by Lilach Shoval, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Unit has been building a terrorist network near the Israel-Syria border since last summer without the knowledge of Syrian President Bashar Assad
Hezbollah fighters march in southern Lebanon. Inset: Ali Mussa Daqduq Photo: AFP
A
secret Hezbollah unit, which it calls "the Golan file," has been
building a terrorist network near the Israeli-Syrian border on the Golan
Heights, the IDF revealed on Wednesday.
At this stage, the unit focuses primarily
on gathering intelligence on the IDF, but intelligence officials say it
could also carry out operations against Israel in the future.
The network includes dozens of operatives
and is headed by Ali Mussa Daqduq, who joined Hezbollah in 1983 and
served in a number of operational positions in southern Lebanon during
the IDF presence in the area, as well as other parts of the Middle East.
In Iraq, Daqduq, also known as Abu Hassin
Sajd, was imprisoned by American forces after an operation he commanded
led to the kidnapping and execution of five American soldiers. Daqduq's
fate had vexed American officials after they were forced to hand him
over to Baghdad after failing to secure a custody deal ahead of the U.S.
military's withdrawal from the country.
At the time, the White House said it had
received assurances from Baghdad that Daqduq would be tried for
allegedly orchestrating the 2007 kidnapping. But an Iraqi court cleared
him of the charges, citing a lack of evidence.
Last summer Daqduq was sent by Hezbollah to Syria to establish the "Golan file."
According to Israeli intelligence
officials, Daqduq's unit has been so heavily compartmentalized that even
the Assad regime in Syria, and even many elements within Hezbollah
itself, were unaware of its existence.
The hope in the IDF is that exposing the unit's existence will lead the Damascus regime to terminate its activities in Syria.
This is not Hezbollah's first attempt at
establishing a terrorist network on the Golan Heights. In May of 2013,
Syrian President Bashar Assad opened the Golan frontier to Hezbollah to
act against Israel, in an effort to divert attention from raging Syrian
civil war. Consequently, the Shiite terrorist group initiated campaigns
to build terrorist networks in the area, and by 2015 had carried out
several terrorist attacks against Israeli forces. According to foreign
reports, the men tasked with spearheading these operations, Samir Kuntar and Jihad Mughniyeh, were both assassinated by Israel.
With the end of the civil war in Syria and
the return of Assad's forces to the Golan frontier, Hezbollah had lost
its legitimacy to maintain a presence there. The organization's
leadership, however, decided to establish the secret unit regardless,
with better operational capabilities than before, to act against Israel
when ordered.
The assessment within the IDF is that the
unit's operatives, many of whom formerly served under Kuntar and
Mughniyeh and live in villages near the Israel border, are well equipped
and could try transferring additional weapons from Lebanon or use
Iranian stockpiles already in Syria.
As stated, the Syrian president was unaware
of the unit's existence until now, and IDF officials believe he will
view it unfavorably, to say the least, as it undermines his authority.
It is important to note that currently
there are no concrete warnings of terrorist attacks emanating from the
Golan Heights frontier, and one of the main reasons the IDF chose to
expose the unit's existence now was to nip the threat in its infancy.
"We are revealing the [terrorist]
infrastructure] in such a manner that will knock [Hezbollah] off its
chair," a senior IDF officer said.
Lilach Shoval, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/2019/03/13/clandestine-hezbollah-unit-operating-on-golan-idf-reveals/
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