Wednesday, September 26, 2007

A Reconnaissance in Al Dahiyeh   [W. Thomas Smith Jr.]

BEIRUT (the Al Dekwaneh and Al Dahiyeh districts) – Like Iraq, Lebanon is a country at war . . . and a huge front in the global war on terror. Though not nearly as kinetic in terms of high-intensity combat, it is embroiled in a complex set of interrelated conflicts from key-leader assassinations and other acts of terror to intelligence collection and counterintelligence operations.

The enemy is Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and any number of other terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism with a footprint in Lebanon, all hoping to wrest control of the government from the legitimate electors of that government: the Lebanese people.

I've been observing and operating with the good guys: those working toward a free and independent Lebanon.

My covering the work of the Lebanese Army, originally slated for today, has moved to a few days from now. In the meantime, I'm in the field with a few Lebanese counterterrorism experts and operators.

UPDATE: Before posting this entry, I emailed Kathryn informing her I could not discuss any of the details of a mission I was involved in today. But I just received clearance to discuss “briefly” one of our intelligence-collection operations.

It was a basic photo-reconnaissance where we observed, listed particulars, and shot photographs of Hezbollah militiamen and the general infrastructure in the Al Dahiyeh district of southern Beirut. There, Hezbollah controls a “security square” (where no Lebanese soldiers or policemen dare enter), basically a multiple-block square of high-rises in a mixed commercial-residential sector with very high population density. We entered in a thin-skinned SUV armed with only a couple of pistols, a Canon Rebel, and a couple of notebooks.

Earlier I mentioned the Hezbollah tent city near the government district. That was something altogether different.

In the Dahiyeh district, I observed Lebanese militiamen dressed in khaki uniforms and armed with AK-47s. Buildings in Dahiyeh — particularly the Hezbollah General Assembly building destroyed by the Israeli Air Force during the 2006 war – were being rebuilt (that money is coming from somewhere). Lookouts with walkie-talkies manned street corners, as did roving patrols of young men on scooters.

No Lebanese police or other legitimate authorities were in the area: just Hezbollah fighters on the streets, and a few on rooftops.

We drove through the district taking one route, safely exited. Then regrouped and moved back in along another.

At one point we were blocked in traffic on a very narrow side street: not a comfortable position to be in — particularly without armored protection — but we continued photographing and taking notes.

In fact, I was so close to groups of armed and uniformed Hezbollah men I could have hit any one of them in the head with a softball. And, in all the traffic, they never knew I was there.

Editor’s note: Please see this note.

09/26 03:02 PMShare