NIGHTFALL on the main highway from Bint Jbail to Beirut and scores of Hezbollah activists fan out across the Tarmac using darkness to shield their training manoeuvres.

The southbound carriageway is in darkness since Israel bombed it two months ago. So, turning destruction into opportunity, Hezbollah has converted the Tarmac into a makeshift parade ground.

Catching sight of journalists from The Times, wary commanders confirm only that their — unarmed — men are practising formation drills for the Shia group’s annual rally on al-Quds (Jerusalem) day, the last Friday of the current Holy month of Ramadan.

This is a guerrilla army that has gone quiet, but not gone away. Its choice of a discreet location north of the Litani river is no accident — far from the busy crossroads and strategic bridges where the Lebanese Army, supported by a newly strengthened peacekeeping United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (Unifil), is taking up its positions near to the Israeli border.

The new Unifil, bigger and better armed than its predecessor — the lead French contingent now has 14 battle tanks — has announced “robust” new rules of engagement to offset fears that that it will prove to be just as feeble.

With 5,300 of the planned 15,000-strong force already in place it says that commanders will have “authority to act forcefully when confronted with hostile activity of any kind”, not just in self-defence, and to “resist attempts by forceful means to prevent Unifil from discharging its duties”.

Alexander Ivanko, the force’s spokesman, lists the differences between this force and its widely derided predecessor in quick succession: “Enhanced mandate, robust rules of engagement, well-trained, properly equipped.”

He said: “We have a much clearer mandate than the UN ever had in Bosnia, much clearer rules and we have complete freedom of movement all over south Lebanon. The bottom line is that there is less chance of someone doing something stupid when there is a peacekeeping force with a heavy battle tank rather than just carrying a sidearm.”

Few believe that Hezbollah will create problems in the short term because it cannot afford to challenge the Lebanese Army.

But they point out that south Lebanon’s future remains mortgaged to the wider regional agendas of Hezbollah’s backers, Iran and Syria, and to Israel and the United States.

“At some point it will come up against the hard interests of the players on the ground,” said Michael Young, opinion page editor of the Daily Star newspaper, Beirut.

“The south is a vital area for Hezbollah. The fact that it can’t conduct any sort of military operations in this area is a very big handicap, as it is for Iran and Syria.”

The Lebanese Armed Forces have already deployed five brigades in the south. But there is no doubt who is the real power in what was — and unquestionably remains — Hezbollah’s rural stronghold.

Everywhere Hezbollah’s Jihad al-Bina (reconstruction wing) vehicles are visible among the international aid agencies helping the poor to rebuild their shattered homes.

From his house in Marwahin overlooking the Israeli border Youssuf Ghnaim, as a Sunni not even a natural supporter of Hezbollah, welcomes the Lebanese Army as brothers, but believes neither it nor Unifil will change the realities.

“When the Israeli tanks or bulldozers come the Lebanese Army have no equipment to stop them, and Unifil will just ask the Israeli Government to halt. If the Israelis ignore them, Unifil will do nothing.

“I think the resistance [Hezbollah] will come back, and better. There is no problem if they fight again. I would rather die than live like a slave.”

Israel says it expects Unifil to carry out its “very specific” mandate under UN Security Council Resolution 1701 to create an area free of armed Hezbollah personnel south of the Litani river.

“We are not expecting them to protect Israel, or to defend Israel. They are there to implement a UN resolution that is designed to help the Lebanese Government implement its sovereignty over all parts of Lebanese territory, ”said Mark Regev, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman.

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