2024-04-09T18:51:43+00:00
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/ The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Iran is carrying out “secret” smuggling operations through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and is employing intelligence agents, militants and criminal gangs with the aim of delivering weapons to the West Bank.
The newspaper quoted American, Israeli and Iranian officials as saying that many of the weapons smuggled into the West Bank move through two routes from Iran, through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, to reach members of organized criminal gangs, militant militants, soldiers and intelligence agents, according to the Al-Hurra website.
The main party in the operation, according to the sources, are Bedouin smugglers who carry weapons across the border from Jordan to Israel.
Through one smuggling route, Iranian-backed militants carry weapons from Syria to Jordan, and from there they are transported at the border to Bedouin smugglers, who take them to the border with Israel, where criminal gangs pick them up and transport them to the West Bank.
Two American officials said that the second route passes through Jordan and through it weapons are transported from Syria to Lebanon. From there, the weapons are smuggled into Israel, where criminal gangs pick them up and transport them to the West Bank.
Iranian sources indicate that Iranian agents from the Quds Force, affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, are mostly responsible for the coordination process.
Analysts told the newspaper that the majority of smuggled weapons are small arms, such as pistols and assault rifles, and Iran is also smuggling advanced weapons, according to American and Israeli officials.
Israeli officials said that these weapons include anti-tank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades that fly quickly and low on the ground, which poses a challenge to Israel.
The newspaper based this information on interviews with well-informed senior security and government officials, including three from Israel, three from Iran, and three from the United States. Officials from the three countries asked not to reveal their identities.
Three Iranian officials stated that the goal of the smuggling operation was to stir up unrest against Israel by flooding the Strip with the largest possible number of weapons.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not comment in a statement on this information, but stressed “the importance of the Palestinians taking up arms against Israel.”
Analysts said that smuggling into the West Bank began about two years ago, when Iran began using existing routes to smuggle other contraband goods.
Afshon Ostovar, an associate professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and an expert on the Iranian military, said Iran is focusing on the West Bank because it has realized that access to Gaza will be restricted for the foreseeable future.
He added: “The West Bank will be the next border that Iran will penetrate and spread weapons there, because if it is able to do so, the West Bank will become as big a problem as Gaza, if not bigger.”
The Fatah movement, the Palestinian faction that controls the Palestinian Authority and a large part of the West Bank, accused Iran last week of “trying to spread chaos in the West Bank,” and said it would oppose any operations from abroad that are not related to the Palestinian issue.
The statement stated that the movement affirms its “rejection of external interference, specifically Iranian, in Palestinian internal affairs. These interventions have no goal other than to cause chaos, chaos, and tampering with the Palestinian internal arena, which will only benefit the Israeli occupation and the enemies of our Palestinian people.”
The movement stated that it would not allow the Palestinian issue to be exploited “as a card for the benefit of suspicious projects that have nothing to do with our Palestinian people or our national cause.”
The secret operation heightens fears that Tehran is seeking to turn the West Bank into “the next flashpoint in the long-running shadow war between Israel and Iran,” according to the New York Times.
This conflict gained new importance after a strike, attributed to Israel, targeted the Iranian consulate in Damascus, “threatening a broader conflict in the Middle East, after Iran pledged to respond to the raid.”
The newspaper says that after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, Tehran and Israel preferred to confine their conflict in the shadows, but that secret war exploded into the open, last week, after the air strike on the consulate building of the Iranian embassy in Syria.
It is noteworthy that after the October attack, Israeli security forces launched a massive security campaign throughout the West Bank. The Israeli army described the raids as part of its efforts to combat terrorism.
Last month, the army said security forces seized advanced weapons, including anti-tank mines, and prevented them from being smuggled into the West Bank.