Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
The audacious attack on the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah is likely to have effectively halted their operations, at least temporarily, crippled their command and control networks, and injured many of their fighters.
Those of us who have fought Al Qaeda and Isis in Afghanistan and Iraq are all too familiar with the jihadists’ use of mobile phones and pagers to detonate bombs, which have claimed the lives of many British soldiers. It brings a measure of satisfaction to see the terrorists receive a taste of their own medicine.
This operation exemplifies what is known in military strategy as the “indirect approach”. Coined by British tank commander B. H. Liddell Hart after World War I, this strategy seeks to reduce high casualty rates in conflict zones characterised by dense forces, such as the Western Front. In this case, it targets a fleeting and elusive enemy that hides among civilians, making them difficult to strike without causing extensive collateral damage, as we have seen in Gaza. As the great General Bill Slim aptly put it, “Hit the other fellow as quickly as you can, as hard as you can, where it hurts him most, when he ain’t lookin’.” This principle appears to have guided what was likely a Mossad operation against Hezbollah.
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