Russia to deploy troops along Lebanese border to cut Hezbollah supply routes

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Russia is due to deploy its military police along the Syrian-Lebanese border as well to control the main border crossings, seeking to freeze Hezbollah’s drug trade and weapons supply routes, a well-informed source told Zaman al-Wasl.

The planned move by Bashar al-Assad’s key ally came amid reports that the Iranian proxy is using the Syrian border for smuggling cannabis and illegal goods through the border town of al-Qusayr that fully controlled by Hezbollah and the mountainous Qalamoun region.

The Russian intervention in Syria was officially announced on Sept. 30, 2015, after an official request by the Assad regime for military aid against rebel groups. But since then, the Russian role has turned in to a dominant decision-maker and the de-facto ruler of Syria.

Experts say Hezbollah seeks to overcome the U.S. sanctions that hit its officials and the Iranian backer.

Hezbollah has since capturing Qusayr in 2013 cut down trees and turned agricultural property into tobacco and cannabis farms, revealed locals who were forced out of the region, according to Asharq Al-Awsat.

In November 2018, the Syrian regime seized a drugs shipment that had departed from the western al-Qusayr region to coastal Latakia province, the state-run news agency reported.

The Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah trilateral partnership has been decades in the making. It pre-dates the Syrian

civil war, has strengthened as a result of the war and will likely endure in the post-war years, according to The Atlantic Council.

Hezbollah’s role in the Syrian civil war since 2012 turned the Lebanese militia into a strategic partner and earned the Party of God a seat at the grownups’ table.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action in Novemer to target four Hezbollah-affiliated individuals who lead and coordinate the group’s operational, intelligence, and financial activities in Iraq.

“Hezbollah is a terrorist proxy for the Iranian regime that seeks to undermine Iraqi sovereignty and destabilize the Middle East. We are targeting terror facilitators like Al-Zaydi who smuggle oil for Iran, raise funds for Hizballah, and send fighters to Syria for the IRGC-Qods Force on behalf of Qasem Soleimani,” said Sigal Mandelker, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

Zaman Al Wasl