Hamas Attacks, Israel Responds II

Israel kills Ibrahim Aqil, wanted in 1983 embassy, Marine bombings (usatoday.com)

"Israel killed a top Hezbollah figure who was wanted by the U.S. for his role in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy and a Marine Corps barracks that killed 300 people, the Israeli military confirmed Friday.

Hezbollah's operations commander, Ibrahim Aqil, was the subject of a $7 million State Department reward for information leading to his arrest.

The Israeli military said it had killed Aqil and as many as 10 other senior commanders of the movement's Radwan special forces unit. Nine people were reported dead and 59 were injured in the attack, Lebanese officials said."

Well done Israel. Now find Nasrallah.

 

The Lebanese Civil War started in 1975-76. Israel entered in 1982. Plenty of massacres before that (that's how civil wars work, no?), though the Palestinians stood out by fighting everyone. Sabra and Shatila, for which Israel bears the bulk of the responsibility, wasn't the only one or the worst. The War of the Camps, where the Syrians helped Shia massacre them killed at least 6,000

As for Netanyahu's role, in the late 70s he was in the private sector and from 82 to 84 he was Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington, where he did a lot of media work. Embassy spokesmen don't do or decide things. They (try to) explain whatever their government has already done.

He was then UN ambassador from 1984-88. Not sure how it was physically possible for him to have been involved in Maronites attacking Shia, massacres or not. Maybe you have specific information?

With regard to Hezbollah, it was founded somewhere between 1982 and 84-85. "Founded" doesn't mean started. Several Shia militant groups and militias had been active since 76, most of them offshoots or led by former members of the underground Dawa party that had been around since the 60s but failed to get Iranian support, partly because they wanted to retain some independence .

BTW it's Phalange not falanx [sic].

 

True about Israel's 60k displaced returning home - which will let 80k+ South Lebanese do the same - but Hezbollah and its owners can't afford the humiliation of backing off without a Gaza ceasefire, so Hamas have even less incentive to agree to a deal. It's fairly clear that Hezbollah and Tehran would rather stop, but the little relief the north brings is useful to Sinwar.

Israel, Hezbollah and Iran don't want outright war, at least not at the moment. It's costing Iran/ Hezbollah too much men and money and non Shias are boiling mad at being dragged into Iran's proxy wars. For Israel, maybe Gaza doesn't engage that many battalions and Hezbollah is thoroughly and deeply penetrated but the West Bank is on a razor's edge, the soldiers are tired, the economy is under strain and it's not clear what the operational goal of a second front could be, never mind is.

This morning I felt this had "escalate to de-escalate" - an aggressive move that doesn't start a proper war so that he'll take the (unwritten) offer - written all over it and this afternoon's bombing raids don't change that.

It's a risky strategy and a lot of wars have started this way, but I still think someone will back off. Temporarily.

 

While Ukrainian-Jewish relations have never been a terribly heart-warming story. I (like to) think I know the region very well but I've been utterly dumbfounded by two things: a) how wide and how instinctive Ukrainian sympathy is for Israel and b) how many Israelis have fought in the UAF or at least helped to train Ukrainians.

I knew that Jabotinsky was heavily influenced by Ukrainian nationalists - maybe @Moishe @yasik19 or @TyffaneeSue can correct me but IIRC he used to say "Ukrainians showed me how to be a patriot" - and his outspoken admiration for not only Shevchenko but Ukrainian literature in general had made him a lot of enemies in Russophone intellectual circles.

That running in the opposite direction was something I never had on my bingo card, let alone backwards and forwards.

 

must make for some interesting dinner table conversation in places like the WB and Beirut as they look at what’s happened in Gaza, and consider how things have worked out in past wars, with the recognition that Bibi is pedal to the floor, he has every motivation to use this window to bolster his own damaged legacy, in the eyes of his countrymen at least…I expect we will see some backing down, eventually, but not before we see some ramping up, in Lebanon.

