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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Officials: Hezbollah Smuggles Drugs Into Israel |
| 2008-03-27 |
| An Israeli non-commissioned officer is suspected of having passed on information to Hezbollah as part of a drug deal. Two other residents of northern Israel were arrested along with the NCO on suspicion of smuggling heroin into Israel from Lebanon. A gag order on the fact of the arrest was lifted on Monday. Israeli security officials said on Monday after the affair was publicized that "Hezbollah is trying to flood Israel with narcotics." The indictment against the two men who were known to the police - Abed Zouabi, age 30, of Nazareth, and Shir Hayib, aged 26, from the village Tuba Zangariya in the Upper Galilee - alleges that the two men forged a liaison with an undercover police agent known as Haj. Mr. Zouabi offered the police agent $2,500 in exchange for every pound of heroin that he would smuggle in from Lebanon. Mr. Hayib gave the agent the money in dollars and an SIM card that allowed him to make contact with the Lebanese dealers. The two men met near the border and toured the area, in the course of which he provided information about where drugs could be safely smuggled into Israel. In exchange, the NCO was promised $20,000. The affair was discovered in the course of routine work along the Lebanese border of the Galilee police. About a month ago the police learned from their undercover agent that there was an NCO who was involved in the drug smuggling operations and had provided Hezbollah with valuable information. The information that the police collected was turned over to the IDF, and the suspect was arrested. Following the arrest the network continued to operate. Two weeks ago the two others were arrested in the middle of a drug deal along the northern border. Two kilograms of heroin was discovered in Mr. Zouabi's Mercedes. The NCO is suspected of having passed on information about the numbers of IDF troops along the northern border, as well as information about the number of vehicles in the sector and specific information about the locations of IDF bases. Israeli Security officials said that this was just part of Hezbollah's war on Israel, saying that Hezbollah hoped to "poison" Israeli society by a plethora of means in addition to acts of terrorism. The arrest of the NCO on Monday is just the tip of the iceberg, with more developments expected. Security officials said that in just the past number of months 50 pounds heroin had been seized. For comparison's sake they note that in 2005, only a single pound of heroin was caught. The police have focused most of their intelligence efforts on the divided village Ghajar. The IDF has carried out a number of operations in the area of the village in conjunction with the Israel police. In some cases those operations devolved into exchanges of live fire. Security officials said that the drug smugglers have been trying to find additional routes along the border fence, which is more than 100 kilometers long. Police said that the drug dealers had become far bolder in their activity along the border fence and were recently equipped with sophisticated night vision equipment, probably by Hezbollah. In Hezbollah's written combat doctrine, drug smuggling is referred to as the "indirect war." Hezbollah's strategy has been well known to Israel for the past two decades. In the past the indirect war had another branch: Forgery of foreign currencies, mainly the U.S. dollar, in order to flood Israel and to purchase weaponry in the West. The forgery was relatively low-grade and ultimately died out. The drugs, conversely, are a stable and ancient tradition in the region and has been a source of livelihood for a number of clans in the area for hundreds of years. |
| Posted by:Fred |