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Israel's Wealth of Intelligence Shapes Air, Ground Campaign
[Boston Globe] Matthew Kalman - Israel is using intelligence developed over months and years, as well as new information gathered each day by commandos inside Lebanon, in its nine-day-old air and ground campaign to destroy Hizballah's military capability, Israeli officials say. Thursday's clashes occurred near a site identified using satellite photographs as a Hizballah bunker, but only from the ground was Israel able to discover that it served as the entrance to a previously unknown underground network of caves and bunkers stuffed with missiles aimed at northern Israel. More than a year ago, a senior Israeli Army officer began giving presentations setting out the outlines of the current operation in detail, describing a three-week campaign. The first week would concentrate on destroying Hizballah's heavier long-range missiles, its command and control centers, and disrupting transportation and communication arteries. In the second week, the focus would shift to attacks on individual sites of rocket launchers or weapons stores. In the third week, ground forces would be introduced to knock out targets discovered during reconnaissance missions. There was no scenario to reoccupy southern Lebanon on a long-term basis.