{"id":22558,"date":"2024-04-09T21:08:05","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T21:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/09\/iran-smuggles-arms-to-west-bank-officials-say-to-foment-unrest-with-israel\/"},"modified":"2024-04-09T21:08:05","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T21:08:05","slug":"iran-smuggles-arms-to-west-bank-officials-say-to-foment-unrest-with-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/09\/iran-smuggles-arms-to-west-bank-officials-say-to-foment-unrest-with-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran Smuggles Arms to West Bank, Officials Say, to Foment Unrest With Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/26\/multimedia\/29iran-westbank-top\/26mideast-crisis-syria-strikes-chmg-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Iran Smuggles Arms to West Bank, Officials Say, to Foment Unrest With Israel\" title=\"Iran Smuggles Arms to West Bank, Officials Say, to Foment Unrest With Israel\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Iran is operating a clandestine smuggling route across the Middle East, employing intelligence operatives, militants and criminal gangs, to deliver weapons to Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to officials from the United States, Israel and Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The goal, as described by three Iranian officials, is to foment unrest against Israel by flooding the enclave with as many weapons as it can.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The covert operation is now heightening concerns that Tehran is seeking to turn the West Bank into the next flashpoint in the long-simmering <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/02\/world\/middleeast\/iran-israel-attacks-shadow-war.html\" title=\"\">shadow war<\/a> between Israel and Iran. That conflict has taken on new urgency this month, risking a broader conflict in the Middle East, as Iran vowed to retaliate for <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/01\/world\/middleeast\/iran-commanders-killed-syria-israel.html\" title=\"\">an Israeli strike on an embassy compound<\/a> that killed seven Iranian armed forces commanders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Many weapons smuggled to the West Bank largely travel along two paths from Iran through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, the officials said. As the arms cross borders, the officials added, they change hands among a multinational cast that can include members of organized criminal gangs, extremist militants, soldiers and intelligence operatives. A key group in the operation, the Iranian officials and analysts said, are Bedouin smugglers who carry the weapons across the border from Jordan into Israel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The New York Times interviewed senior security and government officials with knowledge of Iran\u2019s effort to smuggle weapons to the West Bank, including three from Israel, three from Iran and three from the United States. The officials from all three countries requested anonymity to discuss covert operations for which they were not authorized to speak publicly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe Iranians wanted to flood the West Bank with weapons, and they were using criminal networks in Jordan, in the West Bank and in Israel, primarily Bedouin, to move and sell the products,\u201d said Matthew Levitt, director of the counterterrorism program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research organization, and the author of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/ctc.westpoint.edu\/guns-drugs-and-smugglers-a-recent-heightened-challenge-at-israels-borders-with-jordan-and-egypt\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a study<\/a> on the smuggling route.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The smuggling to the West Bank, analysts said, began about two years ago when Iran started using routes previously established to smuggle other contraband. It is unclear exactly how many weapons have made it to the territory in that time, though analysts say the majority are small arms.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the months since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack against Israel from Gaza, Israeli security forces have conducted a large-scale crackdown <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/02\/02\/world\/middleeast\/west-bank-palestine-israel.html\" title=\"\">across the West Bank<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Israeli military describes the raids as part of its counterterrorism effort against Hamas and other armed factions to root out weapons and militants. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, including those accused of attacking Israelis, according to the United Nations, in one of the deadliest periods in decades.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Human rights groups say many Palestinians are being unfairly detained, particularly those held in Israeli prisons without a formal trial. They say that it is unclear how many of the detainees possess genuine militant links.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThese arrests include many who are being swept up for reasons that are not clear,\u201d said Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cThe Israeli government has a long track record of abusive detention, arbitrary arrests and detaining people for exercising their basic rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For years, Iran\u2019s leaders have declared the necessity of arming Palestinian fighters in the occupied West Bank. Iran has long supplied weapons for attacking Israel to militants elsewhere in the region, members of its so-called Axis of Resistance, including its two primary Palestinian allies in Gaza, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Both of those groups, which also operate in the West Bank, are designated terrorist organizations by the United States, the European Union, Israel and other countries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Iranian officials said Tehran had not singled out a particular group for its largess, choosing instead to broadly inundate the territory with guns and ammunition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Afshon Ostovar, an associate professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and an expert on Iran\u2019s military, said Iran was focusing on the West Bank because it understood that access to Gaza would be curtailed for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe West Bank really needs to be the next frontier that Iran will penetrate and proliferate weapons into, because if they are able to do that then the West Bank will become just as big a problem, if not bigger, as Gaza,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Fatah, the Palestinian faction that controls the Palestinian Authority and with it much of the West Bank, accused Iran last week of trying to \u201cexploit\u201d Palestinians for its own means by spreading chaos in the territory. In a statement, Fatah said it would not allow \u201cour sacred cause and the blood of our people to be exploited\u201d by Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a statement, Iran\u2019s U.N. Mission did not comment on the smuggling operation, but emphasized what it said was the importance of Palestinians taking up arms against Israel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIran\u2019s assessment posits that the sole effective avenue for resisting the occupation by the Zionist regime is through armed resistance,\u201d said Amir Saeid Iravani, the country\u2019s U.N. ambassador. \u201cPalestinian resistance forces possess the capability to manufacture and procure the necessary armaments for their cause.