It isn't online, but I just saw on CNN Israeli Navy footage of three maritime attacks on Israel. One was a jetskier, his jetski packed with explosives, who attempted to strike an Israeli beach. (PLO terrorists infiltrated Israel by sea many times with bloody results. A Fatah seaborne raiding party in 1978 killed 36 and sparked Israel's first large-scale incursion into Lebanon, Operation Litani.)

The second was a rubber raft that, when fired on detonated. Last was a small boat that sailed close to an Israeli navy ship and detonated, killing the suicide boat's two man crew and also seriously wounding two Israeli sailors.

Israel has formidable coastal security. But, everything that happens in this battle between Israel and Hezbollah is also a test run for tactics and equipment the Iranians may use. So this new maritime front is a likely preparation for fighting the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf.

In my last post I knocked the talking heads. I confess, I wish I was one. I know a lot about Hezbollah, Israel etc. Why not me?

Apparently Zawahiri similarly craves attention. We watched his long, public rivalry with Zarqawi (the Battle to the Bottom of the Alphabet.) Sitting in a cave in Pakistan, Zawahiri is no longer part of the action. He long sought to be the great Jihadi figure, but lacked the charisma of Egyptian Islamic Group leader Sheikh Rahman or OBL. But at least he has a good booker.

I am watching and reading the various pundits and talking heads. The continuing refrain is that Israel is bogged down, not progressing, stymied by Hezbollah's ferocity. I never doubted Hezbollah's competence or ferocity. But information from the field as the battle is raging is often unclear. Up until the Emperor's speech (after Hiroshima and Nagasaki) the Japanese thought they were winning.

This is not over, by any means. But there may be signs that Israeli forces are performing ably and goals are being achieved. One interesting story from the Israeli press reports that while Hezbollah is highlighting Israeli casualties they are substantially downplaying their own.

I'll end with these words from the dean of Israeli defense correspondents, Ha'aretz's Ze'ev Schiff who, in his column on Thursday wrote:

Unfortunately, over the past few days, a new national sport has emerged in the Israeli media: criticizing the IDF to the point of humiliation and unearthing failures, real or otherwise. The war has barely started, yet there are already calls for a commission of inquiry. If this had been the case during the War of Independence, we would not even have managed to take Jaffa.

While the world is focused on a tiny area of northern Israel and southern Lebanon, Venezuela's President and Axis of Evil wannabe (he has been more supportive of Iran's nuclear program than anyone - even Syria - and he wanted to visit North Korea) has been shopping.

His interest in high performance Russian fighters and helicopters has gotten most of the attention, but the real danger is in the Kalashnikov rifles. A few dozen high performance fighters may skew Latin America's conventional balance of power. Chavez may try to push around his tiny neighbors, but this modest Air Force probably won't intimidate larger countries like Columbia and Brazil. Also, if push comes to shove the U.S. can put its thumb on the scales pretty easily.

The 100,000 Kalashnikovs (Chavez is also seeking a license to build his own) however are another story. Latin America is rife with insurgencies past, present and future. His neighbor Columbia has an active one, and Chavez has been an ally to the Marxist Columbian terrorist group FARC. Bolivia may be sliding into a period of internal strife as Hugo protege Evo Morales attempts to redistribute the land, and the landowners in the highlands resist. Peru meanwhile is a potential perfect storm of insurgency. Sendero Luminoso, which waged a brutal Maoist insurgency in the 1980s, is still around and may be flush with drug money. Ollanta Humala, who earlier this year was nearly elected Peru's President, is a former military officer who tried, in October 2000, to overthrow Peru's government. His organization has a paramilitary tinge to it. Brazil has a different problem - large-scale (tens of thousands of members) criminal street gangs. Suffice to say, Latin America will not be well-served by an influx of cheap automatic rifles.

Already pumping his cash, cheap oil, and rhetoric into Latin American politics. Hugo can now advance his radical world view the old-fashioned way: from the barrel of an AK-47.

I just watched myself on CSPAN. That was cool and not nearly as personally horrifying as I thought it might be.

Yesterday morning I appeared, with Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum and Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy at a forum on the Role of Syrian and Iran in Hezbollah.

I led off, discussing Hezbollah's formidable capabilities and its readiness to share these capabilities with other malicious actors around the globe. Patrick Clawson, a leading expert on Iran, discussed Iran's role and the lessons Iran is taking from the current crisis. Daniel Pipes discussed U.S. and Israeli options in the current crisis and particular recommended targeting Syria.

The forum, in its entirety, can be viewed online. Also, it is airing on C-SPAN2 right now.

My old standby National Review Online ran this piece I wrote on Hezbollah's 1994 bombing of the AMIA building in Buenos Aires. It was a brutal attack that has potentially chilling implications today.


July 24, 2006, 6:07 a.m.

Terror in Buenos Aires
A lesson in Hezbollah terror.

