AL QUDS: Hezbollah ambushes that have killed six Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon suggest the Israeli army, which appears poised for a massive ground invasion, will face a bloody fight driving the militia back from the frontier.

The guerrillas have spent much of the time since Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 following 22 years of occupation preparing for battle. Its fighters and arsenal are well dispersed in the region’s mountainous terrain, experts said.

“We are talking about hundreds of guerrillas, all of them well-trained, intensely motivated, and fighting autonomous of Hezbollah’s high command,” said Alon Ben-David, Israel analyst for Jane’s Defence Weekly.

“They are deployed in a Viet Cong-style network of trenches and tunnels, which allow them to emerge for quick Katyusha (rocket) or gun attacks and take cover again.”

The army confirmed on Friday that four soldiers were killed and several wounded in fierce clashes with Hezbollah on Thursday. Fighting took place in the village of Maroun al-Ras, near where two soldiers were killed on Wednesday.

Israel’s army has said it killed four Hezbollah fighters.

Despite the casualties, signs of a ground invasion are getting stronger with Israel’s offensive in its second week.

Israel warned residents to leave southern Lebanon on Friday while the army ordered thousands of reserves to report for duty.

Israel launched the campaign after Hezbollah captured two Israel soldiers and killed eight in a cross-border raid.

One Israeli political source said the casualties this week would concern the army but were unlikely to dent its determination to dislodge the guerrillas. Israel wants to drive Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon to end rocket attacks.

What has raised concern in Israel is that the forces already taking casualties while conducting small-scale ground attacks in southern Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah bunkers are highly trained elite units.

And despite more than a week of heavy artillery barrages and air strikes, Hezbollah rockets keep hitting northern Israel, though the number of missiles has dropped off.

The Maariv newspaper quoted senior military sources as saying Hezbollah’s forces in southern Lebanon had not been harmed significantly by the operations.

The guerrillas in the south are battle hardened, having largely forced Israel out of the country after a long conflict that cost the lives of 1,000 soldiers and thousands of Lebanese.—Reuters