Iran-backed Hezbollah has it sights on Israel, posing 'immense problems'

Iran-backed Hezbollah has it sights on Israel, posing 'immense problems'

Chad Groening

A terrorism expert says Hezbollah has already started gearing up and is preparing to open a second front against Israel in northern Lebanon.

As the world awaits the all-out assault on Gaza by Israeli Defense Forces in the south, in the north Hezbollah – a Lebanon-based terrorist group – has at least 150,000 missiles directed at Israel spread across 40 towns in southern Lebanon that can reach all of Israel.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said if Hezbollah were to launch an attack on Israel, "It will make the mistake of its life. We will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine, and the consequences for it and the Lebanese state will be devastating."

Brigitte Gabriel is a national security analyst and chair of ACT for America. The native of Lebanon is considered one of the leading terrorism experts in the world.

"It is now imminent that Hezbollah will open up a second front in northern Lebanon," she tells AFN. "They've already started gearing up and preparing for that."

According to Gabriel, Hezbollah maintains weapon depots beneath hospitals and schools.

"[Also] many of the homes that were built in southern Lebanon [in Shi'ite towns] since 2006 have rooms with retractable ceilings where Hezbollah can launch rockets from within these rooms into Israel because Hezbollah controls the majority of southern Lebanon," she adds.

She also contends Hezbollah is being supplied with weapons, through Syria, coming from Russia, North Korea, China, and Iran. "[And they're] being trained by the Iranians," she states.

In a recent blog, Gabriel writes that Hezbollah's anti-warship missile capabilities "pose a major threat" to American warships stationed now in the Mediterranean Sea.

"Hezbollah also has drones capable of dropping munitions supplied by Iran, which could play a major role if Hezbollah gets into the fight," says the blog. "This will cause immense problems for Israel."