Hezbollah's Electronic Warriors

A year after the terror group's war with Israel, Hezbollah's sophistication continues to surprise. Not only did the Islamists blend high-tech missiles and drones with an "open source" command structure. They also managed to survive some of Israel's electronic and network assaults. Retired Israeli Colonel David Eshel describes in this month's Journal of Electronic Defense (which is subscriber-only, alas). Here's a snip:

*Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had provided Hezbollah with a [system] capable of circumventing large segments of Israel's sophisticated EW [electronic warfare] network in the combat zone... *

Entering into captured
Hezbollah command bunkers [see pic, right], Israeli EW experts were surprised by the sophisticated protective mechanisms attached to Hezbollah's
Iranian-made communications networks, which were discovered to be connected by optical fibers not susceptible to electronic jamming. The Iranian electronic engineers' success proved such that on Wednesday
August 9, nearly four weeks into the war, Hezbollah's communications networks were still operating at points only 500 meters from the
Israeli border.

Eshel also confirms that Hezbollah was able to track Israeli officers' movements by listening in on their cell phones (not to their military radios, as some reported).

Israel scored some high-tech wins of their own. Using their drones, the Israelis were able to track Hezbollah rocket caches -- to the rented rooms inside civilians homes where they were hidden.