Cilina
Nasser: 04/07/03
As
US-led troops fight the battle for Baghdad, memories of the
last time an Arab capital came under siege throw up some interesting
parallels.
“Almost
the same thing that happened 21 years ago here in Beirut is
happening now in Baghdad,” said Elias Atallah, who was in
charge of the resistance groups defending that city against the
Israeli invasion.
In
1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to eradicate the Palestine
Liberation Organisation, staging ferocious air strikes that were
followed by a ground offensive with tanks and bombardment from
the sea.
“The
first area which Ariel Sharon (who was Israel’s defence
minister at the time) seized in Beirut was the airport,” he
said drawing comparisons with US attempts to take full
control of Saddam International Airport, 20 km to the southwest
of Baghdad.
The
US wants to use the airport as a link for supplies for the
US-led troops, especially as the invading forces have failed to
secure the road from the southern cities to the Iraqi capital.
Atallah
spoke about the possibility of making the airport the departure
point for US ground troops to other areas in Baghdad just as
Israel did in 1982.
“From
Beirut airport“Israel deployed its troops to other
semi-residential areas until they tightened their grip on the
capital, besieging it as bombardment intensified from the air,
ground and sea,” he said.
Unlike
Baghdad, the Lebanese capital was divided as a result of
the civil war and
the airport was located in the southern outskirts of west
Beirut, which was then under the control of Palestinian and
Lebanese Muslim and leftist militias.
Israeli
forces deployed in areas under control of their Lebanese
Christian militia allies in the east and the north of the city
before being able to enter west Beirut on September 15, more
than three months after its war on Lebanon began.
But fierce
resistance forced Israel to pull out its troops after only
11 days of occupation.
Atallah,
who led some of the leftist resistance groups that played a
major role in ousting Israeli forces, said that the tactics used
by Iraqi fighters in Umm Qasr resembled those used by the
Lebanese resistance in 1982.
“In
the first assault on Umm Qasr, the Iraqi fighters kept out of
sight only to emerge later and surprise the Americans,” he
continued, “and that was to avoid a confrontation with the
highly sophisticated technology at the Americans’ disposal.”
That’s
why, Atallah explained, the US-led troops initially announced
that they had captured Umm Qasr.
“During
the Israeli invasion, we used to get very close to the Israeli
tanks, sometimes with only one building separating us so that
the Israeli aircraft would not be able to bomb us,” he said.
“I
am almost certain that is what had happened in Umm Qasr,”
Atallah said, adding: “The Iraqis cannot win over the huge
technology used in this war, but they can deceive it.”
Resistance
fighters in Lebanon armed with shoulder-launched
rocket-propelled grenades had to repel Israeli-made Merkava
tanks designed for increased survivability and safety.
Iraqi
paramilitary groups currently fighting the US-led forces are
using similar light arms against the highly sophisticated US
machinery in southern cities. But Al Jazeera correspondent in
Basra, Mohammed Abdallah, said the Iraqi fighters from the
irregular militias do not loook well-trained.
Abdallah
reported that residents in Basra were guiding British troops to
members of the ruling Baath party and other loyalist of Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein.
But
Atallah said that such a situation will change, recalling how
many people in south Lebanon threw rice as a sign of joy on the
invading Israeli forces.
Palestinian
militiamen had used the southern villages to launch attacks on
northern Israel, exposing the residents of the south to
continuous retaliatory Israeli bombardment. Therefore, they were
happy to see the Palestinians leave.
“But
those same people turned against the Israelis who stayed in
Lebanon and became occupiers,” Atallah said, expecting a
similar turn of events in Iraq.
“Now,
the Shia are welcoming the invading forces because they are
happy to see Saddam Hussein go,” he said. “They might throw
on the Americans and British troops rice for one or two months,
and later things will change when the troops start behaving as
occupiers.”
Just
as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat negotiated his way out from
Beirut, the Iraqi president might face the same option.
“Saddam Hussein cares more about ruling Iraq than about the
interests of Iraq and therefore when he will see that he can’t
repel the invaders, he would leave.”
Such
a scenario could happen by laying a tough siege on Baghdad as
the Israelis did in West Beirut where they cut off water and
electricity supplies and banned vegetables and meat from
entering the city. The tired people then pressured Arafat
and the PLO to just leave.
---
Al
Jazeera
