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By David Daoud

The Blue Line has been relatively calm since the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollahthe deceptive quiet obscuring obsessive preparations for a future conflict both sides believe is inevitable. In furtherance of Irans regional strategy, the Shia organization has been establishing several frontlinesin south Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and Syriafrom which to fight the Jewish state directly and through allies. But with Israels attention seemingly focused exclusively on the groups activities across its borders, Hezbollah appears to be establishing another front behind Israeli linesboth within the countrys official boundaries and the West Bank.

Prompted by Hezbollahs recent brazen behavior, the Israeli security establishment seems fixated on detecting signals that indicate whether the group is readying for another direct war or security escalation with Israel. In March, Hezbollah deployed a thousand seemingly unarmed personnel along the border (four hundred were Hamas-affiliated Palestinians). Shortly afterward, the Shia organization facilitated two attacks against Israel but maintained a sufficient distance from their execution to avoid an Israeli reprisal or escalation. In late March, a Palestinian militant infiltrated from Lebanon and planted an explosive bearing the hallmark of Hezbollah manufacturing in Megiddo. Then, in early April, Hamas fired a barrage of thirty-four rockets from Lebanon into Israel.

Following this, Hezbollah staged a massive but relatively routine war game to commemorate Israels withdrawal from south Lebanon. On a smaller scale, it echoed Hezbollahs ten thousand-man simulated invasion of the Galilee in August 2012, which commemorated its 2006 victory over Israel. This time, the group invited reporters to witness masked fighters training to destroy Israel by jumping through flaming hoops, firing from the backs of motorcycles, emerging through plumes of smoke, and blowing up Israeli flags posted on hills. The exhibitionuseless as a battlefield exercisewas pure military theater intended to make headlines, produce images for Hezbollahs martial music videos, and reinforce its supporters belief that Hezbollah can deter, defeat, and destroy Israel. It may also have covered Hezbollahs infiltration of Israeli territory and installation of two outposts in Har Dov/Shebaa Farmstesting the limits of Israeli patience and gradually attempting to adjust the rules of engagement without incurring retaliation.

Critical as some developments may prove, they obscure a more dangerous Hezbollah initiative to establish a proxy foothold behind Israeli lines. Hezbollah has coveted such an option for decades, beginningat leastafter Israel expelled four hundred Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fighters to south Lebanon in 1992 and readmitted them a year later. These returnees served as a nucleus for Hezbollah and Iran to fight Israel from withinan effort that continued with direct armed assistance to Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafats Fatah (beginning in 1998), and then to several armed groups during the Second Intifada and afterward.

Since then, Hezbollahworking with Irans Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) or separatelyhas spent considerable efforts to enlist Arab Israelis, Lebanese, nationals of Arab countries with foreign passports, and Palestinians to gather intelligence, recruit additional assets, or establish sleeper cells within Israel to plan terror attacks. To that end, the connections between Lebanese and Arab Israeli criminal networks have proven invaluable.

Statements from Hezbollah and Iranian officialsin addition to the groups past and current behaviorbetray a three-fold and ambitious objective that goes far beyond periodically igniting scattered chaos within Israel.

Part of Irans regional strategy is to develop its proxies domestic weapons production capabilities. The IRGC has achieved this outcome with Hezbollah in south Lebanonrelying on their Lebanese proxyand with Yemens Houthis, as well as in the Gaza Strip. Sometime after the 2005 Israeli withdrawal and before his assassination in 2008, Hezbollahs then-military commander Imad Mughniyeh spent months in the coastal enclave training Palestinian militants in rocket and launching pad production and tunnel and rocket warfare.

In line with that, Hezbollah and Iran appear set on replicating that outcome in the West Bank. IRGC Commander-in-Chief Hossein Salami admitted as much in 2022, saying Irans goal was to arm the West Bank the same way that Gaza is armed. As he told Fars News, When something is homegrown, it cannot be stopped. Recent attempts to fire rockets from Jenin on June 26claimed by a Hamas-affiliated group calling itself the [Yahya] Ayyash Detachment West of Jeninand the discovery of a launch pad in June in east Jerusalem, as well as weapons laboratories on July 3 in Jenin, indicate these efforts may have begun producing results.

