More Information Emerges on Hizballah’s Efforts to Establish Its Own Telecommunications Network
By David Schenker
According to an article that appeared in the Beirut Daily Star today, the anti-Syria March 14th Movement Lebanese Minister of Telecommunications Marwan Hamadeh announced that the Defense, Interior, Telecommunications and Justice ministries would launch an "immediate" investigation into the creation of new telephone cables by Hizbullah. Hamadeh said that the Government of Lebanon had “discovered by accident that a new telephone network is being created along that of the state in Zawtar Sharqieh," and that Hizballah was doing the same in Beirut and Dahiyeh. He described these efforts as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty.
Hizballah’s effort to establish its own landlines is problematic. Not only does this effort bypass the Central Government of Lebanon—suggesting that Hizballah is working toward setting up its own mini-state in Lebanon ala the PLO in the 1970s—these lines of communication, outside the control of Beirut, may have military applications.
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