"Although the army had conquered the town, Hezbollah men were hiding in underground bunkers well camouflaged from the outside. The bunkers had been stocked with large quantities of food, enough to last for weeks, and ammunition, including antitank missiles and, in several cases, short-range rockets.
The bunkers are connected to electricity and, according to one report, are air conditioned. When the fighting dies down, Hezbollah fighters emerge from the bunkers and set up ambushes for IDF soldiers and armored vehicles.
That is why soldiers are hit repeatedly in the same places.
On several occasions, there have been difficulties evacuating wounded soldiers under fire. At times, Hezbollah fighters have fired rockets at Israel from areas close to the border that the IDF had supposedly conquered already. The means available to flush the guerrillas out of their underground shelters are not always employed." Ze'ev Schiff in Ha'aretz
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These fellows have had a lot of help from someone. One does not learn how to organize and plan a deliberate defense like this from reading a few books. They may have learned a good deal by reading about construction of such positions but the "art" of integrating all this into a coherent whole probably required outside help. I would "vote" for the Iranians as "helpers."
It is to be expected that there may be further fortified belts to the north of this one. "Belts" may not be an exact dexcription. What I mean is a defense distributed in depth over a considerable distance. It has usually been the case that command of a defense like this is facilitated by organizing the command structure into zones of some kind.
It begins to sound like an historic battle in the making. The intention seems to have been clear. It was to lure the Israelis into an attritional battle.
Pat Lang
