REVEALED: Iran uses civilian airlines to smuggle arms to Hezbollah
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
REVEALED: Iran uses civilian airlines to smuggle arms to Hezbollah
Iran is smuggling weapons to Hezbollah on commercial flights, taking “unexpected routes” to conceal the activity.
Iran is utilizing civilian airlines to transport weapons to the Hezbollah terror organization in Lebanon, intelligence sources say.
A Fox News report Monday quoted Western intelligence sources who have uncovered “unexpected routes” taken by Iran in an apparent attempt to avoid detection of its arms-smuggling into Lebanon.
The sources identified two rare and unusual Qeshm Fars Air flights from Tehran to the international airport in Beirut over the past two months.
The first flight in July departed from an air force base in Tehran, stopped for a short layover at the international airport in Damascus and then continued with a rather “uncharacteristic flight path” to the Beirut international airport, the sources said.
The route passed over northern Lebanon, not following any commonly used flight path.
The plane carried components for manufacturing precise weapons in Iranian factories inside Lebanon. The US and Israel have already exposed Iran’s weapons factories in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
The second flight in August landed in Beirut after departing Tehran’s international airport. This flight also followed a slightly irregular route north of Syria.
“The Iranians are trying to come up with new ways and routes to smuggle weapons from Iran to its allies in the Middle East, testing and defying the West’s abilities to track them down,” the source told Fox News .
Qeshm Fars Air is considered one of the various pseudo-civilian airlines used for arms-smuggling by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the report noted.
Blatant violation of Security Council resolutions
Israel has long warned that Iran is taking advantage of civilian airlines to arm Hezbollah.
In November 2016, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Danny Danon warned the Security Council that Iran was utilizing civilian airlines to transport weapons to Hezbollah.
In a letter to the Council, Danon said it was the IRGC that was responsible for the smuggling, and he outlined how they were doing it.
“Iran is using airlines such as ‘Mahan Air’ to supply Hezbollah with the capacity to enhance its missile arsenal. The arms and related materials are packed in suitcases by the Quds Force in Iran and transferred directly to Hezbollah operatives,” he wrote.
Danon charged that Iran’s actions are “in blatant violation of numerous Security Council resolutions,” including resolutions 2231 and 1701.
Resolution 2231 endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement and added more restrictions on Iran, while resolution 1701 put in place the ceasefire ending the Second Lebanon War with Hezbollah.
Hezbollah was in possession of roughly 7,000 rockets in 2006, and the Lebanese terror group now has more than 120,000 missiles aimed at Israeli cities, hidden behind human shields in the towns under their control.
They are so trustworthy, those "Death to America" bastards. They can really be trusted to comply with UN resolutions such as for stopping production of ballistic missiles, and of course for compliance with the Nuclear Pact. There's a joke - the Nuclear Pact that allows them to SELF-MONITOR their military bases. LOL
It will be fun to see the liberal supporters for LGBT and women's rights here come to the defence of the regime that hangs gays from cranes and throws women in jail for taking off their hijabs.
Buzz, before I can make any comment, What is that picture? I see the caption. I still ask, what is that picture, who too it and where did it come from?
Special focus on those rifles.
It is the photo that was on the original article, and the original caption that indicates it is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, indicating the photo source to be Press TV, is under it. I know nothing more about it, and for the benefit of a certain member who feels that I must put hours into doing background research on every article or seed I comment on, she can go fuck herself (if in the case of a woman there is such a pleasant opportunity).
I realize your comment was addressed to Buzz, but I can throw more light on this.
1. The source is indeed Press TV. This is a news organization that puts forth the propaganda line of the leadership of Iran. Like al Jazeera, they can be very crafty-- often fooling westerners into thinking it's a legitimate (& objective!) news source.
(There used to be a "Idiot Utile " (AKA "Useful Idiot" ) who was here a while back who constantly fell for their propaganda and often seeded from them, probably because she agreed with* their anti-American, anti-Israel, and often even anti-Sunni propaganda)
__________________________________________________________
* BTW that sort of faulty logic is called "Confirmation Bias" (Soooo common in online discussions...heh
Thanks for that comment, Krishna.
2. That is a genuine photo of the IRGC. (What is the IRGC?)
3, The source of the photo is Press TV-- in fact my psychic powers are telling me its from this other article (by Press TV):
IRGC foils terror attack on Iran’s NW border
P.S: Since Iran is a Shia Muslim theocracy therefore I would imagine that their definition of "terrorist" probably includes anyone opposing their theocracy-- particularly any Sunni Muslims (which means the vast majority of Arabs) as well as Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and any other "Non-believers".
BTW I recently came across this article re: the IRGC. Its an opinion piece from the Guardian, which is a leftist British source. But IMO this particular article has some good background information and makes some good points. (Probably a bit more details than people want to know
'It's become a monster': is Iran's revolutionary guard a terror group?
What they are trying to imply is pretty obvious. Knowing the source of the photo helps put things in place.
There are plenty of knock offs in this world and doctored up AR15s, but they sure are trying to flash M16s in our faces, whether they really are M16s or not. Either way they score propaganda points.
The concerning thing is, they could be real. I have no confidence in the vetting process followed when we handed out weapons to the "good" terrorists in Syria.
Then again the Iraqi's were terrible holding on to weapons. For example the strategy of drop and run early on when the hand full of sunni isis attackers charged early on. I wonder how sharing the Iraqi's were when the Iranians became good buddies?
