Report: Hizbullah Establishes Runway in the Bekaa to Operate Drones
Hizbullah has allegedly constructed a runway that consists of a single unpaved strip with a length of 670 meter and width of 20 meter in the Bekaa town of Hermel to operate its drones.
IHS Jane's Defense Weekly said in a report that the area is remote and unpopulated.
The magazine said that it obtained the information from satellite images that recently became publicly available on Google Earth.
The report suggests that the airstrip, 18 km west of the Syrian border, was established between 27 February 2013 and 19 June 2014.
It pointed out that the runway was "built over a shorter strip that had been in existence since at least 2010."
“The short length of the runway suggests the facility is not intended to smuggle in weapons shipments from Syria or Iran as it is too short for nearly all the transport aircraft used by the air forces of those countries,” the report said.
It estimates that the runway was constructed to operate Iranian made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including Ababil-3 and Shahed-129.
Hizbullah sources confirmed to the magazine that the party is using the drones to aid the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad against rebels.
In 2014, the Saudi al-Watan daily reported that Hizbullah had established a small military airport in the Bekaa city of Baalbek to operate Iranian-made drones.
The Iranian drones were identified as Mirsad-1 and Mirsad-2.
Senior commander of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh had said that Hizbullah has dramatically improved its missile capabilities and can now pinpoint targets anywhere in Israel.
In 2012, Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged that a drone which Israel shot down by Israel was launched by his party.
The drone was “believed to be the new Shahed-129, which was unveiled by Tehran, with a range of up to 1,200 miles and a flight duration of 24 hours.”
In July 2006, the Israeli military shot down an unarmed drone operated by Hizbullah over the Jewish state's territorial waters.
On April 12, 2005, another pilotless Hizbullah aircraft succeeded in overflying part of northern Israel without being downed.
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