropping devices, computers and modern communications equipment, up-to-date and detailed military maps of Israeli strategic targets, and even lists of telephone numbers inside Israel. Israel’s electronic warfare experts, examining the sites, were surprised by the quality of the equipment they found, the network being, among others, connected by optical fibers which are not susceptible to electronic jamming.The Iranian electronic engineers’ success proved such that, on Wednesday, Aug. 9, nearly four weeks into the war, Hezbollah’s communications networks were still operating at points only 500 meters from the Israeli border and in spite of repeated bomb strikes on its Al Manar television and Nour Radio studios in south Beirut, both stations remained on the air almost without interruption.American and Israeli electronic warfare experts, who visited the combat zone, have concluded that Iran had probably decided to use the Lebanon conflict as the testing ground for its military, intelligence and electronic capabilities in preparation for a future clash with the United States and Israel in a potential anti-nuclear conflict. A major element, which declassified Israeli and allied intelligence sources indicate, was concern over the method that Iranian experts managed to render their Beirut embassy totally impregnable to western most advanced electronic or sophisticated hi-tech penetration. Unconfirmed reports even mentioned a war room in an underground bunker under the embassy, having been placed at Hassan Nasrallah and his staff's disposal, after Hezbollah's own bunker communications were destroyed by Israeli bombing of Hezbollah's Beirut Dahiyah district. Although Israeli and American intelligence tried to dismiss Hezbollah officers presence in the embassy, there were several reports that placed Nasrallah and his high command in the Iranian embassy for some time during the war.But not only with electronic warfare did Hezbollah gain considerable success in penetrating Israeli territorial space. While Iran has assisted Hezbollah by providing advanced intelligence-gathering technology such as reconnaissance drones and sophisticated electronic eavesdropping equipment, Hezbollah HUMINT activities inside Israel managed to recruit valuable information rendering agents. One outstanding example, over such recruitment was the network operated around Omar el-Heib, a Bedouin who served as a lieutenant-colonel in the IDF and was sentenced to 15 years in prison on espionage charges last June. Using Lebanese drug dealers, Hezbollah transferred dozens of kilograms of narcotics to Heib's network, which was tasked with gathering intelligence on IDF positions and smuggling these across the border, in exchange. Israeli analysts pointed out, that the accurate Hezbollah rocket attacks on IDF military installations, such as the air force monitoring station on Mount Meron, which was attacked at the outset of the war, must have been made possible through local intelligence reports delivered by HUMINT agents.As for preventative intelligence, against Israeli intelligence penetration onto their own network, Hezbollah had created a special counter intelligence department tasked with enforcing organisational security. This included also an excellent internal signals security apparatus, ensuring that members rarely used communications technology that can be monitored by Israel. It is even rumoured that Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah himself, has not used a telephone since he became the group's leader in 1992!Operational units are also said to have been frequently restructured in recent years, in preparation of the war, enhancing strict compartmentalisation of the various elements in the organisation and thus minimise the risk of infiltration. Finally, Hezbollah's use of Iranian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) has been the most publicised aspect of this intelligence-gathering effort, which may not have been implemented to its fullest effect, through Israeli counter measures during the war, but had substantial public relations result, in raising Israeli concern over these intrusions into its airspace.Israeli Intelligence Dilemmas in LebanonAssessment of the Second Lebanon War By Col. David EshelIn the years since Israel ended its military occupation of southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel's intelligence community watched warily as Hezbollah built up its military presence in the region. When Hezbollah militants kidnapped two Israeli soldiers on July 12, 2006, the Israeli military was ready to react almost instantly, based on years of extensive intelligence gathering. "Of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared," said Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University. "In a sense, the preparation began in May 2000, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal, when it became clear the international community was not going to prevent Hezbollah from stockpiling missiles and attacking Israel".A perusal of thick and detailed secret dossiers might show how deeply Israeli intelligence was able to penetrate certain levels of Hezbollah's alignments, but also how limited in importance this was in the decisive test of utilizing the secrets. "Hezbollah's Combat Concept" dated January 2006 is a highly restricted 