Thanks Krishna, I need to read this better when I get up in the morning.
Notice the AKs in the article you linked to here. hmmmm? That other photo is definite propaganda pic.
Your welcome :^)
(I have decided to occasionally do some gentle trolling , confronting some of the more common types of gross stupidity that are so common on certain Internet discussion sights. Although if course I'm not going to mention which particular Internet forums I am referring to!).
(P.S: All four of those grammatical errors were deliberate).
Before the Revolution, during the reign if the Shah, Iran and the U.S. were friends. I remember reading a long time ago that that the main planes in the Iranian air force were F-4s, F-5s-- and lots of F-14s-- used long after they were fairly obsolete I believe. I haven't been following this too closely lately, but I believe for a while Iran's air force (manned aircraft) was pretty weak-- their power was in the missiles they were developing, not their manned aircraft or pilots).
So I would imagine the Iranians had many American weapons for a long time). You make an interesting point about the propaganda value of showing those weapons.
Now of course they are friends of Russia. Both countries have troops in Syria supporting the horrendous Assad regime.
You've got me thinking now.
Probably early F14s A models.
The four grammatical errors:
1. "You're", not "your".
2. Space left before the colon after the word "welcome".
3. "Sites" not "Sights" is actually a spelling rather than grammatical error, unless you consider using the wrong homonym to be a grammatical error. I so enjoy seeing all the wrong homonym usages on NT - spellcheck is a useless tool to correct them.
4. Space left before the comma after the word "trolling". This is an error my stepdaughter, who is of course fluent in her Mandarin mother tongue, competent in German (in her final year for a Bachelor's degree at a university in Germany) and pretty good but not perfect in English, often makes in her emails to me).
Krishna,
Interesting article you linked to earlier, yet, not surprising. Really.
About the rifles. Regardless of weather they are older models shipped by us and later modded to look newer or actually newer models from the great giveaways related to isis and Syrian conflicts, without any doubt, in my mind they are rubbing the possession of M16s in our faces.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it...of course, unless I am proven wrong...
Here's your comment (plus my comments):
The four grammatical errors:
1. "You're", not "your".
This mistake is so common online. Used to drive me crazy but lately I don't really care....
2. Space left before the colon after the word "welcome".
vvWell, one other possibility is that it was just an unintentional typo. But actually in this case it was something different. While that is indeed the symbol for a colon, my intention was to use it differently-- not as a colon but rather for the eyes in a smiley face. (it was followed by ^ which was supposed to be the nose of the smiley face and of course the ) which is the mouth). I can see people missing that as a smiley, because its hardly ever seen. I use it because its a smiley consisting of symbols which remain symbols, I use it when I don't want to use conventional smileys (which are small "pictures" of faces)... if you change the ^ to a - it will not show up as 3 symbols but rather the familiar yellow smiling face.
3. "Sites" not "Sights" is actually a spelling rather than grammatical error, unless you consider using the wrong homonym to be a grammatical error. Yes-- I think both types of errors are common here (both spelling errors as well as misuse of homonyms). I so enjoy seeing all the wrong homonym usages on NT - spellcheck is a useless tool to correct them.
vvI also find them to be amusing. Although now that I think of it, perhaps the most common error here is neither spelling errors nor grammatical errors, but errors in logic (especially in political discussions!). And in most cases there's no cure for that!:-(
4. Space left before the comma after the word "trolling". This is an error my stepdaughter, who is of course fluent in her Mandarin mother tongue, competent in German (in her final year for a Bachelor's degree at a university in Germany) and pretty good but not perfect in English, often makes in her emails to me).
Actually in this case it was merely a typo-- since I tend to be rather word and post long comments, sometimes I'm too lazy to go pack and correct mistakes. (For example this typo: "Although if course I'm not going to mention which particular Internet forums I am referring to!). That's simply a typo resulting from trying to type too quickly). While that is indeed the symbol for a colon, my intention was to use it differently-- not as a colon but rather for the eyes in a smiley face. (it was followed by ^ which was supposed to be the nose of the smiley face and of course the ) which is the mouth).
.
[cont'd. in next comment]
(On another note, perhaps some day I shall (will?) write an article about how to derail a conversation on NT-- and get away with it
P.S: Ignore the incorrect formatting of quotes by NT_- I am not in the mood to go back and fix that.
Whether or knot its all mistakes ore on porpoise, we shud except the meening of you're post clear. They're shud bee know miss understanding.
Well, FWIW, Purpoises are supposedly very intelligent.
Isn't "Ms understanding" preferred these days?
Sorry, dating myself here.
LOL
You're the first person I know who "packs" their mistakes. Do you take them with you on vacation? You NEED a vacation after posting all that repetition.
(You know I'm only joking - for a decade I've always had the deepest respect for you and miss you when you're not around, my mentor and first NV/NT friend.)
Indeed, I deliberately write repeating redundancies.... (some of the annoying stuff I do is because I occasionally attempt to jar people out of their mental lethargy-- which on Internet forums is generally a hopeless task
Yes-- I remember when we first met back on "the site whose name shall not be mentioned." (BTW you are one of the few people here who don't constantly piss me of--
Fixed that for you. The "quotation" function can be confusing.
Oh, then I only piss you off sometimes? (Actually, I think I recall a time many years ago when I DID piss you off, when I didn't follow your advice, but then I admitted I made a mistake by NOT following it.)
Thanks.
At times in the past I've been able to fix it, but lately I don't have the patience.