Hezbollah is creating a fleet of cheap armed drones and is using them to great effect in Syria, as the group boosts a warfighting capability that analysts say could eventually be turned against Israel, like reported by middleeasteye.net.

According to video evidence, the Lebanese militant group has used small, cheap unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, to drop bombs on Syrian rebels in northern Syria. A video posted on YouTube in August shows what appears to be shrapnel bombs being launched from micro-drone operated by Hezbollah.

The Times of Israel said the bombs shown in the video were Chinese-made MZD-2 sub-munitions. The MZD-2 generally contains an explosive charge, wrapped in tiny plastic or metal balls, according to the article.

The development echoes the use of UAVs by the Islamic State in Mosul, which has waged a campaign of airborne attacks on civilian areas of the east of the city, dropping grenades and IEDs from small remote controlled aircraft.

But it also shows how Hezbollah’s use of UAVs has morphed since its involvement in the Syrian war in support of the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad.

Nicholas Blanford, a Hezbollah expert at the Atlantic Council, said recent advances in technology had brought UAVs into the price range of groups such as Hezbollah.

“The technology has become cheaper and is now available for most people. A commercial off-the-shelf micro drone can be bought for as little $600,” he said.

Hezbollah’s first recorded use of drones was in 2004, when it sent an Iranian Mirsad on a brief reconnaissance mission over Israel lasting some 18 minutes before returning to Lebanon undetected.

Drones were also used by Hezbollah in 2006 in the war with Israel, said Blanford, adding that Hezbollah sent at least at three UAVs toward enemy territory. At least one carrying explosives, he said.

The launches were nonetheless unsuccessful as the UAVs were shot down by the Israeli air force or crashed before reaching the Israeli border.

By October 2012, however, Hezbollah was able to fly an advanced UAV to southern Israel, over a distance of several hundred miles, down the Israeli coast over Gaza and the Negev desert.

Analysts suspect that drone was an Iranian Shahed 129 due to the distance covered – a far more advanced military aircraft with visual similarities to American Reaper drones.

Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, said it was a Hezbollah mission and the group’s broadcaster, Al-Manar TV, displayed graphics indicating part of the flight path.

This drone was also shot down by Israel.

By 2014, Hezbollah launched its first successful armed drone attack when it attacked the the headquarters of the Nusra Front at Lebanon’s border with Syria, said Amine Hoteit, a retired general and Hezbollah expert.

“UAVs are used for reconnaissance, kamikaze-style strikes or targeted bombing,” said Hoteite. “The increasing weaponisation of small drones with light explosives make them an increased security challenge.”

Meanwhile, the group appears to be improving its launch capabilities to accommodate more advanced aircraft.

Initially Hezbollah launched UAVs from ramps on the back of trucks. In 2015, The UK-based Jane’s Defence Weekly revealed the existence of a 600m long, 30m wide airstrip in a remote area of Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, which it said was a UAV launch site.

Hezbollah denied there was an airstrip at that location.

Another launch site was identified in the Lebanese Bekaa Iaat area, a small village close to the century-old Baalbeck, according to local sources.

Accelerated growth

It is however the conflict in nearby Syria that has contributed to the expansion of drones used by the organisation.

During an interview last month in Lebanon, a Hezbollah fighter told Middle East Eye: “We are definitely learning a lot by working with Russians and Iranians in the Syria war and more specifically when it comes to UAVs.

“The Syria war has allowed Hezbollah to develop use of UAVs.”

Blanford meanwhile said Hezbollah was not only developing its knowledge of drones but is also practising a new set of war fighting skills in Syria.

This entails calling in strikes, improved logistics to troops deployed, improved offensive operations skills and learning to hold and control ground.

“Hezbollah moved from an entity always fighting the same enemy in the same place (Israel in south Lebanon) to multiple new war theatres, from barren mountains to flat agricultural areas and inner cities, all of which are unfamiliar to the organisation’s cadres,” he said.

“Hezbollah has also learned to fight in larger unit sizes and alongside other militaries which it has never done before. It even boasts an armoured brigade today.

“It has also learned how to use intelligence and reconnaissance to develop more complex offensive operations.”

This increased level of expertise has also reflected a change in the perception of Hezbollah by Israel. According to the Institute for National Security Studies’ annual report, it underlined a significant strengthening of Hezbollah, surpassing Iran “as the greatest danger to Israel”.

