Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Shia’a Islamist group Hezbollah, announced yesterday in an important speech that Hezbollah could call upon 100,000 fighters if there were to be a war with the Lebanese Forces, which only consists of about 10,000-15,000 fighters.
Nasrallah also made an appeal to Lebanon’s Christians as a whole, defending Hezbollah’s actions. He made sure to say that Hezbollah defended Christians in Syria against both ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra (which is now Hya’at Tahrir al-Sham or HTS). These groups targeted Christians during the Syrian civil war.
The most interesting part of the speech was his focus on Hezbollah’s comparative military dominance. As I have said in previous posts, Hezbollah is by far the most powerful group in Lebanon. However, 100,000 fighters is likely an exaggeration, but it is unclear to what degree it is wrong. Hezbollah, like any militia, has a call up system, meaning that its resting size is far smaller than its full capacity. In the event of a full scale war, Hezbollah would call up all able bodied members of the militia to mobilize. For some reference, I have written about similar mobilization orders in Syria by opposition militias in Dara’a.
Nasrallah is saying pretty clearly: do not mess with us.
Besides its relative size, it also has a massive stockpile of missiles and rocket artillery. A war with Hezbollah would be particularly unpleasant for the LF, and I am sure its leadership is aware of this. If the U.S. was willing to arm and support the LF, it would make its positions stronger, but this is an unlikely outcome. The Biden administration would likely not support any factions outside of the Lebanese government directly.
Here is Nasrallah’s full speech. I forget where I read the translation. It should not be to hard to find if you look around.