BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group has launched attacks on Syrian security forces and is sponsoring cross-border smuggling gangs, the new Syrian authorities said on Monday, according to state media.
Syrian forces clashed with smuggling gangs this week, most of whom were affiliated with Hezbollah, but did not target Lebanese territory, Lt. Col. Moayed Al-Salama said in a statement carried by official news agency SANA.
Hezbollah was allied to former Syrian strongman Bashar Assad, who was toppled by opposition rebels in December.
The new authorities in Damascus launched anti-smuggling operations last week at the Lebanese-Syria border, where the Iranian-backed group holds sway.
“Most smuggling gangs on the Lebanese border are affiliated with the Hezbollah militia, whose presence now poses a threat at the Syrian border because it sponsors drug and weapon smugglers,” Salama was reported as saying.
“We have developed a comprehensive plan to fully control the borders,” said the official, whom SANA described as the commander for the western region in the Border Security Administration.
“We confirm that we did not target the Lebanese interior, despite shelling from the Hezbollah militia reaching our units,” Salama said.
On Saturday, the Lebanese army said it responded to incoming fire from across the Syrian border, two days after the new authorities in Damascus said they had launched operations against smugglers there.
The army did not name those responsible for firing toward Lebanon.
He blamed “the defunct regime” for turning “the Syrian-Lebanese border into corridors for the drug trade in cooperation with the Hezbollah militia, promoting the presence of armed smuggling gangs.”
Operations “were limited to Syrian border villages, targeting the armed smuggling gangs and remnants (of the Assad government) and militias who fought with them,” he added.
Syrian forces seized “farms, warehouses and factories for the production and packaging of hashish and captagon pills,” he said, referring to the potent synthetic drug which Syria mass-produced under Assad.
They also found presses specialized in printing counterfeit currency, he said, as well as as shipments of weapons and drugs that were about to cross in.
Syria shares a 330-kilometer (205-mile) border with Syria, with no official demarcation at several points, making it porous and prone to smuggling.
Assad’s fall in December disrupted Hezbollah’s arms supply lines through the land border with Syria.
Syria forces accuse Hezbollah of attacks, sponsoring smuggling at border
https://arab.news/6qd2k
Syria forces accuse Hezbollah of attacks, sponsoring smuggling at border
- Syrian forces clashed with smuggling gangs near the Lebanese border this week
- Forces raided locations involved in the production and packaging of various drugs
Five takeaways from Mojtaba Khamenei’s defiant first message
- Khamenei’s father Ali Khamenei, supreme leader since 1989, wife, sister, child and brother-in-law were all killed on February 28 at the start of the US-Israeli war
- The message was not accompanied by video or audio of the new leader giving the remarks, or even a new still image
PARIS: Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Thursday issued his first message since his elevation to the post, threatening revenge for his father’s killing, though he did not deliver the declaration in person.
Khamenei’s father Ali Khamenei, supreme leader since 1989, was killed on February 28 at the start of the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic in an air strike that also claimed the lives of other top security officials and family members.
Mojtaba Khamenei was himself wounded, according to statements by some Iranian officials and state television, but there remains uncertainty over his whereabouts and physical condition.
Here are five takeaways from his first statement as supreme leader.
- Uncertainty over condition -
“The first message of the supreme leader of the Islamic revolution, his excellency Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Hossein Khamenei!” an Iranian TV anchor declared before reading out the lengthy statement.
There was, however, no attempt to end the speculation over Khamenei’s condition, and the statement was not accompanied by video or audio of the new leader giving the remarks, or even a new still image.
Instead, the statement was read against the backdrop of an archive photo of Khamanei and a computer-generated flag of the Islamic republic.
- Call for revenge -
In the statement, Khamenei offered no hint that he was seeking to make peace with Iran’s enemies, and instead emphasized his desire for revenge in a war that has claimed the life of his father and his wife.
“A limited amount of this revenge has so far taken concrete form, but until it is fully achieved, this case will remain among our priorities,” Khamenei said.
“We will seek compensation from the enemy, and if they refuse, we will take as much of their property as we determine, and if that is not possible, we will destroy the same amount of his property,” he added.
He singled out a deadly strike on a school in Minab in southern Iran that Iranian authorities have said was carried out by the US and left 150 people dead, describing it as a “crime the enemy deliberately committed.”
A preliminary US military investigation has determined that a missile struck the school because of a targeting mistake, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
- Threats to enemies -
Echoing the language of his late father, Khamanei also emphasized Iran’s potential to cause havoc across the region by squeezing oil supplies and using regional proxies.
He called for using “the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz” — a strategic waterway through which a fifth of global oil passes.
“The will of the people is for the continuation of an effective and deterrent defense that will make the enemy regret its actions.”
He warned that “studies have also been carried out on opening other fronts in which the enemy has little experience and in which it will be extremely vulnerable,” without giving details.
Those fronts would be “activated” if the war continued, he said.
- Warning to region -
Khamenei noted that Iran shared land or sea borders with some 15 countries and “we have always desired warm and constructive relations” with these neighbors.
But Khamenei called for the closure of US bases in nearby countries, saying “the claim of establishing security and peace by America was nothing more than a lie.”
“These countries must determine their stance regarding those who have invaded our dear homeland and killed our people.”
- Grieving son and husband -
He lauded his father as a “shining treasure and distinguished figure in history,” and said he had seen the late ayatollah’s corpse after his “martyrdom.”
Khamenei described the body as “a mountain of steadfastness” with the fist of his father’s one functioning hand — his other arm was paralyzed after a bomb attack in the 1980s — clenched in a sign of defiance.
Khamenei emphasized that as well as his father, he had also lost in the attack “my dear and loyal wife,” his sister, her child and his brother-in-law.
He did not mention his mother, who previous reports said had also been killed. The Fars news agency said Thursday those reports were inaccurate and she was still alive.
Khamenei said that he had learned of his appointment by the Assembly of Experts clerical body “at the same time as you” on television through the state broadcaster.
