Photo: Members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah take part in Ashura commemorations in a southern Beirut suburb. Source: Anwar Amro/AFP/Getty Images, CFR
Published in The Hill on December 22, 2022.
Earlier this year, Israel attacked the Damascus airport after Iran transferred missiles and weapons to Damascus on civilian flights. Israel routinely strikes Iran’s weapons transfers by ground and precision missile factories in Syria, but commercial flights to a civilian airport have not been a primary path for these weapons deliveries.
On the ground, the most direct path from Iran to its Hezbollah and Syrian proxies is through the Iraq-Syria border near Al-Tanf, where a small American military presence monitors Islamic State activity and acts as a bulwark against Iranian weapons transfers. Iran is forced to take less direct routes to transfer its arms, including through the border town of Abu Kamel, which is monitored by Israeli intelligence in the deadly cat-and-mouse game between Iran and Israel.
Read the rest from The Hill (link live at 12:30).