Austin Bay Blog

It appears south Lebanon is riddled with bunkers and ambush positions. Hezbollah has prepared the battlefield.

The Washington Post lede (from Reuters):

Elite Israeli forces are finding Hizbollah guerrillas entrenched just inside southern Lebanon a tough adversary as they try to clear them from the hilly frontier and cut rocket attacks on the Jewish state.

Hizbollah killed four Israeli soldiers in fierce clashes in the southern Lebanese village of Maroun al-Ras on Thursday, Al Jazeera television said. The army has said there were eight casualties, but has not been more specific.

The army said the firefight took place not far from where Hizbollah killed two soldiers and wounded nine on Wednesday.

As part of Israel’s overall offensive against Hizbollah, small groups of elite troops have been carrying out small-scale attacks to try to destroy guerrilla positions and bunkers inside the Lebanese border.

One Israeli political source said the casualties would concern the army but were unlikely to dent its determination to dislodge guerrillas deployed in underground bunkers and trenches along a rocky and scrub-filled terrain.

The article also describes the ambush of an Israeli unit. 

This is another example of my first company commander’s favorite military cliche–favorite because it was so completely true: “Recon is worth its weight in gold.” (Recon is worth more than mere gold– gold is useless if you’re dead.)  My old CO was talking about tactical (immediate battlefield) recon. Intelligence is vital at all levels– tactical, operaitonal, strategic. 9/11 was a strategic and operational intel failure. However, tactical intelligence– knowing what is behind the ridge or in the building down the street — directly affects the tanker and the grunt. Quality tactical information can often take time to obtain, particularly when your enemy has had time to dig-in, rig obstacles, prepare ammo caches, and camouflage positions. UAVs are angels with eyes, but getting the complete tactical intel picture still requires patrols and cautious, careful probing by ground forces. Israeli artillery and MLRS (multiple launch rocket system) bombardment, and fixed-wing and helicopter air strikes is damaging and destroying Hezbollah’s defensive positions– but that also takes time.

UPDATE: A reader comments via email:

When I was one of the engineer staff pukes for III Corps my boss got to sit in on a brief my the commander of Israeli forces in the 1980s invasion of Lebanon at the Engineer School.  This commander said, “If it weren’t for my combat engineers I couldn’t have gone any where.”  

The lowly sapper and operator of the D-7 dozer can do a heck of a lot to over come all the hard work of Hezhollah.  The IDF fully comprehends what “combined arms” means, they take far beyond the common US attitude of integrating arty fires into armor/infantry ops.  Well they did in the past, time will tell if they still recall that lesson. 

Stay tuned.