A second and corollary objective, per Salami in 2014, is to imminently transform the West Bank into an unbearable inferno and hell for Israel. Iran outsourced the task to Hezbollah, whose Unit 133 had been recruiting and funding cells in the West Bank through Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallahs son, Jawad. According to Israeli police and the Shin Bet, Hezbollahs continuous weapons smuggling into Israel and the West Bank has intensified significantly since 2021. This boost immediately preceded the ongoing upsurge of West Bank violence, which began in June 2021, with unrest spreading to cities long considered tranquil, such as Jericho.

As a result of these efforts, groups once thought defunct in the West Bank (ex. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad) or all across the region (ex. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (AAMB)) have experienced a resurgence. New armed groups have also sprung up, particularly in Jenin and Nablus. Fueled by coherent ideologies, some are affiliated with major organizations, like the PIJ Quds Brigades-linked Jenin Detachment and Nablus Detachment, and AAMBs Hezam Al-Nar and Liwa al-Shuhada.

Others are motivated more by frustration, like the so-called Lions Dena shadowy and diffuse entity centered in Nablus. This group emerged independently in August 2022, drawing on the disaffection of Palestinian youths through both the efficacy of the Palestinian Authority and negotiations with Israel. Here too, however, Iran has been fanning the flames. Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar recently noted that Tehran has been using online platforms to encourage recruitment, demonstrating the Islamic Republics exploitation of any available vectorideological motivation or disillusionmentto stir up violence.

Finally, and perhaps most dangerously, Iran and Hezbollah have sought to exploit tensions between Arab and Jewish Israelis to establish what, in Resistance Axis jargon, has been called the unification of the fronts. To that end, Hezbollahs Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem described Israels May 2021 inter-ethnic riots, which overlapped with the clash with Gaza-based Palestinian militants, as a strategic change and historical inflection point. West Bank, Gazan, and Jerusalemite Palestinians had become united with 48 Arabs in purpose, he said, whereby all Palestiniansnot just the segment directly affectedwould now collectively respond to any Israeli attack or encroachment.

Like Qassem, Hezbollahs Executive Council Chairman Hashem Safieddine recently suggested that this development would allow the group to strike Israel from within. Fantasizing about the united fronts giving Hezbollah the ability to almost sow chaos at will within Israel, he said, The day will come when the Resistance takes part in operations within [Israels] 1948 borders, something that Israel couldnt imagine this will cause the [Zionist] regime to crumble from within. Imagine what would happen if the Resistance enters the 48 territories.

Establishing a front within Israel and the West Bank has immense utility for Hezbollahnow and during the groups promised comprehensive war against the Jewish state. For now, it allows the group to continue bleeding Israel through proxies while maintaining plausible deniability. At a minimum, this will keep the IDF mired in combating low-level, albeit sustained, violence. At worst, Israels ongoing clashes with Palestinian militants increase the possibility of miscalculation or overreaction by one or both parties, potentially igniting a new intifada. Such an outcome appears increasingly plausible as a younger Palestinian generationdisillusioned both with their leadership and negotiations with Israel, and with no memory of the bloodiness of the Second Intifadais increasingly skewing Palestinian society in support of returning to armed confrontation.

The future utility of Hezbollahs frontline within Israel would come into effect during a war. Years into the future, Hezbollah could ignite that war during one of the religiously or nationalistically sensitive anniversaries cluttering the Israeli-Palestinian calendar. By timing a conflict to coincide with a period of heightened religious or nationalistic sentiment (on either or both the Palestinian and Jewish side), the group could activate the cells it has cultivated in the West Bank.

