Word: tanks
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...long-term role of the Lebanese Army in protecting the border would require a massive modernization that would take at least three years and cost upward of $1 billion, according to Dr. Riad Kahwaji, the Lebanese founder of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, a think tank in Dubai. Right now, its 1960s-era American and Soviet armor is so obsolete that spare parts are no longer available. Its only air force consists of 16 very old Huey helicopters that pilots call "flying coffins"; it has no navy except for four or five patrol boats; no border...
...Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hizballah's secretary-general, gave his victory speech here in May 2000 after Hizballah succeeded in driving Israeli troops out of their occupation zone in south Lebanon. Then, Nasrallah had described Israel as being as weak as a spider's web. Yet while Hizballah's anti-tank-missile-wielding guerrillas had inflicted high casualties on the attacking Israelis, the battle had left the town in ruins...
...Israel may have a technological superiority over Hizballah, but in the hide-and-seek dynamic of a guerrilla war, tanks and air strikes aren' t always enough. Some Israeli military officers are worried that the war is being waged the way the guerrillas want, dragging the Israeli Defense Forces into prolonged and messy battles on alien turf. Early on, the Israeli plan was to launch swift punches on the militants' rocket-launching positions and then to withdraw. But Hizballah began to play the game by their rules, drawing the Israeli troops into lengthy ambushes in places where their vaunted 21st...
...Hebrew, the word "merkava" means chariot, and the Israeli tank known as Merkava 4 is a mighty, steel-plated chariot of war. But in the stony hills of southern Lebanon, in battles where stealth is more valued than firepower, the chariot is reduced to being an ambulance, ferrying wounded commandos back across the border. And even then, the tank is proving to be less than invincible...
...tanks came rumbling back with their wounded cargo, they came under fire. A missile blasted one of the Merkav 4s, killing a soldier and injuring a battalion commander. The second ran over a large explosive device planted by Hizballah that is identical to those used to such devastating effect against U.S. armored forces in Iraq. The force of the blast flipped over the 65-ton tank, killing the vehicle's commander and injuring three other crew. Earlier in the 12-day ground offensive, the Israelis had lost another tank to a hidden mine, killing four...