Iran has significantly increased supplying rockets to Hezbollah via Beirut’s airport, causing concerns among employees about Hezbollah’s influence and potential Israeli retaliation.
The pace at which Iran is supplying powerful rockets to Hezbollah, specifically at the main international airport in Beirut, has spiked, the British outlet The Telegraph reported on Sunday.
This is far from the first time that Tehran smuggled weapons to the Lebanese terror group by air or from the first time that those weapons were then stored in the civilian international airport in Beirut.
But the Telegraph report, based on anonymous airport employees who are seething at Hezbollah for mixing warfare with their civilian airport, makes a clear case that recent months have seen a significant increase in using the airport for storing strategic weapons.
The idea of using the civilian airport as one of its major storage depots appears to be a lateral maneuver by Hezbollah after the 2020 disaster in which many of its strategic explosive weapons themselves exploded from inside their storage area at the Port of Beirut.
The explosion destroyed large portions of Beirut, killed close to 220 people, and, for a period of time, turned much of the Lebanese public against Hezbollah, who was responsible for the disaster, since they kept such explosive materials near civilian areas.
However, Hezbollah managed to prevent a full investigation that could have proven completely that it was at fault, and it appears to have merely moved its weapons storage to a different civilian location, the airport, to throw its accusers off its scent and activities.
Employees detail intimidation and sanctions evasion
According to the report, “the cache allegedly includes Iranian-made Falaq unguided artillery rockets, Fateh-110 short-range missiles, road-mobile ballistic missiles and M-600 missiles with ranges of over 150 to 200 miles.”
Also, the airport contains “AT-14 Kornet, laser-guided anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM,) huge quantities of Burkan short-range ballistic missile and explosive RDX, a toxic white powder also known as cyclonite or hexagon.”
Further, the report quotes airport employees describing the strange, extra-large boxes that have started arriving at the airport since the war started.
Despite sanctions, staff at the airport claim Wafiq Safa, Hezbollah’s second in command and the head of its security apparatus, has frequented the airport of late.
“Wafiq Safa is always showing up at customs,” one whistleblower claimed, citing close relationships with the customs managers. “I feel like if we don’t do what they say, our families will be in danger.”
Lebanese airport employees described a situation where they are practically held hostage by Hezbollah, who will kill anyone who gets in their way.
They said that only international intervention could force Hezbollah to return the airport to its pure civilian location status.
Until then, the Lebanese employees worried significantly about Israel potentially attacking the airport since it was likely that weapons from the airport would be used against Israel in the ongoing war.