It could also tap affiliates among Arab Israeli criminal networks to carry out a nationalistically motivated attack on a Jewish targeta synagogue in a mixed Arab-Jewish Israeli city, for example. With this simple act, Hezbollah could exploit independently heightened inter-ethnic tensions to initiate a cycle of actions and reactions by Jewish and Arab extremists, just like in May 2021, which could spread to the rest of those communities and throughout the country. By creating disturbances on both sides of the Green Line, Hezbollah will force Israel to divert the attention of its government and security forces from other active fronts, includingmost critically to the groups survivalLebanon, to confront a lethal threat behind its lines.

David Daoudis a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Thu, Apr 30, 2020

IranSource By David Daoud

The Open Letter, Hezbollah's manifesto, reserves its highest level of opprobrium for America, labeling it the main root of evil and declaring the confrontation with America as the yardstick for all of Hezbollahs other activities.

Image: Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian gestures as he stands next to Hezbollah officials during his visit to Maroun Al-Ras village near the border between Lebanon and Israel, Lebanon April 28, 2023. REUTERS/Aziz Taher

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Hezbollah and Iran have opened a fourth battlefront: Inside Israel - Atlantic Council

Iran Air has revealed plans to bring seven stored aircraft back into service thanks to the country's new-found domestic maintenance capabilities. The airline hopes to have the aircraft in the skies once more within six months.

Iran Air's CEO, Shamseddin Farzadipour, was quoted by the ILNA news agency as saying, "Our priority is domestic repair, and seven planes will become airworthy in the next six months," before adding that the aircraft would likely be used on busy routes to Iraq, catering for the large market of Iranian pilgrims visiting holy sites in the neighboring country.

As a result of sanctions that make carrying out repair work and sourcing spare parts more challenging, Iran Air has struggled to maintain its fleet of primarily Airbus aircraft. Thanks to a greater focus on domestic maintenance services over recent months, the airline now hopes to be in a position to return seven of its preciously-grounded aircraft to the skies.

Photo: Rebius | Shutterstock

The airline did not state exactly which aircraft would be returning to service, however, data from ch-aviation shows that nearly two-thirds of Iran Air's passenger fleet is currently grounded, including:

Iran Air's active fleet of 11 passenger aircraft is left to operate the airline's route network across the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. At the end of July, the carrier will increase the frequency of its longest route, Tehran (IKA) to London Heathrow (LHR), from three to four per week. Iran Air's other intercontinental destinations include Milan (MXP), Paris (CDG), and Hamburg (HAM).

Photo:Mehdi Photos | Shutterstock

Recognizing the need for investment in its aviation infrastructure, the Iranian Government has put aside funds to support the country's airlines in their efforts to get their aircraft back in the skies. A number of other Iranian carriers have reportedly already managed to return aircraft to service in this way, with Qeshm Air and Aseman Airlines bringing back an Airbus A320 and Boeing 737, respectively, in February this year.

In addition, the program has been expanded to offer maintenance and repair services to foreign airlines also struggling with sanctions. Unconfirmed reports last year suggested that a number of Russian aircraft had already been in Iran for maintenance work.

As well as bringing back older aircraft, Iran Air also intends to modernize its aging fleet - something that is much needed, given the average age of the carrier's fleet currently stands at 25.7 years old.

Photo: Vytautas Kielaitis | Shutterstock

Iran Air has a number of outstanding orders with Airbus, including 32 A320neos, 28 A330neos, and 16 A350s. The orders date back to 2016, but only a handful of aircraft were delivered before the US imposed sanctions on Iran in 2018.

What do you think of Iran Air's plans to bring seven of its stored aircraft back into service? Have you flown on the airline? Share your thoughts and experiences by commenting below.

Source: ch-aviation.com, Tasnim News Agency

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Iran Air Looks To Unground 7 Aircraft - Simple Flying

Irans admission to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) this week further aligns the Islamic Republic with Russia and China, though it is unclear how much membership in the bloc will benefit the Islamic Republic.

Iran became a full member of the SCO on Tuesday at the organizations virtual meeting hosted by India, 18 years after it acquired observer status in the security and trade cooperation organization. Its application to become a full member was accepted in 2021. China, Russia, India, Pakistan and several Central Asian states are members of the SCO. The organization has additional dialogue partners and observers across the continent.

