Friday, May 28, 2010

"'secret' arms depots in Syria ...but Hezbollah says "thanks, but no thanks"..."

'Secret' arms depots? As opposed to what; Mom-&-Pop's arms depots? Is this a news item? The London Times/ here

"... The Times has been shown (oh, look at you...) satellite images of one of the sites, a compound near the town of Adra, northeast of Damascus, where militants have their own living quarters, an arms storage site and a fleet of lorries reportedly used to ferry weapons into Lebanon.

The military hardware is either of Syrian origin or sent from Iran by sea, via Mediterranean ports, or by air, via Damascus airport. The arms are stored at the Hezbollah depot and then trucked into Lebanon.

“Hezbollah is allowed to operate this site freely,” said a security source. “They often move the arms in bad weather (wow!) when Israeli satellites are unable to track them.” Most of the weapons are sent from depots like the one near Adra and then stored at Hezbollah bases in the Bekaa Valley or southern Lebanon.

The revelation adds to growing fears ......

Israel reportedly planned recently to bomb one of the arms convoys as it crossed the border into Lebanon, but the operation was called off at the last minute. Western intelligence sources say that the Israelis have yielded — for now — to American diplomatic efforts to persuade Syria to stop the arms transfers. However, the apparent lack of success is increasing the chances that Israel may send a “calibrated signal” to Hezbollah and Syria by launching an airstrike against an arms depot or weapons convoy. ..........One source said there were indications that Hezbollah may even be considering returning the missiles because of the intensified scrutiny...."

2 comments:

mo said...

I read this had thought how good it was of the Hizb to put a big yellow flag out so that their sattelites could differentiate between a Hizballah compound and whatever else it could be.

I am especially impressed by these x-ray sattelites that can tell a building is being used as "living quarters"

b said...

That "Hizbullah compound" shown to the Times is likely a picture of the Adra Free Zone, a big economic area with, yes, lots of lorries!!!

http://fzmag.com/english/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=72&Itemid=59

http://maps.google.de/maps?q=adra+syria&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hl=en&hq=&hnear=Adra,+Al-Qutayfah,+Rif-Dimashq+Governorate,+Syria&ll=33.608329,36.535807&spn=0.011241,0.022724&t=h&z=16