Deadly experience - The Economist
“Died in a hateful Zionist air raid,” reads the headstone of one of the group’s early recruits, killed here in the Bekaa Valley over 30 years ago. In recent years it has become one of the most visible protagonists in the Syrian civil war, fighting for the government. It is now perhaps the Arab world’s most experienced and competent military force. Its losses over the past three years of war in Syria are estimated at around 1,500 men, a lot for a force thought to number no more than 15,000 (excluding part-time reservists). Casualties, and an expanding area of operations, have forced it to relax its once-strict qualifications for recruits, say Hizbullah veterans. Besieging Arab cities with tanks and Syrian air support would once have been alien to Hizbullah. force to one that is far more capable of a wider range of operations,” says Jeffrey White of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think-tank. Despite its involvement in Syria, Hizbullah’s most important front remains the border with Israel. “Those guys underground live every day as if the next war will start tomorrow,” says a commander. Source: www.economist.com