The membership comes as Iran is seeking better ties with Russia and China as well as Central Asia to break international isolation and sanctions from the United States and Europe. To this end, Iran's non-oil trade with SCO member states rose 31% to more than $17 billion from March to August of last year, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Becoming a full member of the SCO may be more symbolic than practically important to the Islamic Republic, however, according to Ryan Bohl, a Middle East analyst at the US risk intelligence firm RANE.

Iran's entry has greater symbolic significance in terms of alignment than it does of pragmatic importance. The SCO remains a loose-knit bloc of powers rather than a tightly bound alliance like NATO, Bohl told Al-Monitor.

The SCO has sometimes been called the anti-NATO, but its power is relatively limited, according to a September 2022 report from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Differences between member states have constrained the blocs policy coordination and regional integration since its inception. This is partly due to its insufficient bureaucratic capacity and its institutional design, wrote Nicole Grajewski for the think tank. The SCO is also governed by consensus, which limits substantive cooperation, the report said.

Bohl said the SCO has not developed into a vehicle with direct, tangible benefits for Iran, but Tehran may benefit in other ways from being part of the bloc, including by boosting Irans chances of joining the BRICS alliance. Iran notably attended the BRICS meeting in South Africa last month.

Iran may also enjoy better defense ties and possiblybetter arms deliveries with China and Russia thanks to its membershipin the bloc, he said, adding that cooperation between Iran and China on drones could also increase.

Iran supplies drones to Russia for use in the invasion of Ukraine, while China is a leader in global drone technology. Al Jazeera reported in January that China was the top exporter of combat drones in the past decade, citing data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Iran's entry signals that Tehran sees itself increasingly as aligned with a Russo-Chinese-led world order, which itself is an alteration to Iran's older, more nonaligned and Pan-Islamic worldview, Bohl argued.

Iran is not the only Middle Eastern state seeking stronger ties with the SCO. In March, Saudi Arabias Cabinet approved a decision to join the organization. Last May, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait became dialogue partners of the SCO.

Saudi Arabia and the UAEs desires to boost relations with the SCO will likely depend on their relations with Iran, according to Bohl.

Saudi/Emirati aspirations to increase their SCO ties will depend on how well they're getting along with Iran. Right now, with a more dovish atmosphere between them, if the Saudis and Emiratis want to move beyond dialogue partners, they have a diplomatic runway to do so, he said. But if there is a resurgence in hostilities, it would almost certainly mean that the Saudis and Emiratis would freeze their advancement process in the SCO, if not withdraw entirely.

The UAE resumed normal relations with Iran last year, while Saudi Arabia did so in March in a deal brokered by China. Saudi-Iranian relations have improved steadily since then, and Iran reopened its embassy in Riyadh last month.

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Iran's membership in Shanghai Cooperation Organization further ... - Al-Monitor

In 2014, that bet began to pay off. The Obama administration announced an end to Americas decades-long enmity with the Cuban government, and soon everyone from Conan OBrien to Andrew Cuomo to Steve Nash began showing up in Havana. As a University of Miami Cuba expert, Michael J. Bustamante, noted at the time, the American flag has even become the most stylish national standard, appearing on Cubans T-shirts, tights and tank tops.

Then Mr. Trump entered the White House and it all fell apart. In 2019, he imposed the harshest economic sanctions in more than a half-century. A month later, Cuba began rationing soap, eggs, rice and beans. Around that same time, according to The Wall Street Journal, Chinas surveillance network on the island underwent a significant upgrade (the Cuban and Chinese foreign ministries have denied reports of a Chinese surveillance facility in Cuba). Evan Ellis, a Latin America analyst at the U.S. Army War College, told The Journal that the deal is basically Chinese pay-to-play, adding that China gives money to Cuba it desperately needs, and China gets access to the listening facility. Last fall, China agreed to restructure Cubas debt and donate $100 million to the island. One reason Cuba still needs Beijings money is that the Biden administration has kept key Trump sanctions in place.

