Hezbollah sources ridicule 'Israeli campaign' targeting Beirut airport
The latest “Israeli claims” that Hezbollah might bring in arms through Beirut airport are laughable and baseless, sources close to Hezbollah have said.
“Hezbollah has already transferred the precision missiles and their requirements by land and the mission has been accomplished, as had been declared by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, despite the continuous Israeli attacks and surveillance,” the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Wednesday.
“The Lebanese state’s border facilities, whether aerial or maritime, are not included in Hezbollah’s calculations and it does not use them in the arms transfer operations which require extreme care and a security sensitivity that cannot be guaranteed in public facilities, where there is the risk of exposure and infiltration,” the sources added.
The sources also noted that one of the main reasons that pushed Hezbollah to engage in the war in Syria was to “keep the supply route to the resistance in Lebanon open.”
“How can Hezbollah exploit Beirut’s airport to obtain arms from Iran amid the deployment of security agencies and the eyes of the U.S. intelligence in it?” the sources wondered.
Israel’s Channel 12 has recently reported that Israel is tracking a new Iranian attempt to establish a weapons smuggling route via civilian airline flights to Beirut.
The network said Tehran is using the airline Meraj, which recently started flying a direct route between the two nations’ capitals.
The unsourced report said the new smuggling route is a result of Israel’s activities to thwart Iranian weapons transfers via Damascus.
It also said that Israel has “warned that it could carry out strikes at Beirut’s international airport to thwart weapons deliveries as it has done in Damascus.”
Quoting unnamed sources, the Saudi-owned al-Hadath television has reported that the Iranian airline, which has alleged ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, might transfer arms and sensitive equipment to Hezbollah, noting that the air company’s first flight had taken place on November 14.
The Israeli Intelli Times blog identified the Meraj aircraft flying between Tehran and Beirut as EP-AJI. Flight tracking from Flightradar24 shows that the aircraft has made a number of flights to Beirut recently, “turning its transponder on over Baghdad and over Syria, but keeping it off in much of Iraq and Iran,” Israeli media reports said.
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