 

Grow old waiting I'm afraid. Khamanei - "I am not a diplomat, I am a revolutionary" - is known to have said, repeatedly and in multiple situations, that hostility between the USA and Iran is not only a question of principle but also a matter policy.

In other words, of course the Islamic Republic of Iranian is in business to oppose the USA in the same way that the Quakes are in business to play football (or so they claim), but that friction with the USA is more beneficial to the regime than any scenario where both countries agree to even a cold peace.

That changed for a while after 9/11 because the mullahs hated the Taliban with a passion and they were quite helpful in the aftermath of 9/11. That cooperation could have lead to a kind of detente and it's true that Bush torpedoed it almost on a whim but, like a lot of football coaches and for the same reasons, the mullahs have cultivated a siege mentality from Day 1.

That hasn't done much for Iran or Iranians, but it's kept them in power for 46 years.

 

I've already read it

 

Well, well well.

🚨🚨An Israeli official said that the entire senior command of Hezbollah's Radwan force was eliminated in the strike (around 20 commanders) https://t.co/wtUzmRShhD

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) September 20, 2024

Ravid, who served in Unit 8200, is exceptionally well-connected.

 

🚨🚨An Israeli official said that the entire senior command of Hezbollah's Radwan force was eliminated in the strike (around 20 commanders) https://t.co/wtUzmRShhD

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) September 20, 2024

Losing your Operations Chief is a heavy, heavy blow but to suffer the loss of 20 commanders in the same strike is, to use a grossly overused word, devastating.

Putting that many senior commanders in the same room is normally considered military malpractice. Even the Russian army has stopped doing it since, y'know, smoking accident and Hezbollah are nowhere near as primitive as the Russians. So why did they do it?

Try the old military adage "if you're not talking, you're just camping'. If they can't communicate by beeper or walkie talkie, they have to meet in person. Right now, Israel holds the escalation aces and military logic suggests they press their advantage

Step 1 - blow up the pagers and cripple the mid-ranking officers
Step 2 - blow up the walkie-talkies and cripple more of them
Step 3 - force the top brass to meet in person, then blow up the building.
Step 4 - watch this space​

 

37 dead and Hezbollah posts martyrdom notices for 35 of them - in uniform. That's 97% military.

You reek of white saviour syndrome

 

So for those celebrating the pager attacks....
How about the message to terrorist groups there's a way to do great damage with almost uncontrollable items?
You know...like that stux software...now in the open on the internet doing damage.
The pager operation in essence is a low grade sophistication issue, just a step up from home made explosive devices.
So how are we going to police it from becoming a wildfire?

 

The pager & radio attacks are at a scale - 1,000s injured - and level of organization - spend years hacking procurement networks - that only states or state-sponsored organizations can organize.

Ditto for Stuxnet, only Stuxnet is a virus and self-replicating.

It won't go wildfire

 

What you describe was/is a necesity for a covert large scale targeted operation.
Those don't apply to terrorists. And what makes you think there hasnot a lightbulb gone on in Theheran, like "Oh, hadnot thought about that" and they start making those kind of booby traps for terrorist operations, or even for affiliated organizations...
Just a reminder, we over here this week are in the process of putting on trial assasins, most likely hired by Iran, who were caught hothanded trying to murder a Iranian dissident, one of the many in Europe, including several failed and succeeded ones in the Netherlands.
We just handed them a tool, an effective one, to put in their operational box.

 

Distributing booby trapped outmoded technological devices on a wide scale to a terrorist organization trying to communicate under the radar seems like a very specific application that’s unlikely to be duplicated.

 

Uhm, I'm not pointing at replicating this specific operation, but at the idea you can cause serious damage with boobytrapped items.
What makes you think mobile phones can't be used in this way? Maybe that's already on the table at the idf/mossad planners.
Or tablets.