U.S.-Iran relations follow a similar pattern. When the two countries signed the 2015 nuclear deal, Irans foreign minister at the time, Mohammad Javad Zarif, called it not a ceiling but a solid foundation. We must now begin to build on it. Irans leaders, like Cubas, hoped better relations with the United States would spur Western investment. Although some Iranian hard-liners feared that economic ties to the West would weaken the regime, Mr. Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani gambled that a stronger economy would strengthen Irans regional position and defuse popular discontent, thus helping solidify the countrys despotic political system.

It didnt work out that way. Mr. Trump canceled the nuclear deal and reimposed harsh sanctions. Rather than re-enter the agreement on its first day in office, the Biden administration made additional demands, which helped thwart efforts to revive the deal. And as the prospect of substantial U.S. and European investment disappeared, so did Washingtons leverage over Irans relationship with Moscow. Iran now has little to lose by developing what a National Security Council spokesman recently called a full-scale defense partnership with Russia.

This isnt the first time the United States has driven smaller nations into the arms of its superpower adversaries. It did so during the Cold War. In his book Embers of War, Fredrik Logevall notes that until the late 1940s, Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese nationalist leader, believed the United States could be the champion of his cause of independence from France. During World War II, Mr. Hos rebel army, the Viet Minh, worked alongside the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the C.I.A., in Americas fight against Japan.

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Opinion | Why Iran and Cuba Turned Their Back on the U.S. - The New York Times

Ukraine, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Sweden will go to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in their bid to hold Iran accountable for the downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 in January 2020. The Boeing 737-800 crashed after being shot down by Iranian army personnel shortly after taking off from Tehrans Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA), killing all 176 people onboard.

A few days ago, the International Coordination and Response Group for the victims of Flight PS752, including the UK, Ukraine, Canada, and Sweden, issued a joint statement after Iran published a technical report on the accident stating the downing of the aircraft was a human mistake.

The International Coordination and Response Group said,

We, the members of the International Coordination and Response Group for the victims of Flight PS752, representing Canada, Sweden, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom, note that no agreement on the organization of arbitration was reached between Iran and the Coordination Group pursuant to Article 14 of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation.

Accordingly, the Group will pursue its collective effort to ensure Iran is held accountable for the downing of flight 752 by referring the dispute to the International Court of Justice as soon as is practicable, the group added.

Photo:Grand Warszawski/Shutterstock.

In January 2022, the Coordination Group had said that efforts to resolve the downing of the Ukraine International Airlines flight with Iran were futile. Ten Iranian army personnel were jailed earlier this year for their role in the accident. The primary defendant was sentenced to 13 years in prison: three years for downing the plane and ten years for disobeying orders. Nine other members were also found guilty of wrongdoing and were each sentenced to between one and three years in prison.

The tragedy took place on January 8, 2020. Ukraine International Airlines was operating a scheduled service from Teheran to Kyivs Boryspil International Airport (KPB). The airline employed a Boeing 737-800, registered as UR-PSR, for the service. At the time of the accident, the aircraft was 3.5 years old, having just been delivered in July 2016.

Onboard the aircraft, there were 176 people (167 passengers and nine crew members). Of this total, 138 were bound for Canada, with a connection in Kyiv, as many of them were Iranian Canadian students and academics.

Photo: Real_life_photo/Shutterstock.

Shortly after taking off, the plane crashed down after being taken down by the Iranian armed forces. At the time, there were heightened tensions in Iran following the killing of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani by US forces in Baghdad, Iraq. Iran was on edge about possible attacks after it fired missiles at Iraqi bases housing US forces.

The United Commander had mistaken the Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 for a cruise missile and hit it with two missiles in contravention of the commanding center's order and without obtaining the necessary permit.

What do you think about taking Iran to the ICJ to hold it accountable for the downing of Flight 752? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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Ukraine Will Take Iran To The International Court Of Justice Over ... - Simple Flying