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Even after Oct. 7, as Iran\u2019s proxies have increasingly launched salvos from Lebanon and Yemen, Tehran and Jerusalem preferred to restrict much of their conflict to the shadows. But that covert war exploded into public view last week with the airstrike against an Iranian Embassy building in Syria.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Israeli warplanes on April 1 attacked a meeting of leaders from Iran\u2019s armed forces and members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Damascus, the Iranian officials said. Among those killed was Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, 65, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps general in charge of Iran\u2019s covert operations in Syria and Lebanon through which parts of the weapons smuggling trail wends, the Israeli, Iranian and American officials said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That attack came on the heels of another Israeli airstrike. On March 26, Israeli forces struck a key node of the smuggling route in eastern Syria, according to the American and Iranian officials, and two of the Israeli officials.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The majority of the smuggled weapons, analysts said, are small arms like handguns and assault rifles. Iran is also smuggling advanced weapons, according to the American officials and Israeli officials. Those weapons, the Israeli officials said, include antitank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, which fly fast and low to the ground, creating a challenge for Israel when defending civilian and military targets from close-range fire.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Israel\u2019s domestic security agency, Shin Bet, said in a statement that it had recently seized advanced military equipment smuggled into the West Bank. The statement added that Shin Bet \u201ctakes very seriously involvement in activities directed by Iran and its affiliates and will continue to carry out active measures at all times to monitor and thwart any activity that endangers the security of the state of Israel.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Working with its militant allies and established criminal networks, Iran is using two main routes to get weapons to the West Bank, the Israeli, Iranian and American officials said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Along one route, Iran-backed militants and Iranian operatives carry the weapons from Syria to Jordan, the officials said. From there, the Iranian officials added, they are transferred at the border to Bedouin smugglers. The nomads take the weapons to the border with Israel, where they are picked up by criminal gangs who then move them to the West Bank.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Iranian effort taps a well-established smuggling route in Jordan, which shares a porous 300-mile border with Israel. Last year, a Jordanian lawmaker was indicted in Amman, Jordan, after being caught in 2022 trying to smuggle more than 200 weapons into the West Bank. The source of the weapons is unclear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One of the Iranian officials said increased security since Oct. 7, by both Israel and Jordan, has raised the risk of getting caught, especially for Bedouins and Arab-Israelis who play critical roles for their ability to cross borders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A second, more challenging route skips Jordan and takes the weapons from Syria to Lebanon, two of the U.S. officials said. From there, many of the weapons are smuggled into Israel, where criminal gangs pick them up and move them to the West Bank.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The route through Lebanon, Mr. Levitt said, is more difficult, particularly since the war in Gaza started, because the border on which Hezbollah operates is more heavily patrolled by both the Israeli military and U.N. peacekeepers. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Much of the work coordinating the smuggling route is done by Iranian operatives from the Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guards\u2019 external intelligence agency, according to two of the Iranian officials who are affiliated with the Guards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In addition to killing General Zahedi, the Israeli strike against the Iranian Embassy building in Damascus last week killed two other Quds Force generals and four other officers, Iran said, making it one of the deadliest attacks of the shadow war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The American officials and two of the Israeli officials said a series of strikes in Syria a week earlier were aimed at two Iranian intelligence divisions involved in the smuggling. One unit, known as Division 4000, is overseen directly by the Revolutionary Guards. The other, Division 18840, is operated by the Quds Force.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Days before the Israeli strike on the embassy building in Damascus, Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave his personal seal of approval to the Palestinian militants who receive many of Iran\u2019s weapons. In Tehran, he met with the leaders of two armed groups: Ziyad al-Nakhalah of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2024\/03\/26\/world\/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news\/the-political-leader-of-hamas-goes-to-iran-for-talks-state-media-reports?smid=url-share\" title=\"\">Ismail Haniyeh<\/a>, the political leader of Hamas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ayatollah Khamenei, who years ago publicly issued an order to arm the West Bank, told both leaders, according to the state media, that Iran would not hesitate to support Palestinians and their cause.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt would not have been easy for the Palestinian people to withstand this battle had it not been for Iran\u2019s continuous and consistent support at all political, military and security levels,\u201d Mr. al-Nakhalah said in a speech in Tehran. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Aaron Boxerman<!-- --> contributed reporting from Jerusalem.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/09\/world\/middleeast\/iran-west-bank-weapons-smuggling.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iran is operating a clandestine smuggling route across the Middle East, employing intelligence operatives, militants and criminal gangs, to deliver weapons to Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to officials from the United States, Israel and Iran. The goal, as described by three Iranian officials, is to foment unrest against Israel by flooding the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/26\/multimedia\/29iran-westbank-top\/26mideast-crisis-syria-strikes-chmg-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13848,673,27988,19606,38,120,27987,3092,6501],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22560,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22558\/revisions\/22560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}