Report: Hizbullah Got Long-Range Surface-to-Air Missiles from Syria

The Israeli army has changed its operational assessment “regarding the threat from Lebanon and is currently working under the assumption that Hizbullah has obtained sophisticated long-range surface-to-air missile systems from Syria,” the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.

“According to Western intelligence assessments, Hizbullah is believed to have taken advantage of the ongoing upheaval in Syria to obtain advanced weapons systems, such as additional long-range rockets as well as Russian-made air-defense systems,” TJP said.

“While Hizbullah is known to have a large quantity of shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles, the IDF now assumes that the Lebanese Islamist group has received the SA-8, a truck-mounted Russian tactical surface-to-air missile system reported to have a range of 30 kilometers,” the newspaper added.

Israel has serious concerns about what will happen to "huge stockpiles" of chemical and biological weapons in Syria should the Assad regime collapse, a senior military official said on Tuesday.

Major-General Amir Eshel, head of the Israeli military's planning division, said the working assumption was the Assad regime would eventually fall.

"The question is when, not if. And the big question is what's going to come the day after," he said.

"The immediate concern is the huge stockpiles of chemicals, biological (weapons), strategic capabilities that are still going into Syria, mainly from eastern Europe," Eshel said.

"That's a major concern because I don't know who is going to own those the day after. Up till now, what has been transferred to Hizbullah? What will be transferred to Hizbullah? What will be divided between those factions inside Syria? What is that going to create?

"We are talking about huge stockpiles," he said.