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US memos: Iran armed Hezbollah through ambulances

30 November 2010 03:17 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Iranian Red Crescent ambulances were used to smuggle weapons to Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group during its 2006 war with Israel, according to newly leaked U.S. diplomatic memos, APA reports quoting â€œAssociated Pressâ€.
The memos say the "IRC shipments of medical supplies served also to facilitate weapons shipments."
Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war that killed 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis.
The more than 250,000 classified State Department documents were released Sunday by online whistleblower WikiLeaks.
According to one of the documents, a person whose name was not published "had seen missiles in the planes destined for Lebanon when delivering medical supplies to the plane."
The plane was allegedly "half full" prior to the arrival of any medical supplies, according to the memo.
A Hezbollah spokesman declined to comment, saying he had yet not read the document.
Iran, whose ties to Hezbollah date back nearly 30 years, allegedly funds the militant group, sending millions of dollars a year, and is suspected of supplying much of its arsenal.
During the monthlong conflict, Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, including several medium-range missiles that for the first time hit Israel’s third-largest city, Haifa. Israeli weaponry, including warplanes, destroyed areas in southern and eastern Lebanon and Hezbollah’s stronghold of Dahiyeh in southern Beirut.