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What does Hezbollah's arsenal look like? Beirut, Nov 11 (AFP) Nov 11, 2023 Lebanon's Hezbollah has been trading daily cross-border fire with its sworn enemy Israel as war rages in Gaza, with the Iran-backed group deploying a large weapons arsenal amassed over decades. AFP looks at the Shiite Muslim group's firepower and how it has expanded since it fought a war with Israel in 2006.
It is also the most powerful group in the "axis of resistance" -- an alliance of Tehran-supported groups mainly in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and the Palestinian territories. The 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 in Israel, largely soldiers. Since then, "Hezbollah has robustly expanded the quantity and the quality of its arsenal," said Dina Arakji from Control Risks consultancy. "The group in 2006 reportedly had about 15,000 rockets, while estimates over the past couple of years suggest that this number has multiplied by almost 10 times," she said. The group has also gained significant combat experience after years of fighting on the side of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war. Skirmishes on the Lebanon-Israel border began on October 8, one day after Hamas attacks against Israel sparked war, but so far Hezbollah has largely limited itself to targeting sites near the Israeli border. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly said his group holds advanced weaponry capable of striking deep into Israeli territory.
But Arakji said the number was "likely to be inflated". The group's fighters include an elite force known as the Radwan unit, which "could be described as the group's special forces", Arakji added. Since the 2006 conflict ended, the Shiite Muslim group has not had a visible military presence on Lebanon's southern border, which is patrolled by United Nations peacekeepers. But Hezbollah has maintained large influence in Lebanon's south, where it has built hideouts and tunnels. Israel has accused Hezbollah of building cross-border tunnels and has claimed to have destroyed several. The tunnel network "is likely to be extensive", said Arakji, adding that "there is no indication... that Hezbollah has stopped constructing them".
Arakji said precision guided missiles could allow the group to "strike targets with a higher level of accuracy and lower margins of error". In February 2022, Nasrallah said Hezbollah had "the capacity to transform our missiles into precision missiles". In August this year, he said it would take just "a few high-precision missiles" for the group to destroy Israeli targets including "civilian and military airports, airbases, power stations" and the Dimona nuclear facility.
In August, the group announced it had a weapon dubbed "God's Revenge", designed to fire Russian Kornet anti-tank missiles. The double launcher is capable of "accurately hitting targets simultaneously and destroying them", according to Hezbollah's official media.
On Saturday, Nasrallah said that for the first time, the group was using Burkan missiles, adding that they could carry "a payload of 300-500 kilogrammes" (660-1,100 pounds).
A Hezbollah video released in 2019 showed shoulder-held surface-to-air weaponry as the group threatened to target Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles.
In 2019, the group published video footage showcasing Chinese-made C-802 and C-704 anti-ship missiles. In 2022, before Lebanon and Israel reached a US-mediated maritime border deal, Hezbollah threatened to strike Israeli off-shore gas platforms.
Nasrallah said Saturday that the group has been using attack drones "for the first time" and has been flying "reconnaissance drones" deep into Israel daily.
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