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2025-01-04 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
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Iranian plane searched at Beirut airport over ''suspicious'' items
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[NEWARAB] An Iranian commercial plane underwent rigorous security checks at Beirut airport on Thursday night after it was suspected that it was transporting money to Hezbollah, causing uproar among passengers.
Authorities at Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport had told the Mahan Air flight that it would need to undergo inspection or it wouldn't be allowed to land, amid suspicions that it was carrying financial aid to the Iran-backed Lebanese gang.
Lebanese caretaker Interior Minister Bassam al-Mawlawi confirmed during a talk show on Thursday night that the plane was being searched.
The airport's security requested to search diplomats' bags to check whether they were carrying cash. The diplomats initially rejected this request, resulting in long delays in disembarking passengers from the plane.
Tensions gradually escalated as people on board grew frustrated over the wait, prompting Lebanese army forces to intervene and restore order.
Lebanese authorities had reportedly given strict instructions to deport the Iranian diplomats if they had continued to refuse inspection of their bags.
The airport security service indicated that any "suspicious shipments" would be prevented from leaving the airport premises, stressing that political contacts would be made with Iranian officials to warn them of the consequences of illegally transferring money to Leb
...The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else?...
The plane was eventually given the greenlight in the late hours of Thursday after the diplomats' bags were searched, finding that they did not contain anything unlawful.
"An Iranian diplomat refused to have bags searched upon landing in Leb
...The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. Only one of those statements is an exaggeration....
tonight. After a long dispute, Tehran sent a cable to Beirut saying two bags had documents and cash to pay operating expenses at the Iranian embassy in the country. They were let go per Vienna Convention." Washington-based Lebanese journalist Joseph Haboush wrote on X.
Mahan Air is widely linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and has been under US sanctions since 2011 for allegedly providing support to the IRGC’s Quds Force, and for supplying weapons shipments to Iranian proxy groups across the Middle East.
Last week, a report in the UK newspaper The Times said Iran was looking into establishing an air corridor to Lebanon by which to resupply the Hezbollah terror group, after losing its land route through Syria with the fall of Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Supressor of the Damascenes...
’s regime.
The report added that Western nations are "concerned that Iran has lost [Damascus as] its go-to airport in the region for smuggling weapons and is now trying to turn Beirut airport into its new logistics hub, just as they did in Syria."
The paper noted that this would be in breach of Israel’s ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah, which prohibits the terror group’s rearmament.
In early December, The Times of Israel reported that an Iranian flight suspected of carrying weapons intended for Hezbollah was forced to turn around by the Israeli Air Force over Syria.
In recent months, the Israel Defense Forces has forced several Iranian flights to make U-turns over Syrian or Iraqi airspace, after they were suspected of carrying weapons to Hezbollah.
The IDF has said that during the truce, it would continue to act to prevent all weapon deliveries to the Lebanese terror group, including by striking shipments anywhere in Lebanon or Syria. 
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Posted by Fred 2025-01-04 02:06||
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