Israel and Hizbollah by Jones Clive;Catignani Sergio; & Sergio Catignani

Author:Jones, Clive;Catignani, Sergio; & Sergio Catignani [Jones, Clive & Catignani, Sergio]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2022-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Regime targeting and technical intelligence

The failings identified in Israel's HUMINT effort were perhaps disguised, though not ameliorated by a long-held preference for regime targeting. The most notable example of this policy remains the assassination of Shaykh Hussein Abbas Musawi on 16 February 1992. From the perspective of the IDF, Musawi represented a prize target. As the then spiritual head of Hizbollah, he had largely been responsible for its growth and development, including its adoption of an anti-West and anti-Israel platform from 1982 onwards. His position at the apogee of the movement led Israel's political and military elite to conclude that his removal would represent a devastating blow, both militarily and psychologically, to al-Muqawama, allowing Israel to reassert its hegemony over the security zone. Moshe Arens, then serving as Israeli Defence Minister in a Likud coalition government led by Yitzhak Shamir, justified the attack in terms of deterrence, it being cited as a warning to all groups, be they Palestinian or Lebanese that they remained vulnerable to the reach of the IDF.50 The decision to kill Musawi was taken on the spur of the moment. The initial intention, as with Obeid, had been to abduct him from his car, but given the security surrounding his entourage and in lieu of any wider cabinet consultation, Shamir, Arens, former Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Ehud Barak, and the then serving director of AMAN, Major-General Uri Saguy, condoned the immediate assassination of the Shaykh before he slipped from their grasp.51

The operation itself was precise, demonstrating for once not only possession of high grade intelligence on the part of AMAN, but also considerable skill on the part of IDF helicopter pilots who launched the guided missiles at the convoy in which Musawi was travelling. With hindsight, the killing of al-Mussawi crossed a Rubicon of restraint that had been tacitly acknowledged by all sides. Despite the repeated call for the liberation of al-Quds (Jerusalem), Hizbollah had refrained from launching missile attacks on Israel proper, confining its operations to attacks on IDF/SLA targets within the security zone. Passions aroused by the killing of the Shaykh were, therefore, inflamed further by the knowledge that the attack had taken place outside the security zone. The response of al-Muqawama was to launch a salvo of Katyusha rockets on Israeli conurbations in the Galilee panhandle for the first time. Though inflicting little collateral damage, the retort of the IDF four days later was to launch a mass artillery bombardment of the Lebanese villages of Kafra and Yatar, just north of the security zone and identified by AMAN as centres of Hizbollah activity. According to one source over 3,000 shells were fired in a 24-hour period. Moreover, homes of people suspected of harbouring Hizbollah activists, were – in a practice adopted from policing operations in the West Bank and Gaza –destroyed. It was a policy that was both heartless and mindless.52

The price incurred by Jerusalem in killing Musawi – increased tension along the northern border as well the retaliatory bombing of the Buenos

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