Editor’s note: WorldNetDaily brings readers exclusive, up-to-the-minute global intelligence news and analysis from Geostrategy-Direct, a new online newsletter edited by veteran journalist Robert Morton and featuring the “Backgrounder” column compiled by Bill Gertz. Geostrategy-Direct is a subscription-based service produced by the publishers of WorldTribune.com, a free news service frequently linked by the editors of WorldNetDaily.
The Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah has flown its first unmanned aerial vehicle.
Israeli military sources said the UAV, described as a small tactical Iranian-built platform, was seen flying Nov. 7 inside Israeli air space.
The sources said the UAV, dubbed Mirsad-1 by Hezbollah, contained a simple camera payload and flew at an altitude of 250 feet.
“We know that for many years the Hezbollah has tried to acquire UAVs,” former Israeli Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Eitan Ben-Eliyahu said. “The most likely supplier is Iran. Eighty percent of Hezbollah weaponry is from Iran.”
Israeli military sources said the UAV was a tactical Iranian platform with a payload of 40 kilograms and a speed of 120 knots. They said the UAV reached an altitude of 1,000 feet during the Nov. 7 flight, overseen by Iranian military trainers.
The Hezbollah UAV flight inside Israel lasted from five to 12 minutes and relayed images of Nahariya. The UAV then returned to Lebanon and crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. The sources said the UAV was meant to land by parachute.
Hezbollah has denied this and said the Mirsad landed in Nakoura, the site of United Nations peacekeeping headquarters. The U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon has not confirmed this.
Iran’s UAV program began in the early 1990s. Iran deployed UAVs in military exercises, but the payloads of the platforms were far less advanced than Western UAVs.
The military sources did not rule out that Hezbollah could seek to place explosives or chemical weapons payload aboard a UAV. But they said this was unlikely in the short term.
“It could carry five-10 kilograms of explosives or a camera,” [Res.] Brig. Gen. Aryeh Fishbein, former chief of Israel’s military Air Defense Command, said. “But there are many better ways for Hezbollah to send explosives to us.”
“This morning an Iranian UAV operated by the Hezbollah terror organization infiltrated into Israel over the western Galilee,” a military statement said.
“This incident is a part of the terrorist activity carried out by the Hezbollah terrorist organization with the support of Iran and Syria and under the auspices of Lebanon, with the aim of targeting Israeli citizens.”
“This is an escalation of Hezbollah’s technical capabilities,” a military source said. “We were taken by surprise by the flight.”
Hezbollah had sought to purchase a UAV from a foreign source and has been testing UAVs over the last year. This was the first flight of the platform.
“I heard the noise of the [Hezbollah UAV] engine,” said Eli Paz, a resident of the Israeli border town of Shlomi. “It flew over my house at an altitude of 80 meters south and west. It had short wings and was gray. The military came to my house with photographs and said, ‘Did it look like this, or this?'”
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz also said Palestinian insurgency groups fired four Katyusha rockets from Lebanon into Israel during 2004, the latest of which took place last week. It was the first time Israel acknowledged Katyusha rocket attacks from Lebanon, which had not been reported since 2000.
Subscribe to Geostrategy-Direct.
