Word: militiaization
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...There was no consensus about what a new strategy might be, but there were two prevailing theories, and each was grievously flawed. "We've got to pick a side," said an Army colonel, who was talking not macro Shi'ite-vs.-Sunni side picking but micro Shi'ite-militia picking. "We should move against Sadr," he added, referring to Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, which has been responsible for much of the recent sectarian violence. But even if successful, a move against Sadr would leave the other prominent Shi'ite militia, the Badr Corps, which has close ties...
...Hizballah's threat to Israel would be neutralized if the country's border with Israel was controlled by the Lebanese army rather than by the Shi'ite militia. That's the arrangement called for in the Taif agreement that ended the 1975-90 civil war, as well as in U.N. Resolution 1559. But getting Hizballah to comply will be difficult...
...when he took the dive. The Israelis calculated that their campaign, which has included strikes on not just Hizballah targets but also Lebanese roads, bridges and runways as well as a naval blockade--plus the explicit threat of worse to come--would cow Hizballah. In addition to maintaining a militia, the group functions as a political party and has a representative in the Lebanese Cabinet. Hizballah represents the traditionally downtrodden Shi'ites of Lebanon, who live mostly in the south and the Dahiya suburb of Beirut, areas Israel has hit hard. The bombardment has driven an estimated half a million...
...structures that impede their view into this swath of territory. Maintaining such a buffer zone will theoretically prevent Hizballah from returning to its positions along the frontier, shooting small arms across it, kidnapping more soldiers and easily gathering intelligence on Israeli army movements. But it won't stop the militia from firing rockets from deeper inside Lebanon. Israeli forces have concentrated on tracking and eliminating Hizballah's rocket launchers, but with limited results. Many are hidden in bunkers that Israeli pilots can't find, which is largely why the infantry was sent in. While ground troops searched for launchers last...
...residents of Tyre are taking any chances. They are heeding the Israeli military warnings, which were relayed via the Voice of the South radio station, once run by Israel's Lebanese militia allies in the 1980s and 1990s before it went off the air in 2000; Israel appears to have resurrected the station specifically for the current military campaign. The Israelis also are using more unorthodox methods of conveying their warning - SMS text messages and recorded voice messages to local officials. Hassan Dbouk, who works with Tyre's municipality, says he received an early morning phone call on his landline...