Israel Matzav: Hezbollah night-vision gear was from Britain, Israel says It's believed to be an export to Iran in drug-fighting effort

Monday, August 21, 2006

Hezbollah night-vision gear was from Britain, Israel says It's believed to be an export to Iran in drug-fighting effort

On Friday, I told you that Israel has protested to Russia over the use of Russian anti-tank missiles by Hezbullah in the recently concluded war. I've also talked about the use of Chinese C-802 missiles to attack an Israeli ship that was enforcing a blockade around Beirut on July 14. Today, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that Hezbullah also had British night-vision gear, that likely came from the United Nations via Iran, to which it was given to fight drug smuggling.

Hat Tip: Little Green Footballs

(08-20) 04:00 PDT Kiryat Shemona, Israel -- Israeli intelligence officials have complained to Britain and the United States that sensitive night-vision equipment recovered from Hezbollah fighters during the war in Lebanon had been exported by Britain to Iran. British officials said the equipment had been intended for use in a U.N. anti-narcotics campaign.

Israeli officials say they believe the state-of-the-art equipment, found in Hezbollah command-and-control headquarters in southern Lebanon during the just-concluded war, was part of a British government-approved shipment of 250 pieces of night-vision equipment sent to Iran in 2003.

Israeli military intelligence confirmed that one of the pieces of equipment is a Thermo-vision 1000 LR tactical night-vision system, serial No. 155010, part No. 193960, manufactured by Agema, a high-tech equipment company with branches in Bedfordshire, England, and San Diego. A spokesman for Agema in San Diego denied all knowledge of the system.

The equipment, which needed special export-license approval from the British government, was passed to the Iranians through a program run and administered by the U.N. Drug Control Program. The equipment uses infrared imaging to provide nighttime surveillance that allows the user to detect people and vehicles moving in the dark at a range of several miles.

Use of such equipment would have enabled Hezbollah to detect and record the movements of Israeli forces inside Israel, as well as its military advance into Lebanon.

Britain and Italy both have provided specialized tracking and monitoring equipment over the past decade as part of U.N.-sponsored attempts to stem the flow of heroin and opium into Western Europe from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Iran is a major route for shipment of narcotics to the West.

A spokesman for the British Foreign Office in London said Saturday, "The Israeli Defense Forces have confirmed to us they have found some night-vision equipment in south Lebanon that is apparently made in Britain. We're trying to get further details to see exactly what the equipment is, who made it and who the original buyer is."

The spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Britain participates, through the U.N. drug-fighting agency, in Iran's interception program, which is run by anti-narcotics forces along the country's eastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, both major opium poppy-growing countries.

"We've been encouraging the Iranians as part of their anti-narcotics program, and there was an export in 2003 ... as part of the heroin and opium smuggling program. This is an area where we try not to let the nuclear issue prevent cooperation on countering narcotics," he said, referring to Iran's dispute with the United Nations over its nuclear enrichment program.

The Foreign Office spokesman said officials at the British Embassy in Tel Aviv have requested serial and parts numbers of the seized equipment to try to determine how it ended up in the hands of Hezbollah guerrillas fighting Israeli forces in Lebanon.

The equipment was found by Israeli forces in the southern Lebanese village of Mis-a-Jebel on Aug. 8, in a house belonging to a 60-year-old man whose four sons were all known to be Hezbollah fighters. The discovery was disclosed in a briefing by Lt. Col. Olivier Radowicz, an Israeli army spokesman, and later confirmed in detail by Israeli military intelligence officials, who also provided photographs of the equipment taken in the house where it was discovered.

"These are tactical night-vision systems ... given to Hezbollah by Iran. The Iranians are the 100 percent provider of all the materiel, especially intelligence materiel, to Hezbollah," Radowicz said.

The discovery of the night-vision equipment, together with sophisticated recording and monitoring devices and stashes of antitank missiles and rockets, led the Israelis to believe the five-room house was the command-and-control unit for Hezbollah in the local area, he said.