Israel fighting Iran’s efforts to upgrade Hezbollah’s rockets
In response, he continued, “Iran was compelled to shift gears,” because Israel was destroying too much materiel that was being moved into Syria.
Lately, Iran has been trying to smuggle GPS components into Syria in suitcases. These components could be attached to Hezbollah’s current rockets and change them into precision-guided missiles.
“Bigger weapons systems are easier to track and destroy,” Zilber wrote. “The suitcases, on the other hand, can be transferred discreetly from Iran on the ground (via Iraq) or through the air into either Syria or Lebanon.”
He noted that Fox News reported in October that Iran was flying GPS components into Beirut on commercial airliners.
The only limit to these upgrades that could convert simple rockets into deadly accurate missiles are the number of GPS kits, the number of rockets, and the skill to convert them.
“They can put a missile on the building we’re sitting in now,” a senior IDF officer told Zilber. “There’s an unlimited ability to put a GPS on these rockets, it only depends on how many kits they have.”
According to a recent report produced by BICOM, Iran’s main goal right now is to convert the estimated 14,000 long-range Zelzal-2 rockets in Hezbollah’s arsenal.
To upgrade the rockets, facilities are needed. In his United Nations General Assembly speech last September, Netanyahu publicized the locations of such facilities to convert rockets into guided missiles, and Hezbollah subsequently shut them down.
In the conversion facility, sometimes mistakenly called a factory, a trained team could install the necessary GPS components into the rockets in two to three hours. They would upgrade the Zelzal “removing a middle section located between the motor and warhead, and replacing it with the internal navigation-guidance-control system,” according to Zilber.
The IDF has insisted that Hezbollah has only been able to upgrade a few rockets; though Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah claims that the terror group has managed to upgrade a much greater number.
Zilber reported that Israel has been publicizing the threat in the hope that public scrutiny of Iran’s efforts to increase its threat to the Jewish State will lead to international pressure on the Islamic Republic, Hezbollah, and Lebanon.
“That’s at least the idea, in order to avoid a massive war no one likely wants,” Zilber wrote “At present it all seems to hinge on if Iran chooses to move ahead with its precision missile gambit.”
This article is published courtesy of The Tower
