How Syria, Iran armed Hezbollah

[Grimmlok]

Israel surprised by the militia's weapons, training
Fighters `nothing like Hamas or the Palestinians'
Aug. 7, 2006. 07:29 AM
STEVEN ERLANGER AND RICHARD A. OPPEL JR.
NEW YORK TIMES


JERUSALEM—On Dec. 26, 2003, a massive earthquake levelled most of Bam, in southeastern Iran, killing 35,000 people. Transport planes carrying aid poured in from everywhere, including Syria.

According to Israeli military intelligence, the planes returned to Syria carrying sophisticated weapons, including long-range Zelzal missiles, which the Syrians passed on to Hezbollah, the Shiite militia group in southern Lebanon.

As the Israeli army struggles for a fourth week to defeat Hezbollah before a ceasefire, the shipments are just one indication of how the militia has improved its arsenal and strategies in the six years since Israel abruptly ended its occupation of southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah is a militia trained like an army and equipped like a state, and its fighters "are nothing like Hamas or the Palestinians," said an Israeli soldier who just returned from Lebanon.

"They are trained and highly qualified," he said, equipped with flak jackets, night-vision goggles, good communications and sometimes Israeli uniforms and ammunition. "All of us were kind of surprised."

Much attention has been focused on Hezbollah's stockpile of Syrian- and Iranian-made missiles, some 3,000 of which have already fallen on Israel. More than 58 Israelis have died from them — including 12 reservist soldiers, who were gathered at a kibbutz at Kfar Giladi in northern Israel yesterday when rockets packed with anti-personnel ball bearings exploded among them, and three killed last night in another rocket barrage on Haifa.

But Israel says Iran and Syria also used those six years to provide satellite communications and some of the world's best infantry weapons, including modern, Russian-made anti-tank weapons and Semtex plastic explosives, as well as the training required to use them effectively against Israeli armour.

It is Hezbollah's skilful use of these weapons — in particular, wire-guided and laser-guided anti-tank missiles, with double, phased explosive warheads and a range of about three kilometres — that has caused most of the casualties to Israeli forces.

Hezbollah's Russian-made anti-tank missiles, designed to penetrate armour, have damaged or destroyed Israeli vehicles, including its most modern, the Merkava, on about 20 per cent of their hits, Israeli commanders at the front said.

Hezbollah has also used anti-tank missiles, including the less modern Sagger, to fire from a distance into houses in which Israeli troops are sheltered, with a first explosion cracking the typical cement block wall and the second going off inside.

"They use them like artillery to hit houses," said Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, until recently the Israeli army's director of intelligence analysis. "They can use them accurately up to even three kilometres, and they go through a wall like through the armour of a tank."

Hezbollah fighters use tunnels to quickly emerge out of the ground, fire a shoulder-held anti-tank missile, and then disappear again, much the way Chechen rebels used the sewer system of Grozny to attack Russian armoured columns.

"We know what they have and how they work," Kuperwasser said. "But we don't know where all the tunnels are. So they can achieve tactical surprise."

The anti-tank missiles are the "main fear" for Israeli troops, said David Ben-Nun, 24, an enlisted man who just returned from a week in Lebanon. The troops do not linger long in any house because of hidden missile crews. "You can't even see them," he said.

The Israelis say that with modern communications and a network of tunnels, storage rooms, barracks and booby traps laid under the hilly landscape, Hezbollah's training, tactics and modern weaponry explain why they are moving with caution.

Hezbollah's fighters number between 2,000 and 4,000, a small army that is aided by a larger circle of part-timers who provide logistics and storage of weapons in houses and civilian buildings.

The Israelis say the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has helped teach Hezbollah how to organize itself like an army, with special units for intelligence, anti-tank warfare, explosives, engineering, communications and rocket launching. They have also taught Hezbollah how to aim rockets, make "improvised explosive devices" and, the Israelis say, even how to fire the C-802, a ground-to-ship missile that Israel never knew Hezbollah possessed.

According to intelligence officials in Washington, Iranian air force officers have made repeated trips to Lebanon to train Hezbollah to aim and fire Iranian missiles. The Americans say there is no evidence they are directing Hezbollah's attacks.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...2154&t=TS_Home

[ohmygoodness]

I am so hoping Iran stays out of official combat at least until month's end, although I know it's unlikely. I know a girl whose family just went there for a month, and I know she's Iranian and it's where her family is from, etc. but how fucking stupid do you have to be to go there when this is going on?! You can wait to see your family. Get them to come visit you here in Canada where it's safe and away from that clusterfuck! !!!!!

