Battening down the hatches

After the car bomb attack last month in southern Beirut which left 30 people dead and hundreds injured, Hezbollah now finds itself in a position similar to its enemies in Israel and the West in the post-September 11, 2001 era — trying to maintain security without causing too much disruption to people’s lives. Hezbollah men wearing rubber surgical gloves can be found manning checkpoints at the entrances to Dahiyeh — Beirut’s southern suburbs — searching all vehicles entering the area. Hoods are popped open, trunks are inspected and doors patted to see if they sound hollow or potentially packed with explosives. The process is thorough. Not only are the cars searched but in some cases the license plates are read and cross-checked against lists of suspect vehicles. At night, armed Hezbollah men man checkpoints and patrol the streets with bomb-sniffing dogs. Smaller access points into Dahiyeh have been closed off