By Aaron Mannes

Last Tuesday morning, a siren sounded in Buenos Aires to mark the 12th
anniversary of the bombing of the AMIA building, the chief offices of
Argentina's Jewish community. The bombing killed 85 people and injured
over 250. It was the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. It
was the work of Hezbollah, working closely under Iranian sponsorship,
and it perfectly illustrates Hezbollah's intentions, capabilities, and
modus operandi. As the West hurtles into a confrontation with Iran,
sparked by the current Israeli-Hezbollah conflagration, it is worth
examining this deadly effective attack in Argentina over a decade ago.

The AMIA bombing was not Hezbollah's first strike in Argentina. Two
years earlier, a Hezbollah suicide bomber hit the Israeli embassy in
Buenos Aires, killing 29 and wounding over 200. This attack was in
retaliation for Israel's assassination of Hezbollah's Secretary-General
Abbas Musawi. His replacement was Hezbollah's current leader Hassan
Nasrallah.

Two years later, Hezbollah, under orders from the Iranian leadership,
struck again in Buenos Aires. Israel had just captured a senior
Hezbollah leader, Mustafa Dirani, who had helped capture Israeli airman
Ron Arad. At the same time, Israel had recently bombed a Hezbollah
training base, killing over 20 Hezbollah fighters. Finally, Argentina's
President Carlos Menem, had, under U.S. pressure, reneged on deals to
provide ballistic-missile and nuclear technology to Syria and Iran.
Argentine intelligence believes that the orders for these attacks came
from the very top of the Iranian regime. Both of the Buenos Aires
terror attacks illustrate how Iran and Hezbollah play hardball with
their opponents.

Terrorism requires organization and logistics. Hezbollah's ability to
carry out an attack in Buenos Aires, halfway across the world from
their primary base in Lebanon, is impressive. One factor in the AMIA
bombing's success was, according to Argentine intelligence, the support
from the Iranian embassy. Mohsen Rabbani, the "cultural attaché,"
coordinated the operation. Reportedly he purchased the Renault van used
in the bombing. This pattern of Iranian-Hezbollah cooperation is not
unique to the Buenos Aires operations. Hezbollah carried out a series
of bombings in Paris from December 1985 to September 1986. These
bombings were linked to a translator at Iran's embassy in Paris and led
to a diplomatic standoff between France and Iran.

Another factor explaining Hezbollah's long reach is the organizational
genius of Hezbollah's security chief, Imad Mughniyah. A former gunman
with Yasser Arafat's elite Force 17, Mughniyah is on the FBI's
most-wanted list for his role in the 1985 hijacking of TWA 847 in which
a U.S. Navy diver was tortured and killed. Linked to numerous terrorist
attacks, including suicide bombings and hostage taking in Lebanon, and
the Buenos Aires attacks, Mughniyah is currently believed to be
coordinating Iranian and Hezbollah support for Palestinian terrorists.
He also met with Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s to forge an
alliance between al Qaeda and Hezbollah. Wanted by several governments,
Mughniyah keeps a low profile. However, he is believed to have appeared
publicly, for the first time in over a decade, with Iran's President
Ahmadinejad at a meeting in Damascus in January.

Finally, the AMIA attack had consequences beyond the mayhem of the
bombing itself. The AMIA bombing created an open wound in Argentine
politics that has festered for a decade as the investigation has been
mired in corruption, cover-ups, and incompetence. This aftermath is
typical of Hezbollah terrorism. Time and again, Hezbollah terror
attacks have had a profound strategic impact. Hezbollah's first attack
in April 1983 against the U.S. embassy in Beirut wiped out the Beirut
CIA station - a blow from which the agency has yet to recover. The
double bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks and the French barracks led
to the withdrawal of the U.S. led multinational peacekeeping force from
Lebanon, leaving Lebanon to the tender mercies of the Syrians and
Iranians. Hezbollah's hostage taking in the 1980s led to secret
negotiations by the American and French governments with Iran. These
negotiations triggered the Iran-Contra scandal in the U.S. and a
similar scandal in France.

The AMIA bombing was the epitome of an Iranian-Hezbollah terror attack.
It was a sophisticated act of mass murder that sent a brutal message to
Iran's enemies, while leaving deep political scars.

As the fighting increases, Hezbollah may again turn to international
terror. Besides Latin America, Hezbollah has carried out attacks across
the Middle East and Europe. Hezbollah cells have been found in the Far
East, North America, and Central Asia. It is very likely that Hezbollah
retains a formidable international network, and if pressured will use
it. In a recent interview with al-Jazeera, Hezbollah Secretary-General
Nasrallah stated that Hezbollah was going to take "the initiative" and
"offer some surprises." The AMIA bombing was one Hezbollah surprise and
remembering it is a reminder of the danger Hezbollah poses, not only to
Israel, but also to the world.