The Observer reports first-hand that Hezbollah is recruiting and training fighters at a fast and furious pace:
But what is becoming more obvious, even as Hizbollah tries to hide it, is that the group has embarked on an unprecedented build-up of men, equipment and bunker-building in preparation for the war that almost everyone – Lebanese and Israeli – considers inevitable. ‘The villages in the south are empty of men,’ said one international official. ‘They are all gone, training in Bekaa, Syria and Iran.’
A trip by The Observer through villages in the Hizbollah heartland confirmed a conspicuous lack of fighting-age men. Visible were several new martyr posters, but unlike the traditional ones they portrayed anonymous, fresh-faced youngsters without military garb. According to locals, these are boys who have been killed accidentally in the latest wave of training in Iran. In the city of Tyre, too, posters showing young men killed in training exercises are cropping up.
Mitchell Prothero’s dispatch ends on another sobering point: the possibility of Hezbollah fighters taking up arms against other Lebanese.
