Hizballah: What are the Weapons For?

It hasn't made big headlines, compared to Tuesday's bus bombing that killed three people in a Christian enclave, but Lebanese lately have been worrying alot about an incident involving a truckload of Hizballah weapons bound not for the border with Israel but for Beirut. Since Hizballah's only military raison d'etre is supposedly to fight Israel, is it stockpiling short-range weapons in Beirut in preparation for a civil war against other Lebanese?
Hizballah claims the right and necessity to bear arms as the only organization in Lebanon, the Lebanese army included, that can defend the country against Israeli attacks. During last summer's war, Hizballah surprised the world by demonstrating its ability to fire missiles at Israeli cities. So it was with surprise as well as alarm that Lebanese learned last week that Hizballah was sneaking a truckload of weapons--240 120mm mortars and 70 Russian-designed rockets, Lebanese sources told me--into its stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs. Hizballah did nothing to deny the incident, asked for the return of the weapons and insisted that they were eventually headed to its fighters in southern Lebanon. There are other easier routes the truck could have taken, however.
In fairness to Hizballah, the group's public declarations have adamantly rejected any return to civil war. But the group's efforts to topple the government through massive street actions have nonetheless dangerously heightened political and sectarian tensions and tipped the country toward civil war.
The weapons episode further complicates the confrontation. The government has been working quietly to find a way to remove Hizballah's excuses for carrying weapons, which were used to national purpose during the group's successful guerrilla war between 1982-2000 to end Israel's occupation of Lebanon. The government is pressuring the U.S. to pressure Israel to withdraw from Shebaa Farms, which remains the only patch of Lebanese land that Hizballah claims is still occupied by Israel. The government has promised that no step would be taken to disarm Hizballah against its will and that its demilitarization will take place with Hizballah's agreement.
But the seizure of Hizballah's weapons raises some points that put new pressure on the group. The amry's refusal to return the weapons suggests an emerging policy of forbidding Hizballah to carry weapons at all, not only banning them from southern Lebanon in accordance with last summer's U.N. cease-fire resolution. There are also good odds that the weapons came from Hizballah's ally Syria, in violation of Resolution 1701. The truck was spotted and followed initially not by the army but Lebanese customs, which is on the lookout for smuggling across the Syrian-Lebanese border. All of this puts Hizballah in a tight spot, bu that makes Lebanon a more dangerous place.

--By Scott MacLeod/Beirut