Terror Leader: Hezbollah's War Shows Us Israel Can Be Defeated


By Aaron Klein
G2 Bulletin
August 15, 2006

On the heels of a cease-fire imposed on Israel's military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Galil Report today talked to Abu Oudai, chief of the "rocketing department" for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group.

The Brigades, the declared "military wing" of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, is responsible for scores of shooting attacks, rocket launchings and – together with Islamic Jihad – every suicide bombing inside Israel the past two years.

Israel says Brigades leaders, including Abu Oudai and the group's Nablus chief Ala Senakreh and north Samaria leader Abu Nasser, also double as Hezbollah agents, coordinating their groups' attacks with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Brigades leaders have openly talked to the Galil Report about their affiliation with Hezbollah.

Abu Oudai discussed with the Galil Report his group's assessment of yesterday's cease-fire; what the Al Aqsa Brigades has learned from Hezbollah's fighting against the Israeli military; and the likelihood of a heated terror war to be launched against Israel and coordinated with Hezbollah, Iran and Syria.

Galil Report: How do you believe Hezbollah did during its confrontation with Israel?

Abu Oudai: I think that the most important achievement of this war is that this tremendous victory shows that Israel – with all its power, its air force, its tanks, its navy and its unlimited budget – can be defeated.

The faith in Allah, a real commitment to the holy Jihad and a good military preparation is enough to dictate for Israel the style of war that is more suitable for the mujahedeen and to defeat this enormous war machine that the heroes of Hezbollah had turn into a real paper tiger.

See the hundreds of Israeli tanks that the mujahedeen had destroyed, the aircraft that were shot down, the Israelis – most of them soldiers that Hezbollah killed. But above all the promise Hezbollah kept that no matter what the Israeli army will do and no matter how deep it will get inside Lebanon, Hezbollah will keep shooting the Israeli sites in the north of Israel.

Hezbollah sent a message to the Arabs and Muslims in the world and to all the revolutionary organizations all around the world that this imperialistic and colonialist product, no matter how the U.S. support it and no matter how they try to broadcast power, the truth is that they are weak, very weak.

Galil Report: Are you saying that Hezbollah won the war?

Abu Oudai: Nobody will deny that Hezbollah won. It won not only because it fought for more than 30 days on the ground against the soldiers whom we thought were the best in the world, not only because the Israeli raids did not prevent it from shooting its missiles, but because after 30 days of battles the truth is that the last confrontations took place very close to Metula and to the other parts of the Israeli borders. The village of Eita al-Shaab where the last Israeli soldiers were killed in this war is 500 meters from the Israeli border.

Hezbollah also won because the battles were not the traditional and classical battles of a guerilla organization against an official army, it won because the battles were very conventional. These were battles of soldiers, one in front of the other. It was not the classical method of guerillas hiding and stinging the enemy. It was more facing him but in the conditions that it dictates.

The military plans of Hezbollah on the ground, the ability to adapt the plans to the Israeli plans and tricks, the fact that even after Israeli sieges from the air, from the sea and on earth Hezbollah succeeded to supply its fighters with weapons, it succeeded to keep in contact with them on all levels of the command and that its bunker system was a fatal and deadly trap for the Israelis.

Hezbollah won because it shows that the Arab and Muslim world and its resistance had finally imposed a new equation – destructive Arab missiles versus destructive Israeli air raids, Arab refugees in Lebanon lead to Israeli refugees inside Israel. It is a totally new equation that marks a new era in the Middle East. It marks the beginning of the Arab and Muslims renaissance.

Galil Report: How badly was Hezbollah damaged? Is their rocket infrastructure minimized or intact?

Abu Oudai: Hezbollah was damaged like every group, army or anybody else who is in a war. It lost tens of its fighters, it lost missiles that were caught by the Israelis and it lost some of its posts on the ground.

But once again the answer is in its actions in the last days that prove that it was lightly damaged. Hezbollah's missiles infrastructure that was and will remain the most important element in this open war and confrontation was not hurt. Its command level leaders are still leading its strategy and on the political level the organization enjoys now a higher support in Lebanon and in the Arab and Muslim world.

Galil Report: Will Hezbollah continue to receive arms shipments from Iran and Syria?

Abu Oudai: Hezbollah will continue to arm because it had a strategic role in this conflict of the Middle East and only dumb, stupid and blind people can think that any international or local force can prevent the organization from keeping its military posts in the south and from receiving arms supplies from all around the world.

