Not Quite Counterinsurgency: A Cautionary Tale for US Forces Based on Israel’s Operation Change of Direction
On 12 July 2006, Hezbollah fighters, possibly led or directed by Imad Mughniyeh, once the world’s most wanted terrorist, began a diversionary rocket attack on military targets in Northern Israel before launching a lightning attack across the border against Israeli soldiers in armored HMMWVs. The attack resulted in killing three soldiers, wounding two others, and capturing two prisoners. Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) dispatched a quick-reaction force, led by one of the world’s most advanced tanks, the Merkava. Hezbollah militants, armed with a proficiency they would demonstrate throughout the war, ambushed the quick-reaction force, blowing up the lead tank with a several-hundred pound pitcharge-type improvised explosive device (IED). All four crew members in the tank were killed instantly (the tank reportedly was blown more than 10 feet into the air). One soldier was killed by Hezbollah sniper fire as an armored force with infantry support attempted to extricate the quick-reaction force.1
These were the opening volleys in a month-long war in which Hezbollah demonstrated that the spectrum of warfare for which regular forces must be prepared is larger than the two poles of counterinsurgency and maneuver warfare. It is vital that we not regard Hezbollah’s 30-day performance as a fluke unlikely to be encountered by the U.S. military. Indeed, while elements of the war are unique to the Israel-Lebanon conflict, such as Hezbollah’s positioning on a border adjacent to Israel and its capability to terrorize the Israeli population with rockets and missiles, at the tactical and operational levels, other enemies of the United States can learn much from the Hezbollah experience. The fact of the matter is that Hezbollah leaders, an avowed if not active enemy of the United States, who likely have agents working in our country, believe they have arrived on an exportable model of Islamist insurgency, and other terrorist organizations are already openly seeking to gain lessons learned from the conflict.2 Given that there are real limitations on garnering a full understanding of what happened in Lebanon so soon after the 14 August 2006 ceasefire, this article, using interviews with a number of key observers and opensource reporting on the war, seeks to explain the possible lessons and implications for the mounted maneuver warrior of what Israel came to call “Operation Change of Direction.”
A New Model
Six years after Israel’s ignominious withdrawal from south Lebanon and six years after the beginning of the Second Palestinian Intifadah (the al Aqsa Intifadah), IDF forces remained woefully unprepared for a new fight in Lebanon. In the final 15 years of the occupation, only a small cadre of IDF soldiers experienced the terrible uncertainty of asymmetric war in Lebanon’s south. The rest of the IDF, according to two-time IDF Lebanon veteran and respected historian, Michael Oren, trained to win the conventional surprise encountered during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.3
Subsequent to the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifadah in 2000, the IDF leadership realized that it was ill-prepared for the fighting against Hamas, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and other extremist forces that held the hearts and minds of much of the populations of Gaza and the West Bank. “When the Intifadah broke out, the IDF went on a massive retooling [effort]... we went to be an urban anti-terrorism force, like a large SWAT team… and became the most advanced large scale anti-terrorism force in the world,” explains Oren.4 From 2000 through 2006, although skirmishes occurred from time to time on the Northern Border, including kidnapping and attempted kidnapping of several IDF soldiers, as well as shelling and sniper fire in the disputed Shebaa farms area, the Hezbollah threat went largely ignored. Responses to Hezbollah provocations were extremely limited, and similar to the United States’ focus on conventional war against the USSR after Vietnam, the IDF was determined to focus on a different enemy than the one to which it had just ceded an 18-year struggle.5
The core combat competencies required for the urban fight in the occupied territories were significantly different from those required for the fight in which the IDF would find itself in Lebanon. By 2006, the IDF excelled at conducting cordon and search operations, door-to-door searches, hasty raids, and identifying and capturing or killing suspected Palestinian terrorists and guerrillas. Through a network of collaborators exploited since the 1970s, the IDF gained extensive intelligence information on Palestinian terror organizations. Israeli control of the borders of Gaza and the West Bank meant that Palestinian fighters often possessed inferior weapons and were forced to fight in a virtually untenable situation. Israeli information dominance made training difficult for Palestinian forces. Meanwhile factionalization prevented a unitary military effort against the Israelis. In effect, the IDF, like the U.S. military, was a seemingly militarily superior counter-terrorist/ insurgent force fighting a militarily inferior terrorist/insurgent enemy.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah, flush with their 2000 victory, did not rest on its laurels. Believing that another showdown with the Israelis was looming, it began the arduous task of exploring lessons learned from its 17-year open war with Israel, while simultaneously supplying inspiration, technical help, and weaponry to the Palestinians.6 According to a senior analyst with Defense News, understanding that a future conflict would likely be a defensive action against an Israeli incursion seeking to destroy them, Hezbollah leaders studied the historical model of the Viet Cong as inspiration for establishing an advanced tunnel network, extending through the main avenues of approach into southern Lebanon.7
Working secretly, Hezbollah built up weapons stockpiles, particularly short-and medium-range rockets and antitank guided missiles (ATGM), and developed reinforced, highly camouflaged bunkers throughout their area of operations—all in spite of extensive monitoring by UN observers and Israeli intelligence. Confronted after the war with the location of a football-field-sized bunker complex, with meterthick, steel-reinforced concrete on an open hillside in Labboune, one UN observer remarked that Hezbollah must have brought in cement by the spoonfuls. The bunker complex was situated only two-hundred meters north of the Israeli border and only several kilometers from UN headquarters in an-Naqurah; neither the UN nor IDF realized the extent and sophistication of the bunkers, and the IDF was unable to destroy them or force the fighters to evacuate them during fighting.8 Unlike in the occupied territories, neither signal intelligence nor human intelligence could successfully penetrate Hezbollah before or during the war.