Iran was ranked the biggest threat to Israel last year.

Blanford says Hezbollah’s advances in drone technology aid the group’s “psychological war” against Israel. But their use was still in its infancy, said Hoteit.

“There is no limit to the use of drones across the Syrian border given that control of air is ensured by allies of Hezbollah, which gives a large margin of freedom to Hezbollah,” he said.

“In Israel, the air force can quickly shoot down any UAV upon detection.”

Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official and expert on Israeli affairs, said: “Israel does not underestimate Hezbollah’s military capacities.

“Israel follows closely Hezbollah in many ways and in many aspects. The use of drones is of course one of the issues closely monitored by Israel.”

Former Prime Minister of the National Salvation Government Khalifa al-Ghwell stated that he tried to reach an agreement with Akilah Saleh, speaker of the parliament in Tobruk, and Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani to form a new government to substitute Sarraj government, like reported by aawsat.com.

Ghwell denounced the meddling of Italy in the internal affair and seizing, supported by pro-Sarraj militias, his headquarters in Tripoli. He considered that the latest aggressive incidents that occurred in the past week were plotted by the Libyan Presidential Council.

A military officer in Ghwell government revealed that preparations are being made for a military operation to wrest control over some headquarters and target pro-Sarraj militias.

Tripoli falls under the control of various armed groups that have formed local power zones and are struggling for authority since the national revolution, backed by NATO, against late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The Libyan Presidential Council neglected, for its part, that its headquarters in the navy base was raided by militias and denounced in return the threats of Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar to invade the capital in response to calls made by protestors who witnessed gunfire as they demanded liberating the city from militias.

In a related matter, spokesman for pro-Haftar forces Ahmed al-Mesmari declared that the last stronghold of al-Qaeda was liberated putting an end to a resistance that lasted for weeks by fighters who took shields in housing towers.

In a news conference, he added that the Libyan National Army (LNA) killed 42 terrorists in latest battles, west Benghazi, as he affirmed that Turkey is involved in providing logistic and materialistic support to extremists in the city.

The LNA is conducting, since three years, a campaign in the second biggest city in Libya and is still confronting resistance enclaves in two northern towns despite the enormous gains accomplished since the beginning of 2016.

Mid of 2014, Haftar launched the Dignity Operation saying that he wants to kick out extremists from the city following a series of explosions and murders.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who also serves as chairman of the Jewish Home party and as a member of the security cabinet, spoke on Monday about the security and national situation in Israel, as well as about Israel’s attack on a Syrian weapons target, like reported by inn.com.

“The Israeli government’s policy is very consistent,” Bennett said. We will work to prevent Hezbollah from gaining strength in Lebanon. On our northern border, there is an attempt to threaten Israel strategically and Hezbollah currently has over 100,000 rockets and is working to improve their aim.”

“We are doing all we can to prevent Hezbollah from succeeding, and we will continue to do so.

“In the past, our policy was to fight with Hezbollah, but not to touch sovereign Lebanon. That’s what we did in the Second Lebanon War, when I commanded a group of soldiers. Our orders were to harm Hezbollah and only Hezbollah, and to cause no harm to any Lebanese government buildings.

“But I no longer accept this differentiation.

“The new policy must be that Lebanon is Hezbollah and Hezbollah is Lebanon. I have been pushing for this policy change for over two years, for the simple reason that all of Hezbollah’s infrastructure is intertwined with that of Lebanon.

“Hezbollah is part of the government, they chose the president, and all of Lebanon’s leaders say that Hezbollah is part of their national security. We can’t keep looking for a needle in the haystack of Lebanon. Every Lebanese citizen needs to know that if rockets are fired on us from Lebanon, we will see it as the Lebanese government’s declaration of war, and we will act accordingly.”

Bennett emphasized that Israel has no intention of going to war against Lebanon, but said the government “definitely knows how to handle such a situation if it becomes necessary.”

Regarding Rabbi Yigal Levenstein’s comments about women in the army and co-ed combat units, Bennett said, “This issue has become unnecessarily politicized. This is the kind of thing you say quietly. I was very clear about my stance on the issue, but Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman’s (Yisrael Beytenu) threat to close the pre-army yeshiva (mechina) in Eli is unacceptable and we will not allow it to happen.

