Israeli security forces prevent terrorism, arrest Hezbollah cell. Israeli police car. Illustrative. By Joshua Spurlock
Drugs, explosives, and terrorism—It’s not the plot of a movie, but the plotting of a group of seven Arabs who were working on orders from Hezbollah to strike inside Israel. Among the potential targets suggested by Hezbollah were the major northern city of Haifa, a factory in that region, and a bus stop frequented by Israeli soldiers, according to a press release from the Israel Security Agency (ISA).
The terror cell—which included multiple members of the Kahamuz family—smuggled explosives across the Israel-Lebanon border using drug trafficking routes and communicating with Hezbollah via the patriarch in the Kahamuz family, a drug smuggler himself that fled Israel to Lebanon a decade ago. The press release noted, “Drugs trafficking in southern Lebanon is controlled and managed by Hezbollah which is constant in its efforts to smuggle war materiel along the drug smuggling routes… In the matter at hand, the event was foiled and all those involved were arrested.”
One of the arrested terrorists had scouted out the bus stop for Hezbollah and obtained two explosive charges from Hezbollah. The Arab terrorist hid the explosives in an orchard in Israel.
The list of offenses for the terror cell is long. Israeli Prime Minister Office Spokesman Ofir Gendelman posted on his Twitter feed that they are indicted for “espionage, helping the enemy in time of war, possession of weapons & drug trafficking.”
The ISA press release pointed out that the connection of drug smuggling and weapons is not new. “In recent years the security services have dealt with several cases in the context of which links were discovered between routes for smuggling drugs from Lebanon into Israel and routes for the infiltration of war materiel.”
Hezbollah is one of Israel’s most formidable enemies and has plotted terror attacks against Israel across the globe, as well as inside Israel. These plots have ranged from explosive attacks to kidnappings, including bombings in South America and Europe.
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, October 6, 2016)