I must admit that some of the United Nations International Force In Lebanon members had a very friendly and cooperative (Abu Udai laughing) attitude towards Hezbollah. And can you imagine Hezbollah being defeated by thousands of soldiers who will be deployed with no political interest and with no enthusiasm on the ground?

Galil Report: Do you think after the cease-fire takes effect Hezbollah will continue firing rockets into northern Israel? Perhaps not at the rate it fired during the confrontation, but do you think Hezbollah will maintain a low-grade rocket war where we see rockets now fired regularly by Hezbollah, or will they end their rocket fire entirely?

Abu Oudai: Hezbollah will never take the initiative to break with the cease-fire. It will never break its own rules and its own equation that says that rockets are used only in case of Israeli air raids and in case that civilian Lebanese are hurt. But I spoke about its strategic role and it means that if the Lebanese prisoners inside Israel are not liberated, if Shabaa Farms are not liberated, Hezbollah will hit once again in the way it will decide to do so.

Galil Report: Is Hezbollah afraid the Lebanese Army together with a U.N. force will keep it from rearming and regrouping in South Lebanon? Will the Lebanese army confront Hezbollah? Why or why not?

Abu Oudai: The Lebanese army made it clear that it will not deploy in the south before Hezbollah agrees. The Lebanese army command is in excellent relations with Hezbollah and will never confront Hezbollah. The truth is that Hezbollah has supporters in the army and if – Allah forbid – and it is not a realistic scenario – Hezbollah will be obliged to confront the Lebanese army it will take care of this very quickly. The Lebanese army will not confront the party that represents the biggest ethnic group in the country. With the army or without it, with the UNIFIL reinforced forces or not, the basic image is that the status quo will be kept until the next round of fighting against Israel.

Galil Report: Do you have any information about the two Israeli soldiers Hezbollah kidnapped? Think they are alive? Will Hezbollah eventually release them?

Abu Oudai: I know that they are alive but it is useless to try to guess or to gamble when will they be released. His honor, [Hezbollah] Secretary General Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, made it clear. He said only when the Lebanese prisoners in Israel will be released, only then Hezbollah will release its prisoners. All the armies in the world will not succeed to free them if Samir Quntar and his brothers in the Israeli jails are not released. I already spoke about Hezbollah policy of equation – missiles versus air raids, prisoners versus prisoners and an equilibrium of fear that will limit Israel from fighting.

Galil Report: Do you know where Nasrallah is? Damascus? Iran's embassy in Lebanon?

Abu Oudai: I do not think that it would be a great surprise if we discover that he was in Syria or even in Iran, but a leader like Nasrallah cannot be far from his fighters.

Galil Report: What did your group learn from Hezbollah's confrontation with Israel? That Israel is weak? That it can be defeated? Will you respond? Are you emboldened now to attack?

Abu Oudai: We learned what we already started to discover after Israel's Gaza withdrawal was implemented – that if there is faith and real commitment to Jihad we can beat and defeat the Israeli army and liberate our lands.

There is no doubt that one of our immediate conclusions is that we should appropriate very soon strategic tools such as missiles and more important things to built a military system that can enable us to survive the Israeli war machine. This takes time, but Gaza was the first proof, Lebanon now is one more better proof that the Israeli army can do little if we can hold more than a few weeks in front of its war machine and lead attacks.

In the 2002 operation [Defensive Shield in Jenin in the northern West Bank] we held and survived, but we were able to react only modestly. If we succeed to have improved rockets – and we are doing our best to have them – and to shoot them even if the army will invade us, it would be the beginning of the end of the occupation.

Galil Report: Will your group attempt large-scale attacks now? What kind? Be specific. Are attacks being coordinated with Hezbollah?

Abu Oudai: We are coordinated with all the power who believes that Israeli occupation to Palestine must be ended. We are working hard to carry out all kinds of attacks, but this is time to work silently and to prepare the war like Hezbollah did in the last six years. The war imposed high standards of military actions especially from Hezbollah. This should be our leading model for the future. If we do so, this Israeli army full of gay soldiers and full of corruption and with old-fashioned war methods can be defeated also in Palestine. The best is if it is a war in more than one front, and I believe it is not an impossible scenario.

Galil Report: What do you think of Olmert's leadership during all of this? Has he weakened Israel?

Abu Oudai: His honor the Sheik Nasrallah spoke on the eve of the war and warned the Israelis and the Israeli leadership from the lack of experience of Olmert, Peretz and Halutz. In the Quran it is written that there is a rotation in the power of people, and we believe it our time and if we respect Allah's instructions this land will be Muslim forever.