“There are professors in universities who have horrifying [anti-Zionist] personal opinions, but I never heard Liberman talk about sending them home just because of their opinions. Making comments about Eli (pre-army preparatory yeshiva, known as a mechina in Hebrew, ed.) is nitpicking. I suggest the Defense Minister travel to Eli, visit the memorial room in Eli, and rethink his opinion on the matter.

“I don’t really know what Liberman is looking for. Maybe he wants the left to like him?… If it’s politics, let him do what he wants. But we will not allow him to harm the mechina. It’s unacceptable, and no one thinks closing the mechina is the right thing to do. We can fix what needs fixing, but Liberman is walking in the wrong direction.”

Regarding the argument between the Education Ministry and the Finance Ministry on the subject of teachers’ salaries, Bennett said, “After several years during which teachers’ salaries did not rise, we raised beginning teachers’ salaries by 20%. We also ensure teachers who work in more than one school are provided with rides, and we have given better working conditions to experienced teachers.

“We like to say that we place teachers at the top of the priority list. Teachers should be at the top of the social pyramid. We care about every teacher, and that’s very good news for all Israeli teachers. It’s our opportunity to tell them thank you.

“I hope the best candidates will become teachers, because that’s the educational ideal. The salaries will never match those of hi-tech, but we’re trying to create a respectful and honorable salary. We’ve taken big steps in the right direction.”

IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot warned Sunday that the Hezbollah terror organization in Lebanon was preparing for its next major attack on Israel, and that war with the fundamentalist Shi’ite was only a matter of time, like reported by inn.com.

“The coming war will have an address – the Lebanese government,” said Eizenkot. “Hezbollah is violating UN resolutions and is preparing for war.”

Eizenkot added that the IDF was working to prevent Hezbollah from obtaining heavy weapons, intercepting arms shipments to the Iranian-backed group.

“We will protect Israel’s interests and are working to prevent weapons transfers to Hezbollah.”

“In Lebanon, Hezbollah continues its efforts to arm itself with deadlier, more precise small arms for attacks targeting the Israeli front. The declarations coming out of Beirut recently make the address of the future war clear: the state of Lebanon and the organizations operating under its authority.”

Hamas security forces have uncovered a rocket workshop run by a pro-Islamic State organization in Gaza, according to a jihadist in the coastal enclave, like reported by breitbart.com

Abu Baker Almaqdesi, a top Palestinian jihadi who previously fought for IS in Syria and Iraq and returned to his native Gaza following an injury, said that hundreds of rockets and explosive belts have been seized by Hamas in a recent raid.

Last month, Hamas unveiled a jihadi arsenal containing some 250 rockets and hundreds of AK-47 rifles.

“The range of some of these rockets is 140 kilometers,” Almaqdesi claimed without providing any evidence.  He claimed that similar rockets have already been shipped to Waliyat Sinai, IS’ Egyptian affiliate.

A Hamas Interior Ministry official declined to confirm or deny the report about the rocket workshop, but confirmed that electronic devices allegedly utilized to connect between Sinai-based jihadists and their Gaza counterparts have been seized.

On Saturday, two rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel, prompting the Israel Defense Forces to retaliate against Hamas positions.

Meanwhile, the pro-IS Aamaq news agency reported that Israeli drones raided the organization’s strongholds in Sinai.

“Several people, including two children were killed and injured on Thursday in Israeli raids on outposts in Rafah and Sheikh Zwaid in the north of Sinai,” the report said.

The Lebanese interior minister says Lebanon should integrate the resistance movement of Hezbollah’s armed strength in its military strategy, like reported by presstv.com

“The defense strategy should determine how to benefit from Hezbollah’s arms, to fend off any [future] Israeli aggression,” Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk told the Egyptian satellite channel Capital Broadcast Center on Thursday, according to Lebanese paper The Daily Star.

The military wing of the Hezbollah movement defended Lebanon against Israeli wars in 2000 and 2006, forcing the regime’s military into withdrawal.

Machnouk said Hezbollah’s military strength had to be discussed in the context of “the tactical planning of Lebanon’s defense strategy.”

