BEIRUT/JERUSALEM/DAMASCUS:Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said yesterday the fall of two Israelidrones overnight in suburbs of Beirut dominated by the Iranian-backed groupamounted to a very dangerous move. Nasrallah, whose group fought a month-longwar with Israel in 2006, said in a televised speech: "The latest Israelidevelopment (is) very, very, very dangerous." There were no signs thebitter enemies were headed for a conflict. But Lebanese Prime Minister SaadHariri said the drones were designed to stir up regional tensions.
In the first suchincident in more than a decade, one drone fell and second exploded before dawnnear the ground and caused some damage to Hezbollah's media center in theDahiyeh suburbs, a Hezbollah official told Reuters. "The newaggression...constitutes a threat to regional stability and an attempt to pushthe situation towards further tension," Hariri said in a statement fromhis office. The Israeli military declined to comment.
The incident tookplace hours after the Israeli military said its aircraft had struck Iranianforces and Shiite militias near Syria's capital Damascus which it said had beenplanning to launch "killer drones" into Israel. War monitor theSyrian Observatory for Human Rights said two members of Hezbollah and oneIranian were killed in the Israeli strikes around Damascus.
The Israelimilitary said its aircraft struck "Iranian Quds Force operatives andShiite militias which were preparing to advance attack plans targeting sites inIsrael from within Syria over the last number of days". The elite QudsForce is the overseas arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)."Iran has no immunity anywhere. Our forces operate in every sector againstthe Iranian aggression," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu onTwitter. "If someone rises up to kill you, kill him first."
Lieutenant-ColonelJonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters "a numberof attack drones", each armed with several kilograms of explosives, wereto have been launched simultaneously at targets in northern Israel on Thursdaybut the plan was thwarted. He did not disclose what measures Israel took thatday. He described the "killer drones" - designed to slam into targets- as highly accurate.
The militaryreleased grainy black and white surveillance footage purporting to show theIranian operatives on Thursday near the drones' launching site. In the footage,four people are seen walking in an open area, one of them carrying an objectthat the military identified as a "killer drone". Conricus said thedrones, accompanied by the Iranian operatives, had arrived at Damascus airportfrom Iran several weeks ago and were taken to a Quds-controlled compound in avillage southeast of the city. Israel carried out Saturday's attack, Conricussaid, after learning that another attempt to launch drones was imminent.
In Tehran, asenior Revolutionary Guards commander denied that Iranian targets had been hitin the Israeli air strikes in Syria, the semi-official ILNA news agencyreported. Israel deems Lebanon's heavily armed Shiite Hezbollah movement,backed by Iran, the biggest threat across its border. In their 2006 war nearly1,200 people, mostly civilians, died in Lebanon and 158 people died in Israel,mostly soldiers. Lebanon has complained to the United Nations about Israeliplanes regularly violating its airspace in recent years.
Residents inDahiyeh said they heard the sound of a blast. A witness said the army closedoff the streets where a fire had started. A Hezbollah spokesman told Lebanon'sstate news agency NNA the second drone was rigged with explosives causingserious damage to the media center. Hezbollah is now examining the first drone,he said. The Lebanese army said that one Israeli drone fell and anotherexploded at 02:30 am local time (2330 GMT), causing only material damage."The army arrived immediately and cordoned off the area where the twodrones fell," it said.
Israel has grownalarmed by the rising influence of its regional foe Iran during the war inneighboring Syria, where Tehran and Hezbollah provide military help toDamascus. Israel says its air force has carried out hundreds of strikes inSyria against what it calls Iranian targets and arms transfers to Hezbollah.Iran and Hezbollah are helping President Bashar Al-Assad in the eight-year-oldSyria war. Russia, which is also aiding Assad, has largely turned a blind eyeto the Israeli air strikes
Syrian state mediasaid air defenses confronted the "aggression" and the army said mostof the Israeli missiles were destroyed. The United States and Iran are at oddsover Tehran's nuclear program and the Gulf, with both sides trading accusationsover threats to the strategic waterway's security. Iran also has wide sway inIraq. Iraq's paramilitary groups on Wednesday blamed a series of recent blastsat their weapons depots and bases on the United States and Israel.
The PopularMobilization Forces (PMF), the grouping of Iraq's mostly Shiite paramilitarygroups, many of which are backed by Iran, said the United States had allowedfour Israeli drones to enter the region accompanying US forces and carry outmissions on Iraqi territory. Netanyahu has hinted of possible Israeliinvolvement in attacks against Iranian-linked targets in Iraq.
On the IsraeliYNet news website, military affairs commentator Ron Ben-Yishai described thealleged Iranian killer drone attack plans as revenge by Tehran for thepurported Israeli drone strikes in Iraq. Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israelimilitary intelligence, said neither Iran nor Israel were interested in all-outwar. "We're not there yet," he said on Israel Radio. "Butsometimes, someone makes a mistake." - Reuters