For the first time, Hizbullah has acknowledged the
deployment of a huge arsenal of missiles and rockets along the Lebanese
border with Israel.
Hizbullah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah said his organization has
deployed 12,000 missiles and rockets in southern Lebanon. Speaking ahead of
Lebanese parliamentary elections on May 29, Nasrallah said Hizbullah could
strike and destroy any target in northern Israel.
"Some people think we have 12,000 rockets, Katyushas or others,"
Nasrallah told a rally in Bint Jbeil near the Israeli border on Wednesday.
"I tell you we have more than 12,000."
The assertion by Nasrallah confirmed previous assessments by Israeli
defense officials of Hizbullah's strength. The Israeli officials reported
that Hizbullah's missile arsenal has grown over the last three years to up
to 15,000 missiles and rockets.
"The whole of the north of occupied Palestine as well as its
settlements, airports, fields and farms are within the firing range of the
fighters of the Islamic resistance," Nasrallah said.
Nasrallah said Hizbullah does not want to spark a regional war. But he
ruled out the surrender of Hizbullah weapons and warned of a fight to the
death.
"If someone, anyone, thinks of disarming the resistance, we will fight
them to the death," Nasrallah said, screaming to a crowd of more than 25,000
people. "We do not want to drag the region into a regional war. We want to
protect our country and keep our weapons. Any hand that reaches out to our
weapons is an Israeli hand that will be cut off."
Hizbullah was said to have been concerned that the United Nations,
supported by the West, would lead a campaign to dismantle insurgency groups
in Lebanon. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi has visited Beirut three
times — the latest on Thursday — in the last month in an attempt to win a
Lebanese government commitment not to disarm Hizbullah.
Israeli officials said Hizbullah obtained most of its missiles and
rockets from Iran and Syria. They said Syria has provided Hizbullah with 220
mm rockets, with a range of up to 50 kilometers.
Iran has supplied Soviet-origin Katyusha rockets as well as variants of
the Frog-7 surface-to-surface rocket, with a range of 75 kilometers.
Hizbullah was also said to have received SA-7 surface-to-air missiles from
Iran for use against Israeli aircraft. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps
has trained Hizbullah operatives in the use of these missiles in both Iran
and Lebanon. Officials said the Hizbullah missile arsenal has not been under
central command.
"The value of these rockets in our hands lies in the fact that the
Zionists does not know their number or where they are kept," Nasrallah said
in a commemoration of the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. "They are
fighting a hidden force which can catch them off-guard at any time."
