Hizbullah builds new line of defense

In a speech on Feb. 16, Hizbullah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah admitted that the group was "transporting weapons to the front [in the south]."

"We have weapons of all kinds and quantities, as many as you want. We don't fight our enemy with swords made of wood," he said.

Still, the extent of the military buildup in these "security pockets" north of the Litani is unclear given the ingenuity of Hizbullah's engineers and the strict secrecy under which the group operates. Before the war last summer, Hizbullah spent six years secretly building bunkers, tunnels, and firing positions along the border with Israel.

In one case, a bunker complex 100 feet underground covering an area of almost a square mile was built within 300 yards of a UNIFIL observation post and an Israeli army position on the border, but its existence remained hidden until after the war.

"They let us see certain things like their observation posts along the border fence, but all the time they were building an underground city in the south that we never knew existed," says Timur Goksel, who retired as UNIFIL's senior adviser in 2003.

Hizbullah's area of deployment north of the Litani is populated by Shiites, Christians, and Druze who live in small villages and farmsteads tucked into the folds of these remote mountains.

For the past year, Ali Tajiddine, a Shiite businessman who traded diamonds in West Africa before branching into property development and construction, has been snapping up vast tracts of land in the district from impoverished Christian and Druze property holders.

On one barren windswept hillside, a new community called Ahmadiyeh is being built from scratch with houses and shops surrounding a stone quarry owned by Mr. Tajiddine. Some two-thirds of a nearby Druze village called Sraireh has been bought up and more than 440 acresof land has been purchased from the nearby Christian hamlet of Qotrani where 30 buildings are under construction and have been sold to Shiites, according to local residents.

"There's no living to make here, so people are selling their land and moving," says one of the 350 remaining residents of Sraireh, which has seen 80 percent of its population leave, mainly to the Druze-dominated Chouf mountains farther north. He says that Tajiddine was paying in cash whatever amount was requested by property owners.

Walid Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon's Druze and arch foe of Hizbullah, says that the land is being purchased with Iranian funds delivered to Hizbullah and disbursed by Tajiddine. Tajiddine's connections to Hizbullah are widely known locally in south Lebanon. One of his relatives was arrested in Antwerp, Belgium, in May 2003 in a case involving diamonds from West Africa and suspected money laundering on behalf of Hizbullah.

Mr. Jumblatt says the intention is to create a Shiite belt spanning the northern bank of the Litani, allowing Hizbullah freedom to operate while severing Christian and Druze districts from each other.

"I have bought some land in Sraireh to encourage people to stay," he says. "But I can't compete financially with Iran."

But Hizbullah officials dismiss the allegations as unfounded. "Walid Jumblatt likes to stir calm waters," says Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hizbullah's deputy leader. "Since when was Lebanon a series of cantons where Shiites can only buy land in Shiite areas?"

Tajiddine also plays down the sectarian nature of his business dealings, arguing that the area in question is only a "tiny fraction" of his nationwide property developments. "The buildings are for my employees who work in the quarries. I have employees who are Shiites, Druze, Sunnis, and Christians."

But the remaining residents of Qotrani and Sraireh question Tajiddine's interest in this remote district of south Lebanon. "There's nothing here. This is not an area for investment," says one, gesturing at the surrounding brush-covered mountains.

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