by Anna Ahronheim
The large-scale network was built with the help of North Korea and is much larger than Hamas' 'metro' network in Gaza.
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View of a Hezbollah tunnel that crosses from Lebanon to Israel, on the border between Israel and Lebanon in northern Israe
(photo credit: SRAYA DIAMANT)
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Hezbollah has a large-scale inter-regional tunnel
network stretching across Lebanon designed to move personnel and
weapons, according to a new report released by the ALMA Center over the
weekend.
According to the report, titled “Land of Tunnels” and authored by Maj. (res.) Tal Beeri, Hezbollah began
its tunnel project after the Second Lebanon War in 2006 with the help
of the North Koreans and Iranians and “is much larger than the Hamas
‘metro’ project in the Gaza Strip.”
The
network supposedly connects the Beirut area, Hezbollah’s central
headquarters, the Bekaa area used by the group as its logistical
operational rear base, to southern Lebanon. According to the report by
ALMA Center, which researches security challenges facing Israel on its
northern front, the tunnels allow for “hundreds of fully equipped
combatants to pass stealthily and rapidly underground.”
The
tunnels are also large enough for motorcycles, ATVs (all-terrain
vehicles), and other small vehicles to move through them to allow for
troops to maneuver from place to place “for the purpose of reinforcing
defense positions or for carrying out an attack in a safe, protected,
and invisible manner.”
The
cumulative length of the network may be hundreds of kilometers and in
one area stretches some 45 kilometers, connecting the area of Sidon to
the Bekaa.
“According
to our findings, it seems that part of the project was conducted in the
geographical area of the Jensnaya Wadi’s, the valley between al-
Hasania and Wadi el Leymoun, Barti al-Sfenta (between Sniyeh and
Bouslaiya), Mizra Kafra, south Zhalta. In addition, in the geographical
area of al-Tswuan– al-Roummaneh, Jabal Toura (radar), Louaizeh , Sejoud ,
Mizra’a al-Zaghrine , al-Aishia, al-Qotrani, al-Sriri, Bracha Jabour,
Meidoun and continuing to the western Bekaa,” the report read.
Like Hamas, the
tunnels contain underground command and control rooms, weapons and
supply depots, field clinics and specified designated shafts used to
fire missiles of all types (rockets, surface-to-surface missiles,
anti-tank missiles, and anti-aircraft missiles).
Beeri
wrote that the tunnels are also used for artillery attacks, with the
shafts opening for a short period before being shut. These shafts are
hidden and camouflaged and cannot be detected above ground.
The tunnels in Lebanon, which do not cross the border with Israel, are the same as the tunnels in North Korea.
The
report stated that Hezbollah’s tunnel network was built with the
assistance of a North Korean company called the “Korea Mining
Development Trading Corporation,” a company that specializes in the
development of underground infrastructure. The actual construction of
the tunnels was done by Hezbollah’s Jihad Construction Foundation.
In
2018, the IDF launched Operation Northern Shield to discover and
destroy all cross-border tunnels dug by Hezbollah into northern Israel.
The military said it found and destroyed six such tunnels.
The
destruction of those cross-border tunnels was a significant hit to the
group, and according to the IDF, they haven’t tried to rebuild them.
Anna Ahronheim
Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/hezbollah-has-inter-regional-tunnel-network-stretching-hundreds-of-km-676633
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