Throughout the six years of relative quiet, Hezbollah focused on extensive intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB), monitoring IDF units to its south by eavesdropping on IDF soldiers’ cell phone calls; using criminal networks of mostly Bedouin drug dealers, other criminals, and malcontents to provide information on IDF movements and plans; and by inconspicuously taking extensive notes on Israeli movements for months at a time. As Timur Goksel, the former chief spokesperson for UNIFIL (the title of the UN observers), describes Hezbollah, “What was really significant is the amount or quality of staff work that goes into their activities that renders them different from any other guerrilla outfit.”9
Although Hezbollah launched the surprise raid on 12 July and “was itching for a fight and got a fight,” it did not anticipate the tremendous Israeli response to the kidnapping of two soldiers.10 As a result, the IDF possessed the initiative in the first hours and even days of the war when it focused excessively on the use of its air force. When the IDF launched its ground incursions, they anticipated (just as the U.S. anticipates in Iraq and Afghanistan) that when confronted with a regular force on the offensive, Hezbollah would essentially melt into the countryside. In fact, previous to 2000, this had been the doctrine of Hezbollah.11 Yet, Hezbollah doctrine had evolved, and Hezbollah prepared to encounter the IDF unlike any guerrilla force in history. In the words of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, “The resistance withstood the attack and fought back. It did not wage a guerrilla war either... it [Hezbollah] was not a regular army but was not a guerrilla in the traditional sense either. It was something in between.” “This,” he said, “is the new model.”12
“We Were Caught Unprepared.”13
The IDF encountered innumerable problems with Hezbollah’s “new model.” In a city that became a showcase for the IDF’s tactical failures during the war, despite repeated incursions and air attacks aimed at the Lebanese Shiite city of Bint Jbail throughout the war, the IDF was unable to take the city, allowing Nasrallah to claim it as Hezbollah’s Stalingrad. As Goksel puts it, “in one day in 1982 they [the IDF] reached Beirut; here, in six or seven days, they couldn’t go more than a few miles.”14
Among the most disturbing concerns to U.S. Army armor and mechanized infantry forces should be the large losses taken by the IDF’s much vaunted armor corps. During operations in Lebanon, approximately 10 percent of the IDF’s 400 Merkavas were damaged by an enemy without a single armor or helicopter platform. Thirty tank crewmen, comprising 25 percent of the IDF’s total dead, were killed during the war. Of the 40 tanks damaged, half were actually penetrated by ATGMs or rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) with tandem charges, resulting in the deaths of 24 of the 30 tank crewmen killed.15
While the exact details of Hezbollah’s arsenal are difficult to determine, due to conflicting battlefield reports and the fact that both the IDF and Hezbollah held their cards close, various reports indicate that Hezbollah possessed either originals or Iranian versions of the AT-3 Sagger, the AT-4 Spigot, the AT-5 Spandrel, the AT-13 METIS-M, and the AT-14 Kornet-E, as well as the RPG-29. In addition, Hezbollah expertly employed various mortar and other antipersonnel systems, as well as command-detonated IEDs. Many of the weapons were provided or purchased from Iran or Syria, although a substantial cache of small arms and explosives were stolen from the IDF over the years.
