The secret war on oil smuggling to fund Hezbollah

As of May 2018, when the Iranians were barred from transferring funds in the international financial system, they had trouble getting the proceeds or payments for the oil they smuggled to China, North Korea, Syria and other countries like Turkey for example (where oil was smuggled inland).

In Western intelligence communities, including Washington and Israel, there is a well-founded suspicion that the funds for Iranian oil smuggled into Syria are being laundered in some way. Then news began to circulate that the money Syria owes Iran for oil is making its way to Hezbollah’s coffers, and in this way Iran is beating two birds with one stone: it also should not launder money in overly complicated ways, through third parties who do not belong to the Iranian-Shiite axis. Should not look for creative ways to transfer money to Hezbollah, through Lebanese banks under international supervision. In fact, Assad is giving the Iranians a favor under a favor – and this is a win-win situation for all involved.

Syria has traditionally served as the main channel through which Iran supplies Hezbollah with weapons, munitions, missiles and other lethal means. It is now also a money transfer pipeline that can continue to operate with U.S. sanctions under the “Caesar Act,” which prevents international deals with banks in Lebanon because they serve as a bypass pipeline to Syrian banks (which are also subject to sanctions). As is well known, the journey from Damascus to Beirut takes less than two hours, and the money can be transferred without difficulty, if necessary, in luggage – from Syria straight into Nasrallah’s pocket.

This triangle, of smuggling, money laundering and terrorist financing, is nothing new in the global scene, and Hezbollah has specialized in the genre even when it comes to the drug business that financed much of its activity and smuggled stolen vehicles from Europe to the Middle East.

Ships sailing from the Kharj oil port in the Persian Gulf or the island of Qashem, laden with Iranian oil, are something that is difficult to hide. In the shortest route they have to cross the Strait of Hormuz, enter through the Bab Bab al-Mandab to the Red Sea, from there to the Suez Canal and Fort Said towards the Syrian coast. There they anchor in the middle of the sea and transfer their cargo to a Syrian tanker that unloads the oil on shore – or they sail to the port of Latakia or the port of Tartus and unload there.

The Iranians understand that this route is completely visible to all Western intelligence services, including Israel, so in 2019 they tried to send ships on a long route that avoided sailing in the Red Sea and across the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean – bypassing the entire African continent, entering Gibraltar into the Mediterranean and then sailing towards Syria , Among many ships sailing in the Mediterranean and also in its eastern basin.

The British, who control the Strait of Gibraltar, stopped such a ship and seized it claiming it was headed for Syria and that it was violating UN sanctions on the country. The Iranians in response took control of a British ship in the Persian Gulf. Eventually the two ships were captured with the ship seized by the British. The oil cargo on it.

This incident illustrates how in fact Hezbollah’s smuggling, money laundering and terrorist financing project was visible to the intelligence services, who also had no difficulty keeping track of the last dollar that made its way to Hezbollah’s secret coffers.

As is well known, funding is the oxygen of terrorism, and without massive Iranian funding, Hezbollah cannot hold tens of thousands of different fighters and infrastructure, which are used for both its social and military activities. It is very likely that Israel has an important interest in stopping Iranian funding for Hezbollah, and the sanctions imposed by Trump on Iran have given important leverage, both by the US intelligence agencies and by the Israeli intelligence community.

The simplest way to operate this crane is to cut off the oil smuggling axis – thereby achieving a dual goal: both to stop Syrian payments to Hezbollah, and to put Assad and his regime in distress that will force them to end the civil war and reduce its dependence on smuggled Iranian oil.

If indeed Israel hit these tankers, then it is likely that the arm of the sea and the special units, above and below the surface of the water, worked overtime. But no Iranian ship sank or caught fire among the damaged ships, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Iranians said nothing, nor did they admit that their ship had been hit. Neither Israel nor the Americans published anything until yesterday. As it is said in the song about the people of silence – “No one saw, no one heard, were there people of silence here”.

Although the song is about the members of Squadron 13, at least formally and theoretically, Israel has quite a few, varied and creative ways to harm the smuggling of Iranian oil into Syria without causing a stir and uproar. It can also be assumed that the cut-off of funding for Hezbollah’s terrorism, and especially for Hezbollah’s missile accuracy and social activity project, is part of the objectives of the MMA (campaign between the wars), some of which became known to the media and some remained secret.

In the past year, the Navy has received praise and official certificates of appreciation for its performance in operations whose details have not been released. It is also known that the number of MBM operations in the past year has risen sharply and that the naval arm has been an important component in them.

The value of any ship carrying hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil is tens of millions of dollars. Delaying such a ship for days, weeks or even months – is a severe blow to Hezbollah, especially in the current period, when the Lebanese banking system and the country’s economy in general are collapsing. Hezbollah today needs every cent it receives from the Iranians through Assad, and any such ship that does not reach its destination on time, or does not arrive at all – is a huge damage, both to the Syrian regime and to its sponsored Lebanese terrorist organization.

In fact, it can be said that there is now an oil war in the region on all sides. A few days ago, the Syrian regime and Russian warships bombed oil refining facilities operated by Syrian rebel militias operating under Turkish auspices in northern Syria, in the Aleppo region.