Re: Hezbullah figters destroyed 30 tanks in 30 days with terrorist inside
Israel is going to take a lot of casualties, and some material losses. They will however win the battle. Here is the Stratfor analysis as of today. While you all are high fiving about some tanks you may be missing the bigger picture. As I type this they are showing Isreali MLRS launches. I would rather be in an Israeli tank than under an MLRS strike.
Special Report: Israel Launches Major Offensive
The confusion of yesterday has been clarified. Israel has moved, in force, into southern Lebanon. Whatever the political crisis was yesterday, Israel has clearly decided to invade southern Lebanon, at the very least. The apparent battle between those who oppose a full invasion and those who support one appears to have been settled in favor of the latter.
After the U.N. cease-fire resolution was approved, Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz said that operations in Lebanon were expanding, and that he expected to conduct offensive operations there for another week, despite the resolution. Brig. Gen. Alon Friedman, IDF's Northern Command chief of staff, told reporters he expects combat operations to push all the way to the Litani River and other areas that Hezbollah has used to launch rockets into Israel. So far, he said, the political leaders "have not instructed us to stop the operation."
Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Halutz and other senior IDF officers visited Northern Command headquarters in Safed late Aug. 11. This meeting appears to have been to approve last-minute changes to the expanded offensive, and to coordinate the initial phase of the attack.
IDF troops began advancing from their staging areas in Israel north and west across south Lebanon toward the Litani River and the Mediterranean. IDF said taking the area would take several days and clearing it could take weeks. The Israeli air force struck Hezbollah positions in the south and other targets all across the country. Power was cut off in Tyre and Sidon, probably to degrade Hezbollah's command, control and communications. Bottom line: Whatever the U.N. Security Council might have intended, the outcome in Israel was an IDF order to disarm Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. At present, there is only air action in the Bekaa Valley.
For IDF ground forces, the fighting has been intense as units have engaged entrenched Hezbollah positions. IDF reports killing 20 Hezbollah fighters Aug. 12, and Hezbollah claims to have destroyed 21 Israeli armored vehicles and killed or wounded a large number of IDF troops. It appears that the IDF westward advance is pushing west from Taibe and Qantara, on an axis about five miles from the Israeli border. In the largest IDF airlift in 30 years, troops were airlifted into battle by some 50 helicopters.
In one of their deepest incursions into southern Lebanon, Israeli commandos supported by air power assaulted the village of Al Ghandourieh, approximately 10 miles southwest of the Israeli-held town of Marjayoun, early Aug. 12, meeting stiff resistance. This area overlooks valleys used by Hezbollah to conceal and launch their rockets, and can be expected to be heavily contested. The IDF advance appears to have disrupted Hezbollah rocket artillery operations, with no rockets launched during the morning and only 30 launched at Qiryat Shemona and Amirim. Hezbollah had been launching an average of 200 artillery rockets into northern Israel per day.
The advance seen thus far is methodical and, in spite of reports, fairly conservative. The Israelis do not seem to be carrying out slashing armored attacks, but are concentrating on combined arms operations to isolate and destroy strong points. It is now clear that, unless another shift takes place among Israeli leadership, the destruction we expected in the south is taking place. This has already diminished rocket fire into Israel, but we remain doubtful that all rocket attacks can be shut down by attacking the south. Further operations remain an option, although that option is uncertain in this political environment.
The issue now is Hezbollah's response. The group clearly knows it will be defeated by IDF in the south. One of its goals is obviously to inflict maximum casualties. Another must be to impose as many delays as possible. Hezbollah has been under sustained air attack for more than a month, so the resilience of its forces is a question mark.
However, broader than this issue is the strategic response of Hezbollah. A defeat in the south would obviously hurt Hezbollah greatly. It would not, however, eliminate Hezbollah's warfighting ability, since we assume it holds reserves in the Beirut area and the Bekaa Valley. The group also claims to have longer-range rockets in its arsenal -- we assume with only conventional warheads, but we don't know that for certain. With Israel committed, two questions arise: First, how far does Israel go? And, second, what is Hezbollah's response?