The Sunday Times reported yesterday that elite Iranian soldiers, members of the Pasdaran, a Revolutionary Guardss rocket unit, have positioned themselves in southern Lebanon and have targeted long-range Fagr-5 rockets on cities in northern Israel. According to the Times, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon raised the issue on his visits to Germany and France last week, and warned U.S. President George W. Bush of the danger as well. Maariv quoted Sharon who spoke of "an unprecedented airlift to Lebanon of long-range rockets that can strike the center of Israel."

The Sunday Times reported that the assessment of Iranian involvement with the Hizbullah, an organization that the Iranians founded and continue to fund, was based on information confirmed by the defection of a Pasdaran soldier who sought political asylum in Israel last week.

The Times cited an unnamed intelligence source who said the rockets were "strategic weapons to deter Israel from launching a large-scale military onslaught against the
Palestinians." The source feared the rockets "could be used if Sharon carried out a threat to bring down Yasser Arafat's Palestinian authority."

Security sources and analysts cited in today's Jerusalem Post cast doubt on the presence of Iranian troops in southern Lebanon. According to the Post, "military sources said there is no concrete evidence that this is the case."

Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard are, however, involved in the training of Hizbullah gunmen in the Bekaa Valley, maintaining a low profile under the close supervision of the Syrian Army, according to Western diplomatic sources.

Confirmation for the Sunday Times report came this morning when a former Iranian official told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat daily that some 80 members of the Revolutionary Guards have arrived in Lebanon and are training special rocket launching units of the Hizbullah. The former Iranian official also said that Iran had sent to Lebanon 20 experts in surveillance and spying to assist the Hizbullah.

These claims were immediately denied by Iranian sources in London, who told Asharq Al-Awsat that the reports in the Sunday Times were baseless and blamed Sharon for spreading rumors of Iranian involvement.

Missiles and the danger of non-conventional weapons
Last week the IDF revealed that its Arrow-based anti-missile defense system (reportedly distinct from the original US-funded Arrow, with Israeli enhancements), known as "Green Pine," identified the launching of a Syrian Scud missile from the region of Aleppo in the north of Syria. The IDF radar followed the flight of the missile for some 300 kilometers until it struck the ground in southern Syria.

The Syrian missile launch came within a day of the Israeli air force strike that destroyed a Syrian radar base in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. The Israeli strike was in retaliation for a Hizbullah rocket attack on Mount Dov the previous week (map). The announcement of the anti-defense system's tracking success was apparently intended to warn the Syrians of Israel's capability of intercepting and destroying Syrian missiles.

Experts in several defense agencies have cited the growing danger and probability of the use of non-conventional weapons in the Middle East. According to a report last week by the Middle East Newsline, an American assessment concludes that the next Middle East war would include the use of ballistic missiles with nonconventional warheads. The scenario stated the possibility that countries such as Iraq, Iran and Syria could possibly launch chemical and biological weapons attacks in a future confrontation with Israel.

"One reason -- among many -- that we cannot walk away from the Middle East conflict is that another war there could involve weapons of mass destruction," Senator Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told a conference at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace last month.

Israeli military planners have assessed that Iraq would be key to any possible use of weapons of mass destruction. "We presume that [a conflict with Syria] will lead to Iraqi involvement," a senior Israeli officer told the Israeli military Bamahane weekly. "We are proposing a number of steps that would give an answer according to developments."

Last week the London-based Al Hayat newspaper reported that Israel had recently successfully carried out a secret launch of the Jericho II medium-range ballistic missile. Neither the IDF nor the Israeli Defense Ministry would comment on the report.

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