130-page booklet, crammed with data on bunkers and Katyusha rockets and other military installations. Its author is a lieutenant colonel in Military Intelligence (MI), personal aide to MI director and formerly head of the Lebanon section in the intelligence department of Northern Command. The problem was, as is unfortunately so often with top secret documents, in hierarchical organizations, that while all this wealth was readily available, its contents were regarded so restricted, that only a select few were allowed to feast their eyes on its contents. The inevitable result was, as ridiculously as it may sound, that even the commander of 91st Division, which was in charge of the Lebanese border, was not party to such life-saving information before the war started on July 12!The problem of intelligence gathering capabilities intensified further with the outbreak of war. As is usual in combat situations, the intelligence that is available to the troops before the war, a great deal of which has been built up meticulously over years, goes up in smoke as soon as the troops go into action. The bank of targets that has been prepared diminishes after the first wave of attacks. There is a tactical intelligence difficulty in pinpointing new targets during the fighting, until the forward combat elements actually make contact with the enemy. The conduct of the battle, from there on, depends on tactical intelligence, mostly real-time in nature, as targets come into focus by the advancing troops, in modern warfare, through tactical intelligence elements, such as TUAV, electro-optical observation etc.Moreover, it is especially difficult to run human agents to provide actual information: Communications with them, even if they are equipped with state-of-the-art devices, usually break down because of a lack of physical contact. This became evident when the ground war started along the border region. Although Israeli intelligence had operated Lebanese human intelligence (HUMINT) agents for years, since the "Security Zone" era, some of which remained active, long after the IDF withdrew in May2000. During the IDF's 18-year presence in Lebanon, the members of the IDF HUMINT unit were especially active across Israel's northern border. To this day the Lebanese press occasionally runs stories about the arrest and trial of local agents who operated in the service of this unit. In November 1998, a Lebanese court convicted no fewer than 57 citizens of collaborating with Israel intelligence. But many of the surviving agents were forced to leave their homes in South Lebanon when the IDF distributed Psychop leaflets calling to evacuate their villages before these came under fire. Lack of HUMINT became critical when the fighting intensified and Hezbollah fighters mingled with the population in the villages, but were difficult to identify from non combatants.Mossad can certainly high marks for much of the high precision intelligence, which enabled the air attacks to pinpoint Hezbollah medium rocket sites and neutralize most of them during the 48 hours, which saved most of Israel's major towns from these larger rockets. Air force intelligence also performed in clock-work fashion, identifying Hezbollah rocket launchers seconds after firing, which were then destroyed by immediate air attack through "cab-rank" cruising air assets, in the suspected environment. The unique rapid reaction "sensor-to-shooter kill-chain" tactics, similar to performance in the Gaza Strip, paid off handsomely in Lebanon 2006.IDF Military Intelligence gathering units ( HUMINT) and signal intelligence( SIGINT) were tasked with obtaining vital intelligence on Hezbollah forward deployments in South Lebanon and their work was in high demand by forward troops, during the initial stages of the war. But all this was not sufficient: For example, one place was indeed identified, using satellite photographs, as a Hezbollah bunker, however only from the ground at short range before contact, were special forces able to discover that it served as the entrance to a previously unknown extensive underground network of caves and bunkers stuffed with missiles. On the other hand, precise intelligence allowed IDF special forces to raid Hezbollah strongpoints deep inside Lebanese territory. The successful commando raids into the Beka'a Valley and Tyre, depended on real-time intelligence. In fact, the surprise raid into Baalbek, the most ambitious air and ground operation of the current conflict, had been conducted, based on excellent intelligence, demonstrating that Israeli forces could strike anywhereA major element in the Second Lebanon War was Hezbollah's professional employment of advanced anti-tank missiles. The very presence of such weapons was no surprise to IDF intelligence. In fact, according to declassified reports, one of these was actually captured ( or obtained) and examined by experts long before the war started. What remained obscure, was the massive deployment and tactical method used by Hezbollah with these weapons, which became a dominant star player during all ground engagements. According to official statistics, anti-tank missiles hit 46 tanks and 14 other armored vehicles. However, fortunately, due to enhanced protection, in all these attacks the Merkava tanks actually sustained only 15 armour penetrations.Senior Armored