[Washington Times] James G. Zumwalt - Hizballah embarked on the wide-scale conversion of private homes in southern Lebanon into mini-military sites from where it could easily target Israel's civilian population. When war erupted in southern Lebanon, designated leaders of Hizballah combat teams received envelopes, each containing an address of one of the modified homes. The team quickly deployed to its assigned location, immediately breaking through an exterior wall of the sealed room. Each envelope contained aiming and firing instructions for the object prepositioned inside the room before it was sealed - a surface-to-surface missile atop a launcher. After removing part of the room's roof to allow for unobstructed flight and on command, the team was to fire the missile, raining death and destruction down upon Israel's civilian population. Hizballah had designed a tactical plan calculated to maximize civilian casualties on both sides of the battlefield - by design on the Israeli side in targeting its major population centers and by consequence on the Lebanese side as Israel responded. Sadly, from Hizballah's perspective, these civilian casualties were but dispensable pawns in its chess match with Israel.
2006-10-26 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive