BICOM

An unnamed senior Israeli military official has claimed during an intelligence briefing for reporters at military headquarters in Tel Aviv that Hezbollah is using US-made armoured personnel carriers (APC) in Syria.

The equipment is made by the United States and was given by Washington to the Lebanese army.

The official referred to images which have recently come to light, of Hezbollah staging a military parade in the captured Syrian town of Quseir in 2013, which appear to show its fighters using American-made M113 APCs.

Speaking to media in Tel Aviv, the official said: “These [APCs] were given to the Lebanese armed forces. It’s not an assumption.”

He suggested that they had been taken from the Lebanese army, although others have suggested they were part of a deal between Hezbollah and Lebanese forces.

The official added: “We shared this information with other countries, including the US of course.”

US State Department spokesman John Kirby responded, saying that the “Department of Defence did a structural analysis of the armoured personnel carriers in question… and concluded that these vehicles were not from the Lebanese Armed Forces”.

He added: “The Lebanese Armed Forces stated publicly that the vehicles depicted online were never part of their equipment roster.”

The Israeli military official estimated yesterday that Hezbollah has around 8,000 operatives in Syria, fighting alongside the forces of President Bashar al-Assad and that around 1,700 Hezbollah fighters have died in Syria since the conflict began in 2011.

The official also suggested that the Lebanese army has constructed watchtowers along the Israeli border according to Hezbollah specifications and that the two conduct joint patrols.

Addressing the wider situation, the official estimated that the chances of Israel facing a war in 2017 are low. He said that neither Hezbollah nor Hamas is interested in sparking a new conflict at present, but that the “dynamic of escalation” remains.