Booby Trapped for a Wider Conflict ۔۔۔۔ Dr Raashid Wali Janjua
The pager bombing in Lebanon has caught the fancy of all and sundry considering the technological novelty of the attacks. There are reports of PETN traces in the pager battery packs cleverly inserted and then initiated through a remote radio frequency signal. Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate (PETN) has in the past remained a weapon of choice for the terrorists for its stable nature and explosive energy. Amongst most explosive forms of the detonating chemicals like RDX, TND, TATP and Aziroazide PETN is most lethal as its properties lend themselves to uses in shaped charged mode. In the past the terrorists have used PETN as a weapon of choice as in the case of Shoe bomber bombing i 2001 and Lockerbie bombing 1988.
The pager explosions that killed around 40 and maimed nearly 3000 Hizbullah activists as well as civilians in Lebanon created panic and anger amongst the civilians who never expected a low-tech communication device meant for civilian use to be used as a weapon of war. 500 unsuspecting civilians have suffered eye injuries including Iranian Ambassador in Lebanon. Normally such asymmetric tactics are used by the terrorist entities against state actors and as well as civilian populations but the use of such tactics by a state entity is rare. Though Israel has not owned up to the use of explosives in pagers as a weapon of war but the circumstantial evidence and other attitudinal pointers indicate the involvement of its techno-intelligence establishment in the act.
According to Human Rights Office of UN the explosions are a violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and “these attacks could constitute war crimes of murder, attacking civilians, and launching indiscriminate attacks, in addition to violating the right to life.” Some experts go as far as to brand these attacks as war crimes due to their indiscriminate use against civilians of a sovereign state by the security apparatus of a state actor. The Israeli version is being aired through desultory statements and comments by the think tank community and academics affiliated with Israel. It is now the test of the strength of the international law architecture and the world community to call out this violation of international law.
Speaking to Aljazeera, a former IDF Brig General who heads a think tank in Israel, remarked quite smugly that Israel was defending itself against the barrage of rockets that had forced 60,000 of its people out of northern Israel and that it reserved the right to respond against a terror group that was controlling southern Lebanon. The statement of IDF Defence Minister Gallant also left no doubts that Israel was moving troops including commando units and armour towards South Lebanon. The statement by Lebanon’s Ambassador to UK about the possibility of a doomsday regional war and the warning by Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrullah about Israel crossing all redlines including “controls, morals and laws” to declare war bode ill for the regional peace.
The late night Thursday attacks by Israeli warplanes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon have added a dangerous dimension to the Israel-Palestine conflict which now appears to be heading towards a regional conflagration. Israel detests wars of attrition contrary to Hezbollah which relishes that mode of conflict. Israel apparently is positioning for a large scale operation to widen the conflict in Middle East. The motivations of the act and prognosis of the resulting conflict need some clear answers. The motivations of the main protagonists in the conflict equation differ in nature but converge in effect.
For instance the Hamas in Gaza is motivated by a desire to defy the Israeli attempts at decapitating the Hamas leadership and sanitizing Gaza strip of the presence of militant infrastructure of Hamas. A ceasefire at this moment serves the Hamas ends as Israel’s inability to defeat Hamas conclusively connotes a Hamas victory. In long term the Hamas wants Palestinian state according to pre 1948 status. Israel has a short term objective of defeating Hamas and getting hostages released and avoiding ceasefire on Hamas terms. The long term goals of Israel are to expand its territory in keeping with Greater Israel idea of right wing Israelis like Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Meir Kahane who is known for his saying that, “the idea of a democratic Jewish state is non sense and that the Arabs are like dogs who must sit quietly or get the hell out.”
At present the short term interest of Netanyahu is to avoid ceasefire and to widen the conflict enticing Hizbullah and Iran into the conflict. He has already succeeded in involving Yemeni Houthis into the conflict. If the conflict is broadened the United States would be compelled to jump in the fray as would be Iran. Israel would therefor achieve two main purposes i.e defeating Hamas and Iran with a US led coalition’s help. The scenario is frightening for the regional as well as global peace as the conflict might get widened to affect other stakeholders like China and Russia whose interests are not served by the widening of the conflict in Middle East.
The ineluctable conclusion one can draw from the putative Israeli Pager attack followed by air strikes on Southern Lebanon is that Israel is deliberately provoking Hezbollah and Iran to get sucked into the conflict. The latest targeted strike on Friday has killed Aqil Ibrahim a Hezbollah leader and that might be the tipping point for a major Hezbollah retaliation. The US response so far has been cautious with its administration showing ignorance about any prior Israeli attacks upon Lebanon. Iran which so far has been very circumspect since it knows the Netanyahu game i.e luring Iran into a war and ultimately a confrontation with the US led coalition.
Hezbollah also has remained relatively restrained in its response since the beginning of Gaza War despite the accusations of being a shilling accomplice of Iran by Palestinian hardliners. The patience may just be running thin as Israel has managed to escalate the conflict while the UN, the Arab World and the West have failed to rein in Israel. The specter of a wide Middle Eastern conflict involving Israel, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iran looms large on the horizon while the Likud narrative of Israel is in Peril” gains traction with the Israeli population. According to a latest Jewish Policy Institute survey 62% of the Israeli settlers favour Israeli attack on Hizbullah in Lebanon.
The booby-trapped paging devices might have trapped the peace options for the region and the globe. It is a prognosis that needs to be taken seriously by the international community.
(The writer is a security analyst and PhD from NUST”rwjanj@hotmail.com)