Hezbollah is opening up new training camps and isn't hiding them:
Under Israel's wary eye, Hezbollah has ramped up the scope of its military training in east and south Lebanon, another sign that the militant group is girding for a future confrontation with Israel, which it has blamed for the assassination of a senior commander in Lebanon.
With Hezbollah heavily engaged in Syria, why would the article assume Israel is the focus?
The construction of simple urban warfare facilities may indicate that Hezbollah fighters plan to launch guerrilla-style raids into northern Israel in the event of another war. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, hinted at this tactic two years ago. ...
Two propaganda videos released this year show Hezbollah fighters storming mock-up buildings decorated in Israel's blue-and-white national flag.
It is unlikely that the primary motive for this expansion is Israel. Hezbollah has taken a role spearheading Assad's offensive (along with a Shia foreign legion organized and paid for by Iran) and has taken some heavy casualties.
Hezbollah may have answered Iran's call to fight in Syria, but the force is fairly small. Those casualties have to hurt:
Regional security officials told Reuters there are now between 2,000 and 4,000 Hezbollah fighters, experts and reservists in Syria.
That commitment is from a force estimated at 7,000 active gunmen and 20,000 reservists.
Nor is their intervention popular inside Lebanon.
Which is why Hezbollah has proclaimed that they are really fighting Israel in Syria. So literally draping an Israeli flag over buildings complements their figurative effort to pretend they aren't fighting Sunni Arabs in Syria.
Strategypage notes the better explanation for the training surge:
Hezbollah is heavily involved in Syria, but their gunmen fighting in Syria is proving very unpopular with most Lebanese, including many Hezbollah supporters. Hezbollah has reduced the number of fighters in Syria and is rotating them in and out of combat (and Syria). This means additional well-trained Hezbollah fighters are needed and that could be what the new training camps are for. But the camps could also be in preparation for another war with Israel.
So to keep their forces in Syria from having to stay there too long, Hezbollah needs more troops.
This will reduce the quality of their shock troops as new recruits replace active forces rotated out (and result in higher casualty rates with less experienced gunmen), although they will still be willing to lead the charges if they are committed gunmen who believe (at least long enough to die in an assault) that they are fighting Israel in Syria.
And when their troops rotate back to Lebanon, Hezbollah will have more trained reservists with some combat experience who can be mobilized in case Israel attacks. So this isn't completely unrelated to Israel.
Heck, Hezbollah may not have hidden the camps because they would actually welcome some Israeli air strikes to prove to their recruits that they really are training to fight Israel in Syria rather than going to kill fellow Arab Moslems (albeit Sunni ones) on the orders of Persian Iran.
It is unlikely, however, that Hezbollah intends to actually start a war with Israel since resupply from Iran via Syria would be difficult while the revolution in Syria rages.
But it is hard to say. Would Iran order Hezbollah to attack Israel before Syria is secured? Hezbollah may not have been of one mind on going to war for Assad, but they did it (from the Reuters article linked):
"Even if (Hezbollah) has its wise men, the decision (to fight in Syria) is not theirs," said a Lebanese security official who, like most people Reuters spoke to for this report, would not be named. "The decision is for those who created and established it. They are obliged to follow Iran's orders."
A Lebanese politician summed up the point, saying: "Nasrallah is not going to say ‘No' to someone who has given him $30 billion over the past 30 years."
With our ongoing interim retreat going on over Iran's nuclear program, would Iran risk halting that successful operation to send Hezbollah on a charge of the light brigade to strike Israel? Or does Iran assume they can get away with anything since Kerry and his boss desperately want a shiny agreement that they can pretend is great until they leave office in 2017?
