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WP: Hezbollah has U.S. armored personnel carriers. But how did they get them?

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A

AcademicSaucer

Member
Over the weekend images surfaced online of a Hezbollah parade in Qusair, Syria, featuring U.S. armored personnel carriers affixed with antiaircraft guns. The images prompted a flurry of speculation about the vehicles’ origin and whether the group had pilfered the stocks of the U.S.-supplied Lebanese military.

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Over the summer, the Lebanese military took possession of dozens of pieces of artillery, armored vehicles, semiautomatic grenade launchers and 1,000 tons of ammunition — all worth about $50 million — as part of the United States’ ongoing efforts to bolster the country’s capacity to fight extremists. The shipment, overseen by the Pentagon and the State Department, brought the amount of U.S. military aid sent to Lebanon in 2016 to $221 million, according to U.S. Ambassador Elizabeth H. Richard.

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The Hezbollah M113s appear to be an older variant, and U.S. officials said they are inclined to believe that vehicles came from the disintegration of the Southern Lebanese Army, or SLA. The SLA was an Israeli-allied and supplied Christian militia that fought during the Lebanese civil war. Its military equipment was ultimately absorbed by Hezbollah in the early 2000s when Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon.

U.S. equipment falling into the hands of extremist groups and regional opponents has been a recurring theme in the Middle East and southwest Asia for the past 15 years as American wares have been distributed wholesale to those willing to fight for U.S. causes. Armored vehicles, weapons, night-vision devices and body armor have been diverted from places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, subsequently showing up on battlefields throughout the region.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...personnel-carriers-but-how-did-they-get-them/
 
H

HariKari

Member
The M113 has little to no armor and is very outdated at this point. They've probably been resold several times.
 
T

The Albatross

Member
Guevara said:
Big deal, your local police department probably has those too:

e6229622fe79221ed71e907fe2175cd5.jpg
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The "big deal" is that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that is commandeering or obtaining significant US military property, suggesting something underhanded is going on in the Lebanese government or elsewhere.

For the most part, everybody knows where the Tampa police department gets their military-grade hardware. I also have less a problem with a legitimate organization like an American police department buying from the US government, as opposed to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, or ISIS. Not that this is surprising, though.
 
I

Incognito

Troll
probably part of the iran coddle deal obama unilaterally imposed. here, drop your nuclear ambitions that we know about but not the ones we dont, and we'll send you some APCs. ooops, how'd they end up with iran's proxy? what a condicience. thanks obama.
 
F

faisal233

Member
The Albatross said:
The "big deal" is that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that is commandeering or obtaining significant US military property, suggesting something underhanded is going on in the Lebanese government or elsewhere.

For the most part, everybody knows where the Tampa police department gets their military-grade hardware. I also have less a problem with a legitimate organization like an American police department buying from the US government, as opposed to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, or ISIS. Not that this is surprising, though.
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It's right in the article, likely from Israel.
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
The Hezbollah M113s appear to be an older variant, and U.S. officials said they are inclined to believe that vehicles came from the disintegration of the Southern Lebanese Army, or SLA. The SLA was an Israeli-allied and supplied Christian militia that fought during the Lebanese civil war. Its military equipment was ultimately absorbed by Hezbollah in the early 2000s when Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon.
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This makes more sense than bringing up the 2016 exchange. These models are OLD.
 
M

MrToughPants

Brian Burke punched my mom
That version looks like a Vietnam era fossil.

The M113A3 was designed to provide protection against 7.62mm threat, and this proved not to be enough when tested in combat.
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Unless these were refitted with better armor they're garbage.
 
S

spineduke

Unconfirmed Member
These were acquired from the old South Lebanon Army - a Christian milita from the civil war days which had Israel's backing.
 
S

Sijil

Member
They got them from the traitors SLA, if the LAF was leaking apc's to Hezbollah they would be operating LAV and VAB not M113.
 
