BICOM

What happened: The Israel Defence Forces yesteday released the names and images of three Iranian Quds Forces officers stationed in Lebanon who are leading Hezbollah’s precison missile project. Brig. Gen. Muhammad Hussein-Zada Hejazi is leading the project; Col. Majid Nuab is the technological manager of the project in Lebanon; and Brig. Gen. Ali Asrar Nuruzi, who is chief logistics officer for the project and responsible for transferring precision components from Iran to Hezbollah.

• According to the IDF, Hezbollah and Iran have been able to produce only dozens of long-range missiles which can accurately hit within 10m of targets since the project started, mainly due to Israel’s campaign to disrupt the project.
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We’re determined to foil this dangerous project. The aim of today’s publication is to show that we will not stand idly by as our enemies equip themselves with deadly weapons.”
• The US Treasury Department has sanctioned Lebanese bank Jammal Trust Bank and several individuals accused of moving tens of millions of dollars between Iran’s elite Quds Force and the military wing of Hamas in Gaza. Senior US administration officials have also described Jammal as “the bank of choice” for Hezbollah.

Why is this significant: Israel decided to releases details of the project’s Iranian commanders, despite the risk of revealing intelligence it has collected, in order to counter Hezbollah’s attempts to deny the existence of the project and the production sites it has built in Lebanese population centres.

• Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes in Syria over the past few years to prevent Iranian precision-guided missiles from being delivered to Hezbollah. As a result, Iran decided to try and build factories in Lebanon in order for Hezbollah to develop its own capability for precision missiles.
• The IDF say that in the past few months it noticed an increase in attempts by Hezbollah to import Iranian-made components for the project, after their initial goal of having an operational missile factory working by September 2018 was missed.
• According to Haaretz, Sunday’s airstrike in Lebanon targeted a central component of Hezbollah’s missile programme. It damaged an industrial-sized mixer weighing about eight tons, needed to create propellants that can improve the engine performance of missiles and increase their accuracy. It is believed that Hezbollah was planning to move it to a secure site before it was hit.

Looking ahead: The IDF has cancelled all leave indefinitely for soldiers serving on the northern border with Lebanon in anticipation of a Hezbollah response to reported Israeli air strikes in Syria and Lebanon last weekend. However, any response by Hezbollah is likely to be carefully calibrated in order to avoid a costly Israeli retaliation. In the longer term, Iran will have to decide whether it continues to work on Hezbollah’s precision missile programme in the face of Israeli airstrikes, or pursue alternative options.