Throughout the war, the toll taken on readiness by occupation duty in the West Bank and Gaza was evident. Infantry, artillery, and armor coordination, once the focal point of Israeli doctrine, was significantly degraded. Tactical expertise and innovation were almost entirely absent—all along the border, where Hezbollah had spent six years preparing for a defense in depth, IDF forces launched frontal attacks.16 The IDF reserves, on which the IDF relies heavily, had not received maneuver training since the inception of the Intifadah in 2000—they were too busy with occupation duty. Even the active duty forces had not completed a major maneuver training operation in more than a year.17 During mobilization, reserve forces received three to five days of training. It should have been no surprise that the IDF performed poorly at the tactical level against its formidable enemy: its soldiers were, on average, 10 years younger than enemy forces, they had little experience or training, and faced an enemy who was extensively prepared for this moment.
Hezbollah demonstrated surprising tactical innovation. Knowing that the AT-3 was incapable of doing damage to Israeli armor, they used it effectively as an anti-infantry weapon. From distances well outside the engagement range of IDF infantry, Hezbollah would use indirect fire, including ATGMs, to scatter the infantry. As the infantry moved closer to the towns where Hezbollah fighters were fighting, IDF infantrymen would often take cover in barns and other buildings on the outskirts of the city. Hezbollah would then hit houses with the AT-3s; on 9 August 2006, nine IDF infantrymen were killed in Bint Jbail in a single attack using this technique.18 In addition, Hezbollah regularly employed snipers, a tactic they had not used prior to 2000. Artillery, which the IDF used to suppress Hezbollah fighters as infantry moved in, was ineffective against the bunkers and tunnels in which Hezbollah was fighting. In fact, undisciplined use of artillery and close air support (CAS) in built-up areas, not only failed to achieve tactical results against Hezbollah, but also earned the approbation of much of the international community for the IDF’s destruction of civilian areas.19 When artillery fire lifted, Hezbollah fighters took it as a signal that the infantry was about to move in and would commence firing on them.20
Hezbollah units worked almost exclusively in their hometowns, thus allowing effective coded communications over unencrypted radios. A typical Hezbollah transmission might be no more than, “let’s go meet by the house of the girl who broke your heart 20 years ago.” The IDF, while able to hear and understand the communication, could gain no actionable intelligence from it.21 Hezbollah, while possessing some night-vision equipment, accepted Israeli dominance of the night. To overcome this, they went to ground at night while the Israelis shot at designated targets; they would resurface at or after dawn (BMNT) with full knowledge of the composition of the IDF forces in the area.
On the morning of 10 August, Hezbollah fighters disabled two tanks withdrawing from al-Khiyam ridge with ATGMs just after dawn, killing one crew member. Hezbollah fighters then mortared the two tank crews and were sending an infantry squad toward the soldiers when the soldiers were rescued, almost an hour after their tanks were disabled. Evidencing the problems the IDF had during the war with training and coordination, the tank crews, which included a company commander who had operational radios, failed to call for suppressive fire on the ridge, despite knowing it was the source of the mortars.22
The battle of Wadi Saluki from 11 to 13 August illustrates the tactical and operational problems faced by the IDF throughout the war. Eleven of the twenty-four Merkava IVs employed by the 401st Armor Brigade during the battle were hit by ATGMs or RPGs; eight tank crewmen were killed, as were four infantrymen of the Nahal infantry brigade, jointly accounting for 10 percent of all IDF killed in the war. The battle took place as a result of the IDF’s desire to control the Litani River, the former high-water mark of their occupation zone.23 Division 162 was ordered to take the town of Ghandouriyeh, a village at the intersection of a major east-west road, and a road leading to a bridge north over the Litani. The village also provided significant overwatch of the Litani, making it a key location for controlling south Lebanon.
Positioned in the vicinity of the northern Israeli city of Metulla, Division 162 had known for a week that it was to take Ghandouriyeh; however, its orders were canceled several times. The main axis from Metulla to Ghandouriyeh is on a major road that first runs through the village of Qantara; to move from Qantara to Ghandouriyeh, an invading force must cross Wadi Saluki. The area of the Wadi is covered with dense undergrowth, consisting of juniper bushes, scrub oak, and other thornbushes, confining vehicles to the partially built road that runs through the Wadi. The Saluki, a tributary of the Litani, runs through the Wadi and provides a natural obstacle for both tracked and wheeled vehicles. A couple of bridges run across the Saluki on the road between Qantara and Ghandouriyeh; the terrain does not allow for the bridges to be bypassed, except with great difficulty. The Wadi is surrounded by high ground consisting of limestone rock with many natural caves, and surrounding hills, which provide excellent fields of fire onto the Wadi.