Corps officers claimed in media interviews during the war, that the defense establishment had refused to provide tanks with the Trophy, a locally developed active protection system which creates a hemispheric protected zone around armored vehicles, such as the Merkava 4 tank. The system is designed to detect and track a threat and counters it with a launched projectile that intercepts the anti-tank rocket. The reason for such costly oversight, was claimed by the authorities, in the aftermath of the war, as lack of funding due to budget cuts!In overall perspective it seems, at first sight, that Israel’s miscalculation in assessing intelligence information in Lebanon has the same cause as America’s miscalculations in Iraq: plain old grade arrogance underestimating the enemy. It is however important to understand that Mossad and the rest of Israel's intelligence apparatus are not all-knowing and all-powerful, despite their past successes, which have created an aura of great strength and invincibility around them. It is clear that Hezbollah has studied and learned more than a few lessons itself over the years. Members of its military wing, for example, are far less publicly visible and, by implication, identifiable, than members of Fatah's militia, which the IDF has been to hunt and target with a highly successful "kill chain" apparatus.The war in Lebanon may have begun with a string of intelligence failures resulting from the fact that Israel had lowered its alert level on the northern border prior to the Hezbollah raid.But not all was lost. Last July, the war wiped out most of the vast sum of $4-6 billion the Iranian treasury sunk into building Hezbollah's military strength. The organization was meant to be strong and effective enough to provide Iran with a formidable deterrent to Israel or the United States embarking on a military operation to destroy the Islamic regime’s nuclear infrastructure. Iran has now been manipulatively robbed of its primary deterrent asset ahead of a probable nuclear confrontation with the United States and Israel. Hezbollah, on Hassan Nasrallah's hasty orders, squandered thousands of rockets – either by firing them into Israel or having them destroyed by the Israeli air force. This at least, may have been worth the effort by Israel.Hezbollah anti-amour Tactics and weaponsAssessment of the Second Lebanon War By Col. David EshelRealizing the capabilities of the Merkava 4 tank, Hezbollah allocated their most advanced weaponry to combat this advanced tank, engaging these tanks exclusively with the heavier, more capable missiles such as 9M133 AT-14 Kornet, 9M131 Metis M and RPG-29.RPG-29 and 9M113 Konkurs (AT-5) were employed mostly against Merkava 3 and 2 while non-tandem weapons, such as Tow, Fagot and improved RPG 7Vs were left to engage other armored vehicles such as AIFV. The least used were AT-3 Sagger and, to a limited extent, the TOW as well as non tandem RPGs, were considered obsolete against tanks, but proved quite lethal against troops seeking cover in buildings.Overall, almost 90% of the tanks hit were by tandem warheads. In general, Hezbollah militants prioritized Merkava Mk 4 over Merkava Mk 2 and 3, and in general, targeted tanks over AIFV. At the beginning of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, the main Israeli concern was a report that Hezbollah possessed Russian Kornet antitank missiles. However, it also saw the RPG-29 Vampir with a tandem HEAT that had stolen the show. There were even rumors that Hezbollah had received the notorious TBG-29V thermobaric rounds, but these could not be confirmed in action.Hezbollah deployed their tank-killer teams in a thin but effective defensive scheme, protecting the villages where the organization's Shiite members reside; villages where their short range rockets were positioned and where command infrastructure and logistics support was set up. An estimated 500 to 600 members of their roughly 4,000-strong Hezbollah fighting strength in South Lebanon were divided into tank-killer teams of 5 or 6, each armed with 5-8 anti-tank missiles, with further supplies stored in small fortified well camouflaged bunkers and fortified basements, built to withstand Israeli air attacks.Due to mountainous area, engagements were encountered at ranges below 3000 meters. Hezbollah tank-killer teams would lay in wait in camouflaged bunkers or houses, having planted large IEDs on known approach routes. Once an Israeli tank would detonate one of these, Hezbollah would start lobbing mortar shells onto the scene to prevent rescue teams rushing forward, also firing at outflanking Merkava tanks by targeting the more vulnerable rear zone with RPGs. In general, Hezbollah demonstrated rather slow regrouping and response rate, since their mobility and command links were severely restricted by the IDF dominating the open areas. However, even this slow pace was fast enough to match the slow and indecisive movements of the Israelis forces.The night vision equipment used by Hezbollah was not as advanced as the IDF's. They possess mainly individual night vision equipment and some night observation systems, but generally lacked night capabilities for their anti-tank weapons. Benefiting from its superior night combat capability, the IDF conducted most movements at night, minimizing exposure of forces during day time.