Lebanon – Hezbollah’s counter-intelligence capability
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 6:07PM Apologies for a gap in the two recent themes of EOD Psychology and Historic IEDs – work is getting in the way. I will return to them as soon as time allows.
In the meantime some broader developments. Some interesting things happening in Lebanon. Firstly the CIA’s network of informants has allegedly been “rolled up” by Hezbollah’s counter-intelligence unit…..
And then last weekend there was the strange story of an Israeli UAV “disappearing” without comment from anyone. And a story circulating Lebanon that Hezbollah have an electronic capability to “jam” the Israeli drones. The author of the report I have tracked before on Hezbollah issues and he is well connected and usually reliable. Curious… Instinctively I would have thought that with the amount of UAVs that Israel flies over southern Lebanon at least once in a while one will malfunction… but then again it is dangerous to underestimate Hezbollah’s technical capability. People have done that before and learnt the hard way of their error.
It’s important to note two regional contextual issues:
- The Syrian version of the Arab Spring may have an interesting effect on Hezbollah who receive succour and support from the Syrian regime.
- Hezbollah remain the ace in the hole for Iran – if Israel hit Iran because of their concern over the development of nuclear capabilities, as sure as eggs is eggs, Hezbollah will really go all out against Israel and they have a whole bundle of new toys to point southwards.
The CBS article is particularly interesting as it details the fact that Hezbollah’s counter-intelligence unit appears to be really very sharp and they are using some very sophisticated IT tools to spot behavioural patterns of agents within their midst. Intriguing, and reinforces my point about not underestimating them.
Roger Davies
Keep watching! - two more "curious developments" related to Hezbollah
1. On Tuesday night there was a mysterious explosion at a Hezbollah weapons storage site in Tyre.... and the usual obfuscation, confusion and denials over its cause. I can't help but be reminded of last week's odd explosion at the IRGC missile storage site outside Tehran. There was also another explosion at a Hezbollah storage site in July. Is there a pattern emerging? I could speculate all night about that...
2. A report came out yesterday suggesting that Israel had "deliberately" crashed its UAV but that the UAV was booby-trapped to kill Hezbollah exploitation teams. Very curious. By curious I mean I'm not sure whether I believe it, but...
To cap it all... one report suggests that these two stories are directly linked. That Hezbollah recovered the crashed drone to the Tyre site where it detonated. Now that is really interesting.
To add to the confusion there were two small explosions elsewhere in Tyre that night. And there is a second report of a possible crashed drone...and more talk of Hezbolah's significant EW capability. There are rumours circulating Beirut that if the Assad regime falls, Hezbollah will in effect seize all of southern Lebanon in a coup - an indication of the feverish politicking ongoing. Or is that Israeli "info ops"? Almost in the same moment US Republican presidential candidates having been commenting on Hezbollah activities in Latin America.
Take all of this with several large pinches of salt - and keep watching.
Roger Davies
And now an article suggesting that Iran used electromnic counter-measures to bring down a US drone.
What with explosions in Lebanon and Iran, drones being brought down in both countries algedly by electronic means anyone would think there was a connection!
Reader Comments (2)
I suspect they just used a link analysis tool since there is no "software" to track cell phones. You need both hardware and software. The hardware you can get from European companies easily enough. I also suspect it was Iranin intel that did the real work. This indicates that this is all related http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/8911970/Iran-arrests-12-CIA-spies-accused-of-targeting-nuclear-programme.html
I was having this conversation just yesterday about vulnerability of UAV's to anyone with half a brain - they are on the edge of signal ranges, are operating in exposed positions, and can be spotted by various sensors if you really want to spend the time to look.....anyone for tennis.
D