How Syria, Iran Armed Hezbollah

Hezbollah is a militia trained like an army and equipped like a state, and its fighters "are nothing like Hamas or the Palestinians," said an Israeli soldier who just returned from Lebanon. "They are trained and highly qualified," he said, equipped with flak jackets, night-vision goggles, good communications and sometimes Israeli uniforms and ammunition. "All of us were kind of surprised." Much attention has been focused on Hezbollah's stockpile of Syrian- and Iranian-made missiles, some 3,000 of which have already fallen on Israel. More than 58 Israelis have died from them — including 12 reservist soldiers, who were gathered at a kibbutz at Kfar Giladi in northern Israel yesterday when rockets packed with anti-personnel ball bearings exploded among them, and three killed last night in another rocket barrage on Haifa. But Israel says Iran and Syria also used those six years to provide satellite communications and some of the world's best infantry weapons, including modern, Russian-made anti-tank weapons and Semtex plastic explosives, as well as the training required to use them effectively against Israeli armour. It is Hezbollah's skilful use of these weapons — in particular, wire-guided and laser-guided anti-tank missiles, with double, phased explosive warheads and a range of about three kilometres — that has caused most of the casualties to Israeli forces. Hezbollah's Russian-made anti-tank missiles, designed to penetrate armour, have damaged or destroyed Israeli vehicles, including its most modern, the Merkava, on about 20 per cent of their hits, Israeli commanders at the front said. http://tinyurl.com/l79db

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