The remarks came only three days after an extremist Israeli minister said Israel had to hit civilian targets in Lebanon in a future war to make life miserable for the Lebanese. Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett said, “Life in Lebanon today is not bad” compared to Syria, adding Tel Aviv had to target civilians in a potential war with the country and send it “back to the Middle Ages.”

“Today, Hezbollah is embedded in sovereign Lebanon. It is part of the government and, according to the [Lebanese] president, also part of its security forces,” Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Bennett as saying.

Last month, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said Hezbollah’s military capabilities “do not contradict the state’s.”

“As long as Israel occupies land and covets the natural resources of Lebanon, and as long as the Lebanese military lacks the power to stand up to Israel, [Hezbollah’s] arms are essential,” Aoun said then.

Hezbollah has also been fighting to prevent and contain the spillover into Lebanon of a terrorist campaign in neighboring Syria.

Israel has attacked Hezbollah targets in Syrian territory in the past.

Hizbullah is passing through a financial crisis and is calling on its supporters for financial contributions after Iran shrank down financial aid it provides for the party, the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa daily reported.

Billboards have spread in the southern suburbs of Beirut calling upon citizens for financial donations for the benefit of Hizbullah under the banner of “training a mujahid”, said the daily.

The step was interpreted by informed political circles as a “reflection of the suffocating financial crisis experienced by the party because of the reduction of Iranian financial aid and its involvement in regional conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Bahrain, in addition to the results of US and international sanctions imposed on it recently.

The crisis has led Hizbullah to launch “this aid campaign to get contributions from wealthy Shiites, supporters, politicians, businessmen and merchants in various Lebanese regions,” according to the daily.

Local Libya sources said that prime minister of the self-declared government in Tripoli Khalifa Ghweil received a leg injury during fierce battles over the last three days, like reported by aawsat.com.

The internationally-backed government headed by Prime Minister Fayez al Sarraj has been fighting off Ghweil loyalists.

Pro-Sarraj forces stormed into a Tripoli complex that Ghweil was based in, with sources telling Asharq Al-Awsat that the self-appointed Tripoli prime minister remains within capital grounds and has not fled as many had reported.

They said that Ghweil has not yet lost control over vast urban areas.

Government forces launched an assault on his headquarters in the Guest Palace, a complex of luxury villas in the city center, and overran it after heavy fighting.

By losing his Tripoli headquarters, Ghweil has lost one of his key strongholds in the capital.

As clashes intensified, Sarraj was forced to delay a planned visit to Sudan on Wednesday “because of security conditions” in restive Tripoli.

The capital has seen exchanges of rocket and artillery fire between unity government forces and a militia loyal to Ghweil.

Ghweil accused Sarraj of receiving Italian intelligence support, arguing once again that his self-styled government is the sole eligible and “legitimate authority” in the country.

In a Wednesday press statement, Ghweil said that his troops “withdrew voluntarily from a part of their Tripoli headquarters.”

Since taking power from Ghweil’s administration in March 2016, the Government of National Accord has secured the backing of powerful militias in the capital, but some districts remain outside its control.

Ghweil refuses to recognize the GNA’s authority.

A new Islamic State affiliate is gaining strength in sub-Saharan Africa as part of efforts by the Syrian-based Islamist terror group to take over large parts of the continent, like reported by freebeacon.com.

A relatively new group known as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara has stepped up terrorist attacks in the swath of north Africa known as the Sahel. The Sahel is a semi-arid region that stretches from the western states of Mali and Nigeria, through Niger, Chad, and Sudan and into part of Ethiopia.

ISIS-GS, as the group is identified in U.S. intelligence reports, was formed in 2015 from al Murabitun, an Islamist terror group once linked to al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Militants from Murabitun and a second AQIM splinter group called al Mulathamun Battalion founded ISIS-GS.

According to a State Department security report, al Murabitun was “one of the more active militant groups in the Sahel” and carried out the November 2015 attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali that killed 20 people.

The March 8 report by the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC), a State Department-private sector group, said the new ISIS-GS had been relatively quiet for about a year before reemerging with three significant terror attacks in late 2016.

The Islamic State officially recognized ISIS-GS in October in what security analysts regard as an indication the broader terror movement is stepping up operations in northern Africa.

