Hezbollah buying land near Israel

CHBAIL, Lebanon, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Hezbollah is buying land in Lebanon from which it could attack Israel just 10 miles away and within rocket range of Israel’s cities, it was reported Sunday.

“Christians and Druze are selling land and moving out, while the Shia are moving in. There is an extraordinary demographic shift taking place,” said Edmund Rizk, a former Christian member of Lebanon’s Parliament.

The large tracts of land include numerous valleys -- ideal terrain for the kind of guerrilla warfare favored by Hezbollah Shias, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants appear to be fortifying valleys north of the Litani River, where they avoid harassment from the 13,000 United Nations peacekeepers and 20,000 Lebanese army soldiers deployed south of the river, the British newspaper reported.

Much of the land in Chbail and several Druze and Christian villages has been bought by Ali Tajeddine, a wealthy Shia businessman who traded diamonds in Sierra Leone before starting a thriving construction business in Lebanon, the Telegraph reported.