...I got a few hundred yards down that dirt track before I was stopped by a chain connecting a pair of cement blocks and a sign that read “Entry forbidden – Hezbollah area.” Two bearded teenagers, armed with walkie talkies and AK47s appeared out of a foxhole of some sort and ran up to us.

“Who sent you?” they asked. “What are you doing here.”

“Our mistake,” we said, and hurried out of there before they thought to stop us.

The sign is new since last summer’s war, a 19 year old from Rihane told us.

“We used to run around and play in that valley, but now no one can go there,” he said. “There are a lot more areas like that today than there used to be. There is more security everywhere now. The resistance is preparing itself. They’re much more curious than ever before.”...

...All around this wadi system to the north and east are Christian and Druze villages, but Hezbollah seems to be intent on buying the land and repopulating it with Shiites. Directly east of Rihane is the Christian village of Qotrani (spelled Al Qatraneh on the map). South of Qotrani, find the once-Christian village of Shbayl. Northeast of Shbayl find the Druze village of Al Sreiri (spelled As Suraryri on the map). South of As Surayri find another Druze farmstead Burghoz.

All these villages are poor, in a state of general decline, and were thus unable to resist when a wealthy Shiite businessman named Ali Tajeddine offered to buy their land for two and four times its estimated value. Tajeddine is originally from the village of Hanaouay outside Tyre. He made his money trading diamonds in Sierra Leone before moving back to Lebanon and starting a successful contracting business. It’s said he’s funded by Iran and he’s widely believed to have strong ties to Hezbollah. He is reportedly a key player in Jihad al Binna (the Building Jihad), Hezbollah’s post-war reconstruction outfit.

Qotrani has sold off some 200 to 300 acres to Tajeddine, including just about all of Shbayl, which is technically part of Qotrani.

“They are trying to make demographic changes here. There are new people coming,” Qotrani’s mayor told us. “Shiites have moved here from the south and are living in apartments belonging to Ali Tajeddin, but we’re poor. What can we do?”...