“Since the Islamic State proclaimed its so-called caliphate in June 2014, it has expanded in both symbolic and real terms in North and West Africa,” said a report by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

The OSAC report said the official ISIS recognition of the new group likely reflects “the group’s desire to strengthen its African presence after setbacks in Libya, creating a possibility that this new group could receive increased material support from ISIS in the future.”

The Islamic State suffered setbacks in Libya, where it had controlled key parts of the largely ungoverned state. ISIS in Libya had imposed its ultra-violent version of Sharia law, with sex slaves and beheadings, in the city of Sirte. It was driven out of the port city in December by Libyan government forces.

Marine Corps Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, commander of Africa Command, told a Senate hearing last week that ISIS is regrouping after its expulsion from Sirte and that many of its militants were moving to southern Libya.

In prepared testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Waldhauser said countering the ISIS threat in both the Sahel and Libya is among one of five “lines of effort” for his command.

“The instability in Libya and North Africa may be the most significant, near-term threat to U.S. and allies’ interests on the continent,” he said.

“The multiple militias and fractured relationship between factions in east and west Libya exacerbate the security situation, spilling into Tunisia and Egypt and the broader Maghreb, allowing the movement of foreign fighters, enabling the flow of migrants out of Libya to Europe and elsewhere.”

The terrorist groups are working to incorporate large areas of Africa under Islamist ideology and are networking and targeting young people for recruitment, he said.

Waldhauser also stated that Africa Command “must be ready to conduct military operations to protect U.S. interests, counter violent extremist organizations, and enable our partners’ efforts to provide security.”

Jason Warner, an assistant professor at the Combating Terrorism Center, stated in January that ISIS headquarters delayed recognizing the Sahel affiliate until after the attacks in late 2016. The attacks “signaled to the Islamic State that ISIS-GS was more than just a nominal fighting force,” he said.

Warner said ISIS-GS appears better organized than two other new ISIS affiliates in Africa: the Islamic State in Somalia, in northern Somalia, and the southern Islamic State of Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

“While recent news on the Islamic State centers on the siege of Mosul in Iraq, the group’s ideological hold in sub-Saharan Africa has been quietly growing, and not simply in relation to its well-known merger with Boko Haram,” Warner wrote in the West Point journal CTC Sentinel. “Indeed, over the past year-plus, three new Islamic State affiliates have gained prominence in sub-Saharan Africa.”

ISIS-GS “is the only one of these groups to have carried out multiple attacks,” Warner said.

The Sahel affiliate of ISIS is led by al Murabitun commander Adnan al Sahrawi, who pledged his group’s loyalty to ISIS in May 2015.

ISIS-GS conducted its first attack in Burkina Faso in September on a border post. That was followed by attacks in October in Burkina Faso and an assault on a prison in Niger in an apparent bid to free jihadists that could bolster its forces.

The Islamic State conducted similar prison attacks in Iraq prior to taking over large portions of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

ISIS-GS is also suspected of carrying out the December 2016 attack on a military convoy in Burkina Faso that killed 12 soldiers.

“The emergence of an ISIS affiliate in the Sahel will likely increase the security threat to the private sector, as western interests are routinely targeted by militant groups in the Sahel,” the report said.

The Islamic terror group Boko Haram, active in Nigeria, aligned with ISIS in March 2015, another sign of the terror group’s growing influence on the continent.

A new Iran-funded Iraqi Hezbollah “brigade” aims to “liberate” the Golan Heights from Israel, spokesman Seyed Hashem Moussavi last week said last week at a news conference in Iran, like reported by israelnationalnews.com .

According to Iranian news agency Tasnim, Moussavi, who heads the Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba terror sub-group, said, “After the latest victories [in Syria and Iraq], we established the ‘Golan Liberation Brigade’.

“This is a trained army with specific plans. If the government of Syria requests, we and our allies are ready to take action to liberate Golan. We will not permit Arab and Islamic countries in the region to remain in the grasps of the occupiers.”

According to Moussavi, the new terror group is well-trained and equipped with Iranian rockets and Russian-made T-90 tanks.

Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba Secretary-General Akram al-Kabi said, “The declaration regarding the formation of the Liberation of the Golan Brigade is not only a media campaign, but the real goal of the movement.”

In their promotional video, terrorists wave a banner which reads, “Israel will be destroyed.”

Israel’s Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) warned, “If Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah dares to fire at the Israel homefront or at its national infrastructure, all of Lebanon will be hit.”