Showing posts with label Lebanon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lebanon. Show all posts

May 8, 2017

Lebanese-Kurdish wedding in Essen runs completely out of control. Fantastic atmosphere






May 2, 2016

July 13, 2015

Israeli UAV crashes in Lebanon for 2nd time in 3 weeks in the port of Tripoli












The Lebanese army said an unmanned Israeli reconnaissance drone crashed into the sea off the port of the northern coastal city of Tripoli on Saturday. The IDF declined comment on the reports. "Around 8:30 am, a drone that belongs to the Israeli enemy crashed at Tripoli port," the Lebanese army said in a statement.

Lebanese media reported the army closed off the area and pulled the aircraft out of the water. After examining the drone, the reports said, "it turned out this was an Israeli drone."

Three weeks ago, Lebanese security forces claimed an aircraft that crashed in the Bekaa region belonged to Israel.

A security source in Lebanon told Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV channel that the drone crashed overnight and that an Israeli airstrike on Sunday morning blew up the drone to ensure it is destroyed. Earlier, Al Jazeera reported that Israeli attacked in the area.

However, there has been no official confirmation that the drone was indeed Israeli, and it is believed it was actually a Syrian drone shot down by the rebels.

Ten months ago, an Israeli drone crashed in southern Lebanon. The IDF said the crash happened due to technical issues during routine operations along the border.

April 25, 2015

Hezbollah airstrip revealed in Bekaa Valley





Lebanon's militant Shia group, Hezbollah, has constructed an airstrip in the northern Bekaa Valley for its unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), an analysis of satellite images suggests.Located in a remote and sparsely populated area 10 km south of the town of Hermel and 18 km west of the Syrian border, the airstrip was built sometime between 27 February 2013 and 19 June 2014, according to imagery that recently became publicly available on Google Earth.

It consists of a single unpaved strip with a length of 670 m and width of 20 m. Material has been excavated from a nearby quarry to build up the northern end of the strip so that it is level. It is built over a shorter strip that had been in existence since at least 2010.The short length of the runway suggests the facility is not intended to smuggle in weapons shipments from Syria or Iran as it is too short for nearly all the transport aircraft used by the air forces of those countries. One exception could be the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' (IRGC's) An-74T-200 short take-off transports, but landing one with a useful load on a 670 m strip in the mountains would be considered dangerous by most operators.

An alternative explanation is that the runway was built for Iranian-made UAVs, including the Ababil-3, which has been employed over Syria by forces allied to the Syrian regime, and possibly the newer and larger Shahed-129.Hezbollah sources have confirmed that the organisation is using UAVs to support operations against rebel forces in Syria, particularly over the mountainous Qalamoun region on Lebanon's eastern border.An antenna is located on a hill 430 m south of the strip and linked by a track. While this looks like a standard Lebanese mobile telephone tower, it could potentially be used to extend the range of a UAV ground control station.

There are six small utility buildings next to the strip, but none are large enough to accommodate a UAV the size of an Ababil-3, which has a wingspan of around 7 m. However, there is a facility constructed in a valley 2.5 km west of the airstrip that includes two utility buildings large enough to house UAVs.The site, which is guarded by a checkpoint and swing gate, resembles other Hezbollah facilities scattered around the Bekaa Valley.

Hezbollah has operated UAVs from Lebanese airspace since at least November 2004, when it dispatched one that it identified as a Mirsad-1 for a brief reconnaissance mission over northern Israel. It then flew attempted to fly at least three UAVs into Israel during the July-August 2006 war.

Hezbollah said it was responsible for the UAV that was shot down over southern Israel on 6 October 2012. It said it used an Iranian-made aircraft that it had designated as the Ayoub for the incursion.
Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC Aerospace Forces, subsequently said the UAV was of a type that had been in existence for a decade, a possible reference to the Ababil-3.Iranian UAVs have been spotted on numerous occasions in Syrian airspace, mainly the Ababil-3 variant, but also the smaller Yasir-type.

The Saudi Al-Watan newspaper claimed in March 2014 that Hezbollah had built a "military airport" for its UAVs in the Bekaa Valley. Lebanese media reports erroneously claimed the location was at Iaat in the central Bekaa Valley, apparently mistaking a long-abandoned Second World War-era Royal Air Force airfield for the Hizbullah facility.

November 5, 2014

Saudi Arabia and France Seal $3 billion Weapons Deal For Lebanon Army




Earlier Lebanese Defense Minister Samir Moqbel had been to Iran to get military aid from Tehran. 




Saudi Arabia and France sealed an agreement for Riyadh to finance the delivery of $3 billion worth of French weapons to the Lebanese army.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius hailed the conclusion of the deal, first announced last December, as a major boost to the Lebanese army’s ability to tackle “terrorism” at a time when the former French colony is under mounting threat.The deal comes as the poorly equipped Lebanese army battles jihadists, including militants of the Islamic State group, both along its porous border with Syria and in its second city Tripoli.

The deal was signed in Riyadh by Saudi Finance Minister Ibrahim al-Assaf and Edouard Guillaud, the head of the ODAS organization set up by France for the export of defense equipment.



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