321 Somalis and Sadrists Overrun Lebanon
…and, strangely, no one in Lebanon notices. In this guest post, reader and friend Andrew Exum, recently returned from a research trip to Lebanon and Israel, scoffs at claims that Hizballah has been extensively training Sadrists and fighting alongside Somalis:
I almost choked on my coffee early yesterday morning as I read the front page article in the New York Times claiming ? among other things ? that Hizbollah has been extensively training members of Moktada al-Sadr?s militia in Lebanon and that members of the Mahdi Army participated in this past summer?s war with Israel. While it?s possible and even likely that there exists some connection between the two Shia militias, the fantastic scenarios floated about in the New York Times these past few weeks (on November 15th, an article by Robert Worth claimed 700 Somali militants fought against Israel this summer) defy common sense.
I just returned from a two-week research trip to both Lebanon and Israel as part of a project analyzing the way in which Hizbollah fought this last war with the IDF. No where in my travels ? and I spoke to nearly everyone: pro-Hizbollah Lebanese, anti-Hizbollah Lebanese, UNIFIL officials, journalists, Israeli intelligence officials, IDF commanders, etc. ? did I hear anyone mention the presence of foreign fighters in Lebanon. Not even in Israel ? where Israelis are often quite happy to convince Americans that we share common enemies ? did I hear anything about Iraqis (or Somalis for that matter) in South Lebanon.
My best friend in Lebanon, a Shia Muslim, made a pilgrimage to the holy shrines in Iraq in 2002, worried (with reason, as it turns out) that the coming war might make such a pilgrimage in the future impossible. He told me that he wasn?t on the ground in Najaf for five minutes before everyone in that town knew not only that he was Lebanese but also that he was Shia and the name of his home village in the Bekaa Valley. I know Iraq was an authoritarian police state back then (as opposed to the flourishing, peaceful democracy it is today) and is unlike Lebanon in more ways than one. But I lived for several years in Lebanon, and it strikes me as highly unlikely that several hundred Somali fighters or ever a dozen Iraqi militiamen could walk around South Lebanon without someone noticing and telling someone in the media. Are you trying to tell me that some Greek Orthodox woman on her terrace in Marjayoun wouldn?t have noticed a company of Somali or Iraqi fighters marching through town on their way to Kafr Kila and the Israeli border?
I read around a dozen newspapers a day (Arab and Western) during this past summer?s war and also watched the pan-Arab television station coverage pretty closely once I had returned from Paris to Cairo at the beginning of August. I don?t remember seeing anything about foreign fighters in Lebanon in any of the media during the war. Furthermore, I myself led a platoon of Army Rangers in Iraq in 2003 and had previously fought in Afghanistan in 2002. Foreign fighters stuck out in both places like sore thumbs, and once they were captured or killed (because getting into firefights with Army Rangers doesn?t do much for your life expectancy), we had no problem not only identifying that they weren?t Iraqi but we could often tell from exactly which countries they had come. Wouldn?t the IDF, which by all accounts killed hundreds of Hizbollah fighters in July and August, have noticed foreign fighters among the dead? Of course they would have.
So why ? months after the war has ended ? are we now seeing these articles linking Hizbollah to every other militant group in the Middle East? Well, actually, it makes perfect sense that some commanders in the Mahdi Army would try and claim they were in Lebanon fighting against the IDF this summer. Hizbollah?s performance against the IDF in ?Harb Tammuz? is a point of great pride in the Arab world ? especially among the Shia. Although the Lebanese themselves are largely split down the middle whether or not they love or hate Hizbollah, there remains in the greater Arab world a kind of aura surrounding both Hizbollah and their charismatic leader, Hassan Nasrallah, for the way in which they stood up to the mighty IDF in July. What militia in the Arab world wouldn?t want to claim some of that glory?
In the end, I liken these post-war reports of other militias joining the fight against Israel to the number of people who will claim ? ten years from now ? that they were present at this year?s classic Ohio State ? Michigan football game. The numbers of people who say they were there will exceed the capacity of the stadium in Columbus, Ohio by a factor of ten. The summer war between Israel and Hizbollah has become a cultural point of reference in the Arab World, and intelligence analysts shouldn?t be duped by militias trying to claim their share of the glory months after the fact.
Thanks, Andrew, for the guest post. Just remember, you respond to the hatemail in the comments on this one.
[tags]Lebanon, Sadr, Iraq, Somalia, Hizballah[/tags]
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sadr says it ain’t so
Comment by issandr — November 30, 2006 #
What is the initial source(s) of these claims?
Comment by mas — November 30, 2006 #
Interesting, thanks for that. Perhaps the Reconstruction Jihad hats just started to be really hot throughout the region and everyone who had one thought they could claim they’d been in Lebanon.
Out of curiosity, what were the signs that made foreign fighters stick out like sore thumbs in Afghanistan and Iraq? Clothing?
Comment by SP — November 30, 2006 #
mas – On the Hizballah/Sadr connection, the NYT quotes “a senior intelligence official” who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said Iran facilitated the links. This, to the Times, was p. 1 news.
On the Somalis, see the NYT’s abstract: “UN report says more than 700 Islamic militants from Somalia fought alongside Hezbollah in war against Israel and that Lebanese returned favor by providing training and weapons, through Iran and Syria; also says Iran sought to trade arms for uranium from Somalia.”
Comment by Administrator — November 30, 2006 #
SP: Sometimes you can identify foreign fighters through stuff as obvious as their passports or ID cards or whatever. Other times, say, in villages in Iraq or Afghanistan, “out-of-towners” tend to attract a lot of attention from the locals, which is often how the military finds out about them in the first place. But one example: in Afghanistan, in early 2002, my platoon killed a fighter wearing a Mountain Hardware fleece jacket and North Face gear. (!) So yeah, probably a safe bet he wasn’t a local boy from Gardez.
Comment by Andrew Exum — November 30, 2006 #
They carry their passports around? Sheesh.
Was the North Face dude Amriki?
Comment by SP — December 1, 2006 #
Well, some sort of photo ID sometimes. But no, the dude wasn’t American. He was Arab. One could argue that neither of us had any business in eastern Afghanistan.
Comment by Andrew Exum — December 1, 2006 #
My response yesterday got flagged as spam, we shall see if this fares any better.
Anyway: Admin, thanks, but that does not really answer my question.
When I saw the allegations of Somali fighters in the Lebanon war I had assumed it was some sort of guilt-by-association charge against Hizbullah to lessen their appeal among “moderates.” That the claim may have arisen from fighters from other movements wanting to ride Hizbullah’s coat-tails had not occurred to me, hence my question.
Comment by mas — December 2, 2006 #
Sorry about the last comment, mas. I promise I didn’t flag your comment as spam. I just upgraded to a new version of WordPress…maybe that had something to do with it. Anyway, apologies.
The NYT’s anonymous intelligence official sounds like he’s got an agenda to promote. I’m surprised that the Times’ editors offered their services so willingly after they got so burned on the p. 1 Iraq WMD stories.
I haven’t seen the UN report on the Somalia-Iran-Hizballah connection. I’ve just seen it flamed on a very good academic mailing list I subscribe to. I’m not sure who the sources were for the UN report. On the face of it, a published report from the UN seems a lot more credible than an intelligence official speaking to a reporter on condition of anonymity.
Comment by Administrator — December 2, 2006 #