Hezbollah believed for a long time that the road between Qantara and Ghandouriyeh presented a likely avenue of approach for invading forces. Knowing that Wadi Saluki, and particularly the bridges that ran over the Saluki, provided a good choke point for an ambush on invading forces, they established permanent defensive positions overlooking the Wadi, including one west of Beni Hayan.
Any element of surprise about the location of the IDF’s advance on the Litani was eliminated by Division 162’s week in waiting. When paratroopers of the Nahal Infantry Brigade performed an uncontested air assault outside the cities of Ghandouriyeh and Farun on the evening of 11 August, any remaining uncertainty in the minds of Hezbollah fighters as to the timing and direction of the attack was eliminated. They soon established a hasty defense of the Wadi using mines, ATGMs, and possibly some previously built-up positions.
Using the same methods as those used in the occupied territories, Nahal infantry soldiers claimed to have control of the high ground over Wadi Saluki after they had seized key buildings on the outskirts of the two cities in the early hours of 12 August. The 401st Armor Brigade sent a column of 24 tanks toward the town to link up with paratroopers and give the IDF control of key roads. As the tanks maneuvered on the partially built road in the Wadi, Hezbollah fighters detonated a mine just north of the bridge on the road between Qantara and Ghandouriyeh, killing the entire crew of the lead tank, including the company commander. Hezbollah then launched swarms of rockets of all different types onto the Israeli tanks. As one crew member described it, “You should understand that the first missile which hits is not the really dangerous missile. The ones which come afterwards are the dangerous ones—and there always follow four or five after the first.”24 Hezbollah fighters used ATGMs, small-arms fire, and mortars to suppress the Nahal Brigade, preventing them from providing effective infantry support for the armor forces. Not a single tank crewman in all 24 tanks thought to deploy the tanks’ smoke grenades while they were being ambushed, further evidence of failing to train with their weapons.
Lack of coordination between armor, infantry, close air support, and artillery meant that initial calls for fire were denied because of the potential for fratricide. Only after all forces gained situational awareness on 12 August was the IDF able to synchronize its overwhelming firepower and take the high ground in Ghandouriyeh by the morning of 13 August. The IDF claims to have killed more than 80 Hezbollah fighters in the course of fighting; yet this claim seems based on battle damage assessments from close air support that dropped countless cluster munitions on 12 August. This time, as in much of the war, Hezbollah’s dead proved as elusive as its living fighters. Hezbollah, which in the past has celebrated its “martyrs,” including the son of Hassan Nasrallah, still claims that only 150 members were killed during the entire war. Israel claims it killed closer to 600 fighters.25
When fighting ended on 14 August, fighters from Division 162 were ordered to withdraw from Ghandouriyeh, due to the ceasefire. Guy Zur, commander of Division 162, walked away “astonished” and told the press that Hezbollah was the world’s best guerrilla group.26 Goksel says of the terrain at Wadi Saluki, which he visited innumerable times during his duty in south Lebanon, that “anyone dumb enough to push a tank column through Wadi Saluki should not be an armored brigade commander but a cook.”27 The 401st Armor Brigade could have bypassed the Wadi to the south or on the more northern road leading to Farun; its failure to do so allowed Hezbollah to win another propaganda victory in the last day of fighting.
Lessons for the United States
A number of issues for U.S. forces emerge from the IDF’s experience in Lebanon. Obviously, the effectiveness of “swarming” ATGMs and RPGs against the Merkava is a tactic that should be of concern; using the AT-3 as an anti-infantry weapon is a tactic of which all cavalry and mechanized units should be aware.
While it is important that U.S. forces continue to dominate the night, Hezbollah has demonstrated the need to make certain U.S. forces do not cede control of the day. Also, if Hezbollah exports its sophisticated ambushes and combined-arms attacks, it could pose new challenges in the Global War on Terrorism. The possibility must not be discounted; Hezbollah’s leaders have provided arms and training to the Palestinians and publicly expressed a desire to export their “model” elsewhere. It is not impossible to imagine that in certain areas, such as Anbar Province, variants of Hezbollah’s tactics may be developed by local insurgents as they await the reinforcement of the relatively small number of U.S. forces now in the area.
While the combined arms battalion (CAB) structure may naturally alleviate some of the coordination issues experienced by the IDF, it is vital that CABs train as such. Perhaps most importantly, the IDF’s experience demonstrates the need to retain core combat skills, even as the United States takes on anti-terrorist missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. Army must carefully consider whether the training it undergoes to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan would result in tactical success against a determined enemy such as Hezbollah—an enemy that exists in the gray area between insurgents and the regular armies that U.S. forces traditionally train to fight.
