Hezbollah has U.S. armored personnel carriers. But how did they get them ?

/hezbollah-has-u-s-armored-personnel-car

  • Un rapport cartographie la circulation des armes dans le Sahel - RFI
    http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20161116-rapport-cartographie-circulation-armes-le-sahel?ns_campaign=reseaux_soc

    L’organisation CAR (Conflict Armament Research), basée en Grande-Bretagne, rend ce mercredi 16 novembre son rapport sur les transferts d’armes transfrontaliers dans le Sahel. L’ONG a travaillé dans une dizaine de pays pour établir une cartographie des flux d’armements dans la zone et dévoile les sources d’approvisionnement des groupes armés et islamistes à travers l’Afrique du Nord et de l’Ouest.

    Claudio Gramizzi est l’un des conseillers de l’Organisation. Dans le rapport d’une cinquantaine de pages auquel il a contribué, il lève un coin du voile sur les approvisionnements en armes de la RCA, avant et pendant la crise. Deux sources sont clairement identifiées : la Côte d’Ivoire, côte gouvernementale ; et le Soudan côté ex-rébellion Seleka. Sur le volume d’armes retrouvé, évalué, par l’ONG, près d’une Kalachnikov sur cinq provenait de Côte d’Ivoire, des armes détournées des arsenaux ivoiriens.

    • @cepcasa : non non, lis l’article référencé, ce que raconte CAR n’est pas au passé, et ça concerne bien le gouvernement séoudien :

      Despite signing an agreement saying it would not sell the weapons to any other countries, Saudi Arabia appears to send them “straight to Turkey”, from where they get into Islamic State’s hands “very, very rapidly” via illicit means. […] That’s almost direct. If you want to put something on a boat and float it, it’s going to take a month.

    • … récupérés dans les stocks de l’Armée du Liban du Sud

      … et donc auraient étés aimablement fournis initialement par Israël.

      Mais avec une production autour de 80000 exemplaires en plus de 50 ans, les sources de seconde main du M113 ne manquent pas…

      The armored personnel carrier, known as the M113, is one of the United States’ most ubiquitous armored vehicles and has been in service since the 1960s. The tracked semi-rhombus-shaped vehicle comes in numerous variants and can be outfitted to carry troops and artillery; its chassis was even used as the basis for a nuclear-missile carrier. It has appeared in every major U.S. conflict since the Vietnam War and is used by U.S. police departments and dozens of others countries’ militaries around the world.
      […]
      In a tweet, the Lebanese military denied that the M113s were taken from its stocks, a claim backed up by a State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the issue.

      The Lebanese military has publicly stated that the M113s depicted online were never part of their equipment roster,” the official said. “Our initial assessment concurs: The M113s allegedly in Hezbollah’s possession in Syria are unlikely to have come from the Lebanese military. We are working closely with our colleagues in the Pentagon and in the Intelligence Community on to resolve this issue.

      Closely aligned with Iran and Syria, Hezbollah has been fighting alongside Syrian government troops since the beginning of the conflict.

      The Hezbollah M113s appear to be an older variant, and U.S. officials said they are inclined to believe that vehicles came from the disintegration of the Southern Lebanese Army, or SLA. The SLA was an Israeli-allied and supplied Christian militia that fought during the Lebanese civil war. Its military equipment was ultimately absorbed by Hezbollah in the early 2000s when Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon.