Deir ez-Zor im Osten Syriens steht kurz vor der kompletten Rückeroberung. Damit ist das letzte brauchbare Gebiet, das unter IS-Kontrolle steht sozusagen zweigeteilt. Die lib. Hezbollah wird für den Erfolg, an der sie Anteil hat, beglückwünscht. Nicht etwa von Damaskus, sondern von der irakischen Schwesterpartei Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, die unter dem Schirm der großen irakischen PMF im Irak und Syrien kämpft. Da kann man sich fragen, was Damaskus da eigentlich noch macht.
Members of the Hezbollah Brigade in Iraq, a Shiite movement supporting the Iraqi government forces in the ongoing clashes against Islamic StateIraqi Shiite Militia Thanks Hezbollah for Support in Fight Against Daesh
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/2017 ... ah-thanks/
Die lib.Hezbollah,
der Enforcer?
Iran Out to Remake Mideast With Arab Enforcer: Hezbollah
For three decades, Hezbollah maintained a singular focus as a Lebanese military group fighting Israel. It built a network of bunkers and tunnels near Lebanon’s southern border, trained thousands of committed fighters to battle Israel’s army and built up an arsenal of rockets capable of striking far across the Jewish state.
But as the Middle East has changed, with conflicts often having nothing to do with Israel flaring up around the region, Hezbollah has changed, too.
It has rapidly expanded its realm of operations. It has sent legions of fighters to Syria. It has sent trainers to Iraq. It has backed rebels in Yemen. And it has helped organize a battalion of militants from Afghanistan that can fight almost anywhere.
Iran and Hezbollah complement each other. Both are Shiite powers in a part of the world that is predominantly Sunni. For Iran, a Persian nation in a mostly Arab region, Hezbollah lends not just military prowess but also Arabic-speaking leaders and operatives who can work more easily in the Arab world. And for Hezbollah, the alliance means money for running an extensive social services network in Lebanon, with schools, hospitals and scout troops — as well as for weapons, technology and salaries for its tens of thousands of fighters.
The network Hezbollah helped build has changed conflicts across the region.
“On the front lines, there were lots of nationalities,” said Hamza Mohammed, an Iraqi militiaman who was trained by Hezbollah and fought in Aleppo. “Hezbollah was there, Afghans, Pakistanis, Iraqis – everyone was there, with Iranian participation to lead the battle.”
War Without Borders
Hezbollah has become active in so many places and against so many enemies that detractors have mocked it as “the Blackwater of Iran,” after the infamous American mercenary firm.
After joining a militia, he received military training in Iraq. His most experienced trainers were from Hezbollah.
In recent years, much of the world has focused on the Sunni jihadists who have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State. But less attention has been paid as Iran fired up its own operation, recruiting, training and deploying fighters from across the Shiite world.
At the heart of that effort, Hezbollah has taken on increasingly senior roles in ventures once reserved for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — the force that helped create Hezbollah itself.
In Iraq, Iran has redeployed militias originally formed to battle American troops to fight the Islamic State. It has also recruited Afghan refugees to fight for a militia called the Fatemiyoun Brigade. And it has organized a huge airlift of fighters to fight for Mr. Assad in Syria. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps provides the infrastructure, while commanders from Iran and Hezbollah focus on training and logistics.
Militiamen interviewed in Iraq described how they had registered at recruitment offices for Iranian-backed militias to fight the Islamic State. Some were trained in Iraq, while others went to Iran for 15 days of drills before flying to Syria to fight. More experienced fighters took advanced courses with Iranian and Hezbollah commanders in Iran or Lebanon.
Phillip Smyth, a University of Maryland researcher who studies militant groups, said more than 10,000 Iraqi fighters were in Syria during the battle for Aleppo last year, in addition to thousands from other countries.
Officers from Iran coordinated the ground forces with the Syrian military and the Russian air force while Hezbollah provided Arabic-speaking field commanders, the fighters said.
Iraqi militia leaders defended their role in Syria, saying they went to protect holy sites and fight terrorists at the request of the Syrian government.
“If anyone asks why we went to Syria, ask them what allowed the Americans to occupy countries,” said Hashim al-Musawi, a spokesman for an Iraqi militia active in Syria. “We didn’t sneak in, we entered through the door.”
Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon have surfaced on Iraq’s battlefields, too.
Strained Resources
Hezbollah has long put great resources into supporting the families of its dead fighters. It also takes care of the wounded, although they pose a different challenge, returning to their communities as reminders of war’s cost.
Supporting all those families is expensive, and there are now more on Hezbollah’s payroll than ever before. Running a war and other international operations also drives up costs at a time when the United States has targeted the group’s finances.
Hezbollah’s success has multiplied its enemies. The more it grows, the more they want to destroy it.
Israel, too, has been worried about Iran’s expansionism in Syria, through Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has more than 100,000 rockets and missiles pointed at Israel, in addition to 30,000 trained fighters and a smaller number of reservists, said Brig. Gen. Ram Yavne, the commander of the Israeli Army’s strategic division. Israel also says Hezbollah is so integrated into the Lebanese state that it may not differentiate between the two in a new war.
For now, Hezbollah appears to be avoiding escalation with Israel in order to focus elsewhere. And the party’s political clout in Lebanon has many political figures here finding ways to work with the group.
Alain Aoun, a Christian member of Parliament from the president’s party, said that Hezbollah kept its domestic and regional activities separate and that he considered it a valuable political partner.
But he said that calls for Lebanon to contain Hezbollah were unrealistic after decades of support from Iran and Syria, and that confrontation with the United States and Israel had helped it grow.
“All these countries contributed for 30 years to creating this power, so now you say, ‘Go, Lebanese, and fix this problem,’ ” Mr. Aoun said. “It is bigger than us.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/27/worl ... banon.html
Während die großen Rückeroberungskämpfe sich in Syrien zwar nicht unverzüglich, aber jetzt auf absehbare Zeit legen werden, bereitet sich Israel mit eine großen Militärübung vor.
Israel has launched its largest military exercise in almost 20 years
The Israeli military is in the midst of its largest military exercise in nearly two decades, focusing on a potential war with Hezbollah.
Held in the north of the country, the roughly two-week drill - dubbed "The Light of Grain" - comes amid rising tension along the Lebanese-Israeli border, where Hezbollah, the Lebanese political party and militia, has maintained a presence for decades.
The drill will simulate "scenarios we'll be facing in the next confrontation with Hezbollah," an Israeli defense source told Agence France-Presse.
Tens of thousands of soldiers from multiple branches of the Israeli Defense Forces - including the air force, navy, ground units, intelligence and cyber command - are set to participate.
On Thursday, senior Hezbollah leader Sheikh Mohammad Yazbek, the head of Hezbollah's governing Sharia Council, dismissed the operation. "The maneuvers that [Israel] is conducting on the border are part of coercions after the triumphs that [Hezbollah] has made against terrorism," he said, according to The Daily Star.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns- ... story.html
Dabei werden auch Angehörige der IDF getestet, ob sie in Fallen der social networks geraten. Durch Informationsgewinnung über soziale Medien, im Kontakt zu Israelis, kann man sehr viel Informationen über die Gesamtlage erhalten. Im Libanonkrieg 2006 konnte die elektronische Aufklärung der Hezbollah sehr viel Informationen z.B. über Truppenbewegungen der IDF sammeln, da die Angehörigen z.B. durch ihre mobile telephones verfolgt wurden bzw. über diese Informationen an Familienmitglieder weitergaben, wo sie gerade sind, wie es ihnen geht, was gerade gar nicht klappt und warum, wann sie wohin kommen usw.. Die Hezbollah, aber auch die Hamas nutzen Online-Kontakte zu Israelis, für den Informationsgewinn. Die IDF-Angehörigen werden getestet, ob sie sich leichtsinnig sind.
Secret services
Hezbollah's secret services have been described as "one of the best in the world", and have even infiltrated the Israeli army. Hezbollah's secret services collaborate with the Lebanese intelligence agencies.[133]
Hezbollah's counterintelligence apparatus also uses electronic surveillance and intercept technologies. By 2011, Hezbollah counterintelligence began to use software to analyze cellphone data and detect espionage; suspicious callers were then subjected to conventional surveillance. In the mid-1990s, Hezbollah was able to "download unencrypted video feeds from Israeli drones,"[177]:777 and Israeli SIGINT efforts intensified after the 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon. With possible help from Iran and the Russian FSB, Hezbollah augmented its electronic counterintelligence capabilities, and succeeded by 2008 in detecting Israeli bugs near Mount Sannine and in the organization's fiber optic network.[177]:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah#Secret_services