Military operation was planned, says Hizbullah

Hizbullah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah declared yesterday that Israel's military campaign in Lebanon was not a spontaneous reaction to the capture of two Israeli soldiers on June 12th.

He said the operation had been planned well in advance and that Israel had been waiting for an opportunity to initiate the operation. He said, "If we did not seize the Israeli soldiers, the same war would have been launched in coming months because it had already been planned.

"The capture of the soldiers led to early implementation . . . Israel and the US were planning to launch war on the Lebanese resistance with or without a pretext. All of the military exercises Israel carried out during the past few months were in preparation" for a campaign scheduled for September or October. He said Hizbullah was prepared for this war and surprised Israel, disrupting its offensive against Lebanon and the resistance.

Shaikh Nasrallah observed that Israel's offensive in Lebanon is part of Washington's "new Middle East" project, designed to eliminate resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine as well as the governments of Iran and Syria, which are seen as obstacles in the achievement of this project.

His statement contradicted the assertion made a few hours earlier by the deputy head of Hizbullah's politburo, Mahmoud Komati, that the movement did not anticipate Israel's all-out offensive against Lebanon in response to the capture of the two soldiers.

Mr Komati said, "The truth is - let me say this clearly - we didn't even expect [ Israel's] response. . . that [ it] would exploit this operation [ to wage] this big war against us." He said Hizbullah had calculated on "the usual, limited response", involving a commando operation against Hizbullah positions or attempts to kill or kidnap its leaders.

Analysts argue that Hizbullah should not have made such a mistake. In 1982, Israel sent its army to Beirut following the shooting of the Israeli ambassador in London by the dissident Palestinian group led by Abu Nidal, a sworn enemy of Fatah chief Yasser Arafat. The objective of that well-prepared war was the expulsion of Fatah from Lebanon.Israel was given a "green light" by the US to launch this operation in early June and Washington refused to back a ceasefire until mid-August.

Hizbullah planners should also have taken into account the anger and humiliation felt by the Israeli army in 2000 when Hizbullah compelled it to pull out of its occupation zone in southern Lebanon. According to Gerald Steinberg, an Israeli academic with close ties to the military, Israel began to prepare for this conflict soon after its withdrawal.

"Of all of Israel's wars since [ its establishment in] 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared . . . By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks . . . had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board." He said that more than a year ago, Israeli officers began briefing US and other diplomats, journalists and research institutes on the plan.