Guns in the Closet : An Hezbollah fighter waits to be called to action.

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Guns in the Closet

At home in a town in southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah fighter waits to be called to action.

By Kevin Sites, Fri Jul 28, 8:23 PM

SOUTHERN LEBANON -

Plumes of black smoke begin to fan out over the coastline in the distance.
We ask someone in town what has happened.
He tells us it's the power plant; the Israelis have struck it with a missile.
But it's impossible to confirm because the roads leading to it were bombed
early in the offensive.

In fact, Lebanon's main north-south road is so pocked with bomb craters,
blown-out bridges and blasted highway spans that there is only one route left
for drivers headed into Beirut. Twisted cars and wreckage litter the roadside.
Craters, some as wide as 60 feet, have filled with water and become small lakes.
It is in this unfortunate but familiar reality for Lebanon that the new landscape
is being formed — deepening current loyalties rather than shifting them.

Nowhere is that more clear than in the area I am traveling today, a Hezbollah
stronghold north of the city of Tyre. Here, I am told, few families have fled.
Instead, they are waiting for the call of Hezbollah leader
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah to come south to fight the Israelis.

And there do seem to be more people on the streets and more families still in
their homes, compared with areas further south, where so many have joined white
flag convoys fleeing the fighting
— as well as the uncertainty of where this conflict may lead.

It's not a difficult or even particularly mysterious undertaking to meet members
of Hezbollah. Politically, they are part of the current Lebanese government and
have been highly visible throughout the country, particularly for the millions
of Shias in Lebanon.
But it is Hezbollah's militia with which Israel says it is at war.

In the Mideast, many credit Hezbollah's militia with inflicting heavy losses on
the Israeli Army and forcing Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000. In the West,
the group is widely condemned as a terrorist organization, supported by Syria and
Iran. It has been responsible for numerous attacks on Israel, including the incident
the sparked the latest conflict, as well as the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks
in Beirut in 1983, which left 241 servicemen dead.

Even its critics concede that Hezbollah is well-organized politically and highly
disciplined militarily.
"They are an integral part of the fabric of Shia society here," a source with an
intimate knowledge of Hezbollah who did not want to be identified told me.
"It's a fallacy to think they can be cleaned out or eliminated."
I'm asked if I want to meet a Hezbollah fighter in his village and speak with him briefly.

We meet "Hussein" at his home and sit down to talk in his living room,
while his four-month-old baby daughter lies on a blanket on the floor.

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