Hizballah is deserting the Assad regime, or at least hedging their bets. They are pulling all of their heavy missiles from Syrian safekeeping now that they believe he has a serious chance of being deposed. From Debka:
Last year, Syrian President Bashar Assad agreed to store Hizballah's incoming Iran-made Fatah-110 surface missiles and its Syrian equivalent the M-600 and the mobile SA-8 (Gecko) anti-air battery which holds 18 warheads with a maximum range of 12 kilometers. Tehran paid for the upkeep of the Hizballah hardware on Syrian side of the border after Israel threatened to bomb these potential game-changers if they crossed over.
Deployed at Hizballah bases in Lebanon, the Fatah-110 and M-600 would place almost every corner of Israel within range of bombardment, while the SA-8 would seriously restrict Israeli Air Force operations over southern Lebanon and Galilee.
However, as the uprising against Assad rolls ever closer to Damascus, Hizballah see a very real threat of it infecting the Syrian army and has decided that now might be its last chance to get hold of the core arsenal it has standing by for war with Israel before events get out of hand in Syria.
But as is always the case with all military operations,
logistics is a bitch:
Hizballah and Iranian offices in Tehran are working on the best way to transport the missiles into Lebanon without exposing them to Israeli attack, DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report. Some of them calculate that Israel would not venture to strike them while still on Syrian soil because it would lay itself open to interfering, or even getting in the way of, the revolt against President Assad and playing into his hands.
Yup, that's true: if Syria gets attacked by the Zionist regime, it could unite enough of his people and military behind him and focus on an external enemy. But Israel can make it look like a 'work accident', and his people and military may not believe his whiny finger pointing. Alternatively, Israel can send in the fast movers once the missiles cross the Lebanese border, and take them out then. In either case, this is shaping up to be a true intelligence battle.
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