T

TacticalHotdog

Member
His Majesty said:
Maybe US needs to support more local moderate rebels to prevent this from happening.
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Many of the so-called moderate rebels are have ties to/or are sympathetic towards extremist groups like Al-Nusra. The CIA's vetting process is a joke because the rebels just know how to provide cookie cutter answers to make them appear secular on paper
Distinguishing between the FSA and al-Nusra is impossible, because they are virtually the same organization. As early as 2013, FSA commanders were defecting with their entire units to join al-Nusra. There, they still retain the FSA monicker, but it is merely for show, to give the appearance of secularism so they can maintain access to weaponry provided by the CIA and Saudi intelligence services. The reality is that the FSA is little more than a cover for the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra.
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The fact that the FSA simply passed American-made weaponry off to al-Nusra is also unsurprising considering that the CIA’s vetting process of militias in Syria is lackluster, consisting of little more than running traces in old databases. These traces rely on knowing the individuals’ real names in the first place, and assume that they were even fighting-age males when the data was collected by CTC years prior. CTC/SI, as with CTC/Iraq before it, was a “stepchild to Big Mark [name changed], the former director of CTC, and that neglect had consequences, especially when a terrorist group took over multiple countries,” a former CIA officer elaborated.
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There are also quotas for training the Syrian militias. “For one Title 10 project, there was a quota for the number of soldiers processed and trained. You can’t have any guys get sick; they have actual numbers they have to meet.” The vetting process was also deeply flawed, consisting of a database check and an interview. The rebels know how to sell themselves to the Americans during such interviews, but they still let things slip occasionally. “I don’t understand why people don’t like al-Nusra,” one rebel told the American soldiers. Many had sympathies with the terrorist groups such as Nusra and ISIS. Others simply were not fit to be soldiers. “They don’t want to be warriors. They are all cowards. That is the moderate rebel,” a Green Beret told SOFREP. Many of the so-called moderate rebels were described as a bunch of farmers and retards who could not hack it in ISIS, and the Syrian Army would not want them either.
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The so-called New Syrian Army (NSA) was one of the bigger boondoggles that Special Forces engaged in. General Cleveland (who also backed the wrong players in Libya) was involved in pushing the New Syrian Army as a Title 10 program for the Green Berets from its inception up until the first class began training, believing they would make a suitable proxy force since they were already on the battlefield. While they were pro-regime, they were also willing to fight ISIS, as they viewed the jihadis as a threat to the Assad government. Despite some Special Forces soldiers believing that the NSA had already received training under a CIA Title 50 program, the militia was armed with American-made M16s, M249 Squad Automatic Weapons, 60mm and 81mm mortar systems, and M240B and M2HB .50 caliber machine guns. One of many problems with this program is that, after ISIS is defeated, the real war begins. CIA-backed FSA elements will openly become al-Nusra, while Special Forces-backed FSA elements like the New Syrian Army will fight alongside the Assad regime. Then the CIA’s militia and the Special Forces’ militia will kill each other.

No, that is not part of some diabolical plan, but rather the result of gross mismanagement.
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https://sofrep.com/63764/us-special...-disastrously-wrong-with-covert-ops-in-syria/
SOFREP can be a real mixed bag, but they do have the connections to look at these things in-depth and this particular article is pretty good at detailing the absolute clusterfuck that is US Foreign Policy in Syria
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
wienke said:
I don't know how they even maintain something like an M1 tank.

Those aren't exactly Toyotas.
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FyreWulff said:
Thing about an M1 Abrams is they'd run it for all of five minutes before running out of money to even have it on.
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They don't have to. Self reliant but tech starved nations such as Iran will pay hand over fist for a chance to grab one for assessment and then reverse engineer the hell out of it. They'd probably disassemble every sensor, screw and nut for study and reproduction. They've been doing it for decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAIO_Toufan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HESA_Saeqeh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulfiqar_(tank)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boragh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toophan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fakour-90

The Iranian Army is infamous because half of its materiel is based on American designs. America armed the Sah with some of the best weapons of the time and after the revolution many resources were poured in reverse engineering them in order to keep them working (they are still flying the F-14, and it seems operative enough to protect Russian bombers) when not upgrading them or looking into ways to create new indigenous designs. They've also been procuring themselves with newer hardware when the occasion arises.
 
D

Dingens

Member
His Majesty said:
Maybe US needs to support more local moderate rebels to prevent this from happening.
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yeah, but this time make sure to give them only the cutting edge high tech stuff so they can annihilate the un-moderate rebels once and for all!

/s, obviously
 
N

numble

Member
The Albatross said:
Right... that's why I'm saying it's "a big deal," or at least, bigger than a police department buying the equipment from their own government legitimately.
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How is it a big deal that suggests something underhanded is going on? Israel supplied a rebel group in South Lebanon that lost and collapsed. Hezbollah largely operates in South Lebanon.
 
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