 

I don’t doubt they can, but what made this effective was the specificity of acquiring outdated technology on that scale. Smartphones are easy to get because they’re in common use, so would be more difficult to limit the target to using the source that’s boobytrapped them.

 

The pagers operated on a closed network that is run and operated by Hezbollah and for Hezbollah alone. One the mullahs were ready to reignite the Lebanese Civil war in 2008 to keep under their sole control. Civilians had zero access to it.

The pagers were delivered to Hezbollah and no-one else. They were distributed by Hezbollah and nobody else to their military arm's mid-to-high-ranking officers and key technical staff as part of their emergency comms. system.

It opens the door to a state or a state-within-a-state entity doing what you described - over a closed network.

There's been rivers of condemnation from the usual sources.

 

Uhm, terrorists don't have the need for a limiting casualties (by the way, does the idf have that urge anyway?). Cell phones and tablets have camera facilities, so in theory you can hack them/prepare them to see if you got your target in striking distance.

 

A good idea because that would be a really stupid argument.

1) welcome to the world, booby-trapped items have been causing serious damage for millenia
2) the pagers were sabotaged, not booby-trapped.

As the term (booby: fool, naif, inexperienced) implies, a booby-trapped item is an ordinary item that's been modified - sabotaged if you will - left lying around in the knowledge that a random person can access it and cause it to explode, at random. The pagers were

a) communications devices connected to a closed-circuit network
b) used only by paramilitary - and drug-running - organization
c) designated as part of its emergency communications system
c) distributed by that organization alone
d) to mid-ranking officers and key technical staff ​

A touch over-precise for a booby-trap don't you think

 

Because each individual target would have to be identified, his location(s) staked out until a suitable time (and location) is found, his personal mobile phone, laptop or tablet (possibly all 3) accessed individually to install a modified battery identical to a genuine one, then update the firmware on-site and the agents - it couldn't be done by one man - leave without being detected.

Do that times 100, never mind 1,000, and you've got an operation that's begging to be exposed.

Do that once or twice and you're doing nothing new.

 

From the Economist's Gregg Calstrom

Seems like an incredible operational-security screw-up to leave the hospital, after an attack you know Israel will treat as an intelligence bonanza, and head straight to a meeting of military commanders https://t.co/IVgW6GsLXV

— Gregg Carlstrom (@glcarlstrom) September 20, 2024

 

The IDF's widespread airstrikes in Lebanon this evening come after the military identified Hezbollah preparations to launch major rocket attacks.

The strikes are targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and other sites. https://t.co/S4JSNFmFi0 pic.twitter.com/GToN9hy9HF

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) September 21, 2024

Around 180 sites have been hit, destroying unspecified "thousands" of rockets and missiles. The attacks come on the back of an IDF assessment that Hezbollah is planning a major attack over the coming 24 hours. Home front command guidelines are widely reported to change this evening

For people struggling to identify Israel's strategy here - which is not exactly surprising - I think KCL War Studies' Alexander Clarkson has hit the nail. Over the 3 years I've been following him his strike rate on a lot of other matters has been impressive. And when I say a lot I really mean A LOT.

This [the major attack] is exactly the reaction of a Hezbollah leadership trapped in its own resistance myth that an Israeli leadership working to rip it apart hopes to get
Hezbollah searching for some form of retaliation against Israel to wipe away a sense of building defeat and humiliation among Hezbollah's rank and file is the most predictable response that the Israelis will have already gamed out and planned for.
Lebanon has been blanked by Israeli ISR for months. Hezbollah will struggle to generate the surprise effects needed for successful retaliation. Any attempted rocket attacks or infiltration attempts are likely to be spotted by the Israeli Airforce and wiped out [The preparations for those rocket & missile launches certainly will.].
And perhaps provoking rushed retaliation that reveal Hezbollah's missile and fighter positions is even one of the intended effects of cumulative Israeli attacks on Hezbollah leaders and middle management in Beirut designed to humiliate the organisation and its Iranian sponsor.​