Hizbullah has 'precise' target list

Kassem: "That does not mean that war is near."

naim kassem  298.88 (photo credit: AP)
naim kassem 298.88
(photo credit: AP)
Hizbullah has "large and precise" list of Israeli targets to attack if a third Lebanon war breaks out, said the terrorist group's second-in-command, Naim Kassem, in an interview published Wednesday and reported on by AFP.
"We now hold a large and precise bank of Israeli targets, and Israel will have to pay the price for any step it takes," Kassem said to the An-Nahar newspaper, according to AFP.
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"Hizbullah has worked to develop its readiness to rise to the challenge should it arise, and we can safely say that in the past four years we have prepared ourselves far more than Israel has."
But Kassem denied that Hizbullah is seeking a fight. "That does not mean that war is near," he said.
In an additional interview with the Al-Binaa, Kassem said "we have taken into account all possible scenarios for sea, land and air across all of Lebanon.
"What happened in 2006 is much less than what could happen in the future," he added referring to the 2006 Lebanon War.
Kassem also commented on the recent attacks on UN peacekeeping forces in South Lebanon by Lebanese villagers, insisting the attacks were in response to "mistakes" the UN soldiers had made, according to AFP.
"It is only normal for townsfolk to stage peaceful protests when they see the troops moving into their villages at full force, as though they were in a state of war, and violating the known rules for their behavior," he told An-Nahar.
Kassem's statement about Hizbullah's target list supplemented a statement Sunday by Sheik Nabil Kaouk, the group's commander in southern Lebanon, that "Hizbullah has a target list ready."
The Hizbullah statements came in response to a release by Israel's military of maps and aerial photographs of what it described as a network of Hizbullah weapons depots and command centers in southern Lebanon.