According to an American official, there could be upwards of 12 Russian-made anti-ship cruise missiles in Hezbollah’s possession inside Syria. The official stated that while the organization had successfully smuggled at least some of the parts of the weapons into Lebanon this past year amid the chaos of the Syrian conflict, not all required parts had been transferred.
[November 5 2009]
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki protested, "the report was not true. The ship was heading for Iran from Syria carrying Syrian goods, not weapons."
Israel Defense Force Commando Unit 13 knew what they were looking for. 36 of the 400 containers on board the Francop were intended for Hezbollah, "Hezbollah categorically denies it has any connection with the weapons which the Zionist enemy claims it seized aboard the Francop ship," Hezbollah said in a statement faxed to The Associated Press in Beirut.
IDF sources said that they were not ruling out the possibility that some of the mortar shells were manufactured in Israel and painted to make them look new. Israel's Soltam Company sold thousands of mortar shells to Iran during the regime of the Shah in the 1970s and some of them are believed to have been already transferred to Hizbullah in the past.
The Spanish crates were carrying 106 mm. shells and each had the words "2 Disparos" written on them, meaning two shots, for the number of rockets inside.
The 107 mm. rockets were in crates claiming that they were manufactured in 2007. There were even instruction manuals inside in English explaining how to handle the rocket, carry it and even place it inside a launcher.
The 122 mm. Katyusha rockets appeared to have been manufactured in Russia since they were covered in Russian writing. Some of the Kalashnikov bullets likely came from China.