Endnotes
1 Unless otherwise noted, all foreign media reports were accessed through OpenSource.gov (formerly the Foreign Broadcasting Information Service). All documents cited in this article are open source, available to the general public, not listed as for official use only, and unclassified. Reports on the Hezbollah kidnapping garnered from numerous sources, including “Hezbollah terrorist attack on Israeli’s northern border: eight IDF soldiers killed and two abducted,” Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies, Tel Aviv, Israel. Although all reports on Imad Mughniyeh are instantly suspect, he is as much of a boogeyman as exists in the world today, the report on his involvement comes from Ronen Bergman, “The Executor,” Yedi’ ot Aharonot (original in Hebrew), Tel Aviv, Israel, 16 July 2006.
2 Maryam al-Bassam, “Interview with Lebanese Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah.” Beirut New TV Channel in Arabic, date of interview unknown, aired 27 August 2006. On agents in our country and anti-American nature of Hezbollah, see Matthew Levitt, “Hezbollah Financing Terror through Criminal Enterprise,” Testimony to the U.S. Senate committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, 25 May 2005.
On groups seeking lessons learned from the conflict, see Ibrahim Humaydi, “Abu Marzuq to ‘Al-Haya’: ‘HAMAS’ Discussing Cloning ‘Hizballah’s’ [sic] Experience, Denied There Is ‘Anything New’ in Israeli Soldier Deal,” Al-Haya, (original in Arabic), London, United Kingdom, 30 August 2006.
3 Author interview with Michael Oren, September 2006.
4 Ibid.
5 For a discussion on willful blindness to the lessons of Vietnam, see T.X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century, Zenith Press, St. Paul, MN, 2006.
6 Hezbollah really only arrived on the scene in 1983, although Israel’s war against the Palestinians in Lebanon began in 1982. Although helping the Sunni Palestinians might seem an odd task for Shiite Hezbollah. It is worth noting that Imad Mughniyeh, a Shiite Lebanese, began his long terrorist career working for the Palestinian al-Fatah, rather than for any of the Lebanese militant groups, and is believed by numerous sources to have had contacts with Osama bin Laden or other agents of al-Qaeda.
7 Author interview with Riad Kahwaji, September 2006.
8 Author interview and e-mail exchanges between author and Nick Blanford, September 2006.
9 Author interview and e-mail exchange with Timur Goksel, September 2006.
10 Interview with Hassan Fattah, senior Middle East correspondent for the New York Times, September 2006.
11 Reported by Ehud Ya’ari based on a translation of the doctrines transmitted by Haj Hallil, Hezbollah’s 1996 director of operations. “Hizballah: 13 Principles of Warfare,” The Jerusalem Report, 21 March 1996.
12 Maryam al-Bassam.
13 An anonymous soldier from the 401st Armor Brigade on the fighting at Wadi Saluki, as reported by Nava Tzuriel and Eitan Glickman, “The Canyon of Death,” Yediot Aharonot, Adam Keller (trans), published variously, including online at http://www.kibush.co.il/.
14 Interview with Goksel.
15 Information on casualties from author interview with Yaakov Katz, September 2006; and Yaakov Katz, “Wadi Saluki battle—microcosm of war’s mistakes,” Jerusalem Post Online Edition, 29 August 2006, online at http://www.jpost.com.
16 Interview with Oren.
17 Interview with Katz.
18 Interviews with Blanford, Kahwaji, and Katz; and “IDF Report Card, Jerusalem Post Online Edition, 24 August 2006, online at http://www.jpost.com.
19 Interview and e-mail exchange with Goksel, September 2006.
20 Interview with Kahwaji.
21 Interview with Blanford.
22 Jonathan Spyer. “On the El-Khiam Ridge,” The Times, 30 August 2006.
23 The purpose of the push to the Litani is an interesting question. Many in Israel see the battle for Ghandouriyeh as having had little strategic value, especially as the bridge crossing the Litani had been destroyed by the IDF earlier in the war. A number of soldiers have demonstrated against IDF leaders for what they believe was a wanton sacrifice of life for little strategic advantage; however, judgment on the strategic ramifications of the battle remain outside the purview of this article.
24 Tzuriel and Glickman, “The Canyon of Death.”
25 Information on the battle remains unreliable. This narrative is based on a compilation of interviews and e-mails with Goksel, Oren, Blanford, Katz, and Kahwaji, September 2006; Tzuriel and Glickman; Katz, “Wadi Saluki battle—microcosm of war’s mistakes;” and Amos Harel and Yair Ettinger, “Why did these soldiers die?” Haaretz, 23 August 2006, online at http://www.haaretz. com.
26 Interview with Katz.
27 Interview with Goksel.
