#hezbollah drone

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Hezbollah drone downed by IDF mistakenly reveals operatives' pictures, By ANNA AHRONHEIM

Oops! The drone shot down by the IDF on Wednesday had a memory card installed, revealing the Hezbollah operatives' faces and vehicles.

A Hezbollah drone downed by the Israeli military had a memory card with clear pictures of operatives belonging to one of the Lebanese terror group’s elite units.

The drone, shot down by the IDF on Wednesday after it infiltrated Israeli airspace, had images of its operators belonging to the elite Radwan unit that uses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to gather intelligence on Israeli troops.

The pictures were likely taken by mistake by the UAV, but they revealed their faces and vehicles – complete with license plates – as well as the operatives flying another drone that had also been downed a few months ago by the IDF.

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Hezbollah Drone Outsmarts Israel's Iron Dome

Aakhir Tak – In ShortsA Hezbollah drone outsmarted Israel’s Iron Dome air-defense system, attacking an Israeli army base. The incident resulted in the death of four soldiers and injuries to 60 others. This drone attack highlights a new threat to Israeli security from Hezbollah. Aakhir Tak – In DepthA Hezbollah drone successfully penetrated Israel’s Iron Dome air-defense system on Sunday,…

Hezbollah Drone Outsmarts Israel's Iron Dome

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Hezbollah Says It Flew Iranian-Designed Drone Into Israel

By Anne Barnard, NY Times, October 11, 2012 BEIRUT, Lebanon--Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militant group and political party Hezbollah, declared Thursday that his fighters had assembled and piloted a drone that flew 35 miles into Israel on Saturday, calling the flight an unprecedented achievement in "the history of the resistance."

In a televised, 50-minute speech, Mr. Nasrallah said the drone, which was shot down by Israeli forces, had been designed in Iran and assembled by Hezbollah experts in Lebanon.

"It is our right to send other drones whenever we want," Mr. Nasrallah said, noting that Israel frequently violated Lebanese airspace. "It was not the first time and it will not be the last."

Hours earlier, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused Hezbollah in the episode, saying that Israel had "thwarted over the weekend Hezbollah's attempt" to penetrate its airspace. The group has sent a drone over Israel at least once before.

There was no immediate official reaction from Israel to Mr. Nasrallah's speech, or warnings about the need for a military response against Hezbollah in Lebanon. If anything, there seemed to be an attempt to point a finger at Hezbollah's patron, the more distant Iran.

"It should come as no surprise that the military machine of Hezbollah in Lebanon is substantially made in Iran," said one senior official, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.

Mr. Nasrallah's speech was closely watched because of fears that Hezbollah, a longtime ally of Syria and Iran, might provoke a clash with Israel to distract attention from Syria's crackdown on the nearly 19-month uprising there. Hezbollah has been accused by the United States government, Syrian rebels and Lebanese rivals of assisting the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, in his crackdown.

The possibility of Syria becoming a proxy war, with involvement from Hezbollah and Iran on one side and powers like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar on the other, is one of many factors that could fuel regional escalation of the conflict.

Mr. Nasrallah denied that he had ordered his fighters into Syria, but said the group reserved the right to join the battle in the future.

At the same time, he appeared to subtly distance himself from Mr. Assad. He never mentioned Mr. Assad's name--speaking only of "the Syrian regime"--and refrained from praising Syria's government, as he has in the past, as a pillar of resistance against Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories.

He obliquely acknowledged that some individual Hezbollah militants may have fought there. Because of the vagaries of post-colonial borders, he said, more than 30,000 Lebanese live in Syria, including Shiites, some of whom are members of Hezbollah and veterans of its wars. Some of them, he said, have fought to defend against rebel attacks on their homes and villages, including kidnappings and mortar attacks on Syrian checkpoints protecting the villages.

"What can we expect them to do?" he asked. He said that a senior Hezbollah operative who died recently while performing "jihadist duties" was killed in an accidental weapons explosion, not fighting in Syria.