Iran will seek new ways to arm Hezbollah, Israeli officials say

Nov 5, 2009, 7:16 GMT

Tel Aviv - Tehran will probably find new routes to smuggle arms to the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrilla group, Israeli defence officials said Thursday - a day after Israeli commandos seized a ship en route from Iran to Lebanon with hundreds of tons of weapons on board.

The unnamed officials told Israel Army Radio that they thought the seizure of the ship, the German-owned, Antiuguan-flagged Francop, would not deter Iran from continuing its efforts to arm Hezbollah.

They said approximately half the 36 shipping containers in which the weapons were hidden have been unloaded, and no new weaponry not already in Hezbollah's arsenal had been found.

Israel commandos seized the ship before dawn Wednesday, as it was sailing 160 kilometres off the coast of Israel in international waters.

After the ship was redirected to the southern Israeli port of Ashdod, 36 large shipping containers containing the arms were laid out on the dock.

Television footage showed hundreds of boxes with rockets, including 122-millimetre Russian-style Katyushas, as well as anti-tank and artillery shells, hand grenades and ammunition for semi-automatic weapons, worth tens of millions of dollars.

Commodore Rani Ben-Yehuda, the Israel Navy Chief-of-Staff, told reporters the amount was enough to sustain Hezbollah through one month of fighting with Israel.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a bitter 33-day war in the summer of 2006. Israel said the weapons on board the Francop was a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which imposed an arms embargo on the Lebanese guerrilla group.