BEIRUT: The approaching winter is likely to lead to an increase in attacks by extremist groups ISIS and the Nusra Front either at weak points along the border or within Lebanon itself, analysts say, putting the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah at severe risk of being overstretched. “We do expect a breakthrough somewhere along the border,” said Hisham Jaber, a retired major general from the Lebanese Army and head of the Middle East Center for Studies and Public Affairs. “Those militants cannot stay where they are, they need logistical support, and especially when winter comes, they will need somewhere warmer.”
Several thousand fighters allied with ISIS and Nusra are believed to be located in Syria’s mountainous Qalamoun region that stretches along the Syrian-Lebanese border. Several hundred of these are camped out in the outskirts of Arsal, where heavy fighting with the Army broke out in August after they stormed the northeastern Lebanese border town.
Arsal has since witnessed a massive security crackdown, including controversial raids on surrounding Syrian refugee camps believed to be harboring militants, making future raids much more difficult.
Jaber pointed instead to several other potential weak spots on Lebanon’s border, including Akkar in the north and Shebaa in the south, as well as in West Bekaa. Crucially, he added, these were places where Hezbollah – which is also fighting the militants in Syria alongside the Syrian regime – does not have a strong presence and where the Shiite population was low to nonexistent.
“Arsal is now well defended by the Army,” said Elias Hanna, a retired general who now teaches strategy and geopolitics at the American University of Beirut. “So they will look for the weaker spots. Brital was one of them. So maybe they will move a bit to Zabadani [in Syria by the border], and the Western Bekaa.
“There are not many cities there, and no Hezbollah presence, as well as less of an Army presence.”
The importance of not having to fight two enemies at once is obvious, but there are also other reasons the militants would want to find Hezbollah-free areas to try to exploit or control during the freezing winter months.
While the Army has been treated to a spurt of financial and in-kind support recently from countries including the U.S., Saudi Arabia and possibly Iran, it remains woefully underequipped to deal with a sustained insurgency movement on the border on its own, especially if it occurs in several places.
Further, argues Randa Slim, a Lebanese-American political analyst at the Middle East Institute, the military is severely overcommitted and faces restrictions on what it can and can’t do due to its need to court public opinion, a problem Hezbollah does not seem to face.
“The army is about 35,000 strong, and they are now doing everything. They are engaged in every type of security activity ... So there are some questions about resources,” she said.
“There is also a line that the Army needs to be aware of; what the Army can do is different from what Hezbollah can do,” she added. “The Army is the Lebanese Army and has to act according to the consensus among communities in Lebanon, that has always been the case.
“So the Army has to take into consideration the fact that some within Sunni communities [in Lebanon] have certain sympathies for Nusra that limit how far the Army can go. Hezbollah has a freer hand in this sense.”
The result was a “coordination between the two” forces that she said was “part of an evolving modus operandi for both Hezbollah and the Army.”
“I think both groups see the extremists as an existential threat now,” she added.
Whether there is cooperation or not – a controversial subject for many in Lebanon who disagree with Hezbollah’s hefty non-state arsenal – the Lebanese Army is clearly braced for more border incursions in the coming months.
However, some believe that the harsh winter weather, which will blanket the eastern Anti-Lebanon Mountains in snow, may actually reduce the amount of fighting on the border.
“I think winter will have somewhat of a suppressive effect on the situation,” said Jeffrey White, a defense fellow at the Washington Institute. “It’s just harder to conduct operations in that weather, visibility drops, it’s harder to move vehicles around, troops are more exposed to elements.
“It doesn’t mean fighting will stop,” he explained, “but I think there will be a natural tendency to stay inside and save resources.”
“As far as the jihadists go, they are fighting on the move,” Hanna agreed. “They will be hindered by logistics, how they can move, how to conduct surveillance, preparations and exits. In some places there will be a lot of snow, so you cannot hide.”
“In principle, operations should decline in number because of the weather,” he said, before adding, “but maybe they will instead shift toward conducting operations deeper inside Lebanon, maybe they will use their sleeper cells.”
There have been numerous reports recently about the existence of such cells in Lebanon many of which are suspected to be within refugee camps awaiting a signal to conduct a suicide bombing or assassination similar to the spate of attacks seen late last year and early this year.
Although Slim believes the sleeper cells in Lebanon would more to likely comprise of clusters of sympathizers or relatives of fighters than anything more sophisticated, she agreed that they would likely be utilized as part of ISIS and Nusra’s struggle for the border.
“We are likely to see some attempts at activating some of the sleeper cells to create distractions in other areas to detract attention from border,” Slim agreed. “It’s a matter of life or death for them [ISIS and Nusra]. They need to have this supply line as winter approaches.
“The more the Army puts pressure on the militants in the border area the more likely they are to create disturbances to divert resources from the border.” Resources, all analysts agreed, would be the key sticking point this coming winter, in particular human resources.
“Any expansion of fighting, especially into new areas, will stretch the Army,” White said. “It’s not a big Army and it’s not used to conducting these operations over such a wide area.”
And Hezbollah, which is heavily committed in Syria, is not exempt from this problem. “I think Hezbollah has a problem of capacity right now,” Slim said. “The multiplicity of fronts on which it is engaged is a serious drain on their human resources. Especially given the fact they also have the southern front to maintain.”
“Everybody is overstretched,” Hanna agreed. “The Army, Hezbollah, the Syrian regime. But while they are all looking to crush the militants, the main strategy of the jihadists is just to survive. If they survive, they win.”