In terms of weaponry, strategic and political positioning, and its ever-expanding international reach, Hizbullah is "five times more capable today" than it was at the beginning of the July 2006 war with Israel. A fact, according to
Poised just over the border in south Lebanon is Hizbullah, a Shia terrorist army.
experts, that prompted Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to tell his troops during a recent Tuesday morning tour of positions along the Golan Heights, "It's not for nothing that we're training here."

Not for nothing, indeed. Poised just over the border in south Lebanon is Hizbullah, a Shia terrorist army. Organized somewhat on the Taliban model, it is heavily funded and equipped by Iran, and operationally supported by both Iran and Syria.

Hizbullah has strengthened its strategic positions across Lebanon in recent months. And in recent weeks, its military training and posturing has increased in regions of the country far beyond its traditionally recognized southern defenses (below the Litani River) and Al-Dahiyeh (Hizbullah's south Beirut stronghold near the airport).

Worse, Hizbullah's newfound political power - literally forced on the government at the point of a gun after Hizbullah turned its weapons on the Lebanese citizenry in May 2008 - has enabled the terrorist group to both maintain its private militia status (including its possession of military-grade weapons and a massive private telecommunications system) and position itself as a "legitimate" arm of the Lebanese defense apparatus. And the West, including the virtually impotent United Nations forces in Lebanon, has done absolutely nothing to prevent any of it.

All of this, accomplished despite the will of the pro-democracy majority in Lebanon, has emboldened Hizbullah. It has created an environment wherein the terrorist group now feels comfortable openly flexing its muscle in areas of Lebanon that suggest ominous plans for that country's future.

Since the attacks in May, eyewitnesses and open sources from Arabic-language newspapers have reported an increasing number of Hizbullah paramilitary exercises: scouting, navigating and night operations. Many of those exercises are being conducted provocatively close to Christian areas of Lebanon and along or near strategically vital roads that pass through the mountains between the coast and the Bekaa Valley to the Syrian border.

For instance, in the months before and weeks since the May attacks, Hizbullah and Pasdaran (Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) fighters, according to more than one independent source, have conducted small military exercises in the area around the town of Jezzine, east of Sidon. "Reports about this have been limited because journalists either don't fully recognize the strategic significance or they are afraid of Hizbullah," says Col. Charbel Barakat (Lebanese Army, ret.), a former infantry brigade commander who today directs the office of counter-terrorism for the pro-democracy World Council of the Cedars Revolution. "Almost no Western journalists have reported this, and only a few Lebanese have."

Further north, in the Sannine mountains west of Zahle, Hizbullah has reportedly set up guided-missile batteries and early-warning radar. Civilian hikers unfortunate enough to venture into this area reportedly have been detained, held and interrogated for several hours by Hizbullah militiamen.

Also in recent weeks, Hizbullah and Pasdaran fighters reportedly have been observed training and setting up temporary outposts on the road between Aqura and Baalbeck. And the security teams surrounding the exercise zone in one instance were reportedly wearing Lebanon Internal Security Forces (ISF) uniforms; although the ISF, according to our sources, denied they had policemen in the area at that time.

Aqura is key, because it is along the east-to-west road from Aqura to the coast that, in a future war, Hizbullah plans to cut the country's largest Christian area in half. In such an attack, similar to what Hizbullah has previously done in Druze areas of the western Bekaa, Hizbullah fighters would knife through the Christian area, accessing pre-staged weapons and ammunition from the Shia villages of Lasa, Almat, Ras Osta and Kafr Salah, which are located along (or fairly close to) the Aqura-to-J'bail trek.

"Hizbullah is establishing layered defenses north of the Litani, in the southern and central Bekaa, and they have
"Hizbullah – which means Iran - controls the highest ground in the region south of Turkey." - Dr. Phares
reinforced their presence in southern Beirut," says Dr. Walid Phares, director of the Future of Terrorism Project for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. "They also have created new positions in Mount Lebanon and in the far north, near the highest peak of the Cedars mountains. Which means, technically, Hizbullah – which means Iran - controls the highest ground in the region south of Turkey."

Strategic positioning is behind Hizbullah's activity: controlling as much of the commanding high ground as possible, and being positioned to cut roads and divide-and-isolate Sunni, Druze and Christian areas in the event of war.

"Hizbullah knows that he who controls the mountains - consequently, the mountain passes - controls all of Lebanon," says Barakat. "Hizbullah is also telling itself, 'I am afraid the Israelis will attack me north of the Litani (so I will strengthen those positions above the Litani) and I am not allowed to have my weapons and missiles south of the Litani, so I will move them north.' "

Like the Israelis, Hizbullah is not simply training for "nothing." Unlike the Israelis, who train solely to defend their state, the ultimate goals of Hizbullah are to control as much of Lebanon as possible, further the aims of the Iranian Revolution and generally export terror.

What makes Hizbullah particularly scary today is the organization's increasing political clout, the attempt in some circles to whitewash who and what they are, and, as Phares says, that "Hizbullah today is five-times more capable militarily than it was during the July 2006 war."