[Grimmlok]

I dunno, Iranians are fucked up.. every time some bullshit happens they hightail it back there to be part of it for some reason, whether their country is being insane or not.

[Delphinium]

I still think Iran has somehow manipulated this entire event to buy them time to develop nuclear weapons.

[Grimmlok]

Nah, I think they're just taking advantage of it

[Sojiita]

I think they are taking advantage of it AND buying time to develop nuclear weapons at the same time. Iran is going to make a challenge to North Korea for the crown of 'most crazy nation'.

[Grimmlok]

.. they'll still have nothing on Florida

[pacific breeze]

Just heard from CBC news that Iranian officials have admitted to funding Hezbollah to the tune of $40 million US a month. No wonder they're giving the Israelis a run for their money.

[Grimmlok]

ooOo and now it gets interesting.

40 million a month? wow.

.. can i join hezbollah to get a chunk of that? lol

[Mr. Authority]

That's a lot of money to support a militia group like Hezbollah. It's not surprising though, Iran and other ME countries would do anything to wipe Isreal off the map. I bet though that if Isreal was defeated, the Palenstians would probably be their next traget.

[Delphinium]

^I agree. there is more here than meets they eye.

[Grimmlok]

I'd have to disagree, it looks exactly like what it is. Iran funding hezbollah (which still did not START this little conflict.. Israel did that when they abducted a couple hezbollah people) in order to slap Israel around a bit.

[Mr. Authority]

Originally Posted by Grimmlok

I'd have to disagree, it looks exactly like what it is. Iran funding hezbollah (which still did not START this little conflict.. Israel did that when they abducted a couple hezbollah people) in order to slap Israel around a bit.

oh I'm not saying Iran started this whole war. Just that Iran and Syria is using Hezbollah as a buffer to attack Isreal. they (Iran, Syria) don't really care about Lebanon, and I doubt they care about Palestineans either.

I dunno it's getting really confusing for me with all these conflicts.

[Hazeleyed_Honey]

Oh remember back when Reagan's administration was arming Iran through Israel when American hostages were held up by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Then members of the Reagan administration would go ahead and fund the Contra rebels which were an anti-communist rebel death squad which slaughtered El Salvadorian civilians...So at one point in time the U.S. and Israel were funding them too. Infact, Hezbollah also have SOME American and Israeli made weapons probably from illegal arms trade made WITH their enemies through the U.S. and Israel.

[strikeapose]

There was something on the news about a captured Hezbollah fighter who admitted that he was trained for military maneuvres in Iran.

Mon Aug 7, 7:15 PM
By Sarah El Deeb


JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's army released a video Monday purporting to show the interrogation of a Hezbollah fighter acknowledging his part in the raid on an Israeli army patrol July 12, the spark that ignited the current conflict in Lebanon.
In the video, Hussein Ali Suleiman, 22, said the seizure of the two Israelis was the second time he had taken part in such an attempt, following an unsuccessful raid in 2005. He also spoke about training in Iran....

Speaking in Arabic, Suleiman told his interrogators he attended military manoeuvres in Iran with 40 or 50 other Hezbollah guerrillas in 2003. He gave no details on the parts of the tape made public.

He said the trainees drove from Beirut to the Syrian capital, Damascus, in Hezbollah cars and from there took a special flight to Iran without passing through passport control.

Suleiman said his first operation was in late 2005, apparently an attempt to take Israeli prisoners. His task was to manage anti-tank missiles.

Asked if the operation failed, he said: "It had other aims. The main aim didn't go well, but the secondary aim was to direct a severe blow to the (Israeli) posts."

The tape showed Suleiman speaking briefly about the July 12 cross-border operation in which his unit killed three Israelis and took two others with them to Lebanon. His job was to cut the access routes to the patrol, he said before the tape abruptly cut off.

In 1998, Suleiman said he attended night school for 1 1/2 months, a "soldiers course" that involved classes in Islamic law and jurisprudence.

He said he received his next training after Israel ended its 18-year occupation of south Lebanon in 2000, a 45-day "fighter" course that involved weapons training, sabotage and communications. Four months later, he trained on anti-tank weapons and underwent more training several months later.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/07082006/...art-other.html