Special to WorldTribune.com

JERUSALEM — Israel’s intelligence community has raised the prospect
that Syria transferred chemical weapons missile warheads to Lebanon.

Officials said the intelligence community has been tracking convoys of
trucks that were bringing what appeared to be missiles and warheads from
Syria’s Latakia region to Lebanon. They said the convoys were unloading the
suspected weapons at Hizbullah warehouses in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

“Syria has a massive amount of chemical weapons, and if they fall into
hands even more extreme than Syria like Hizbullah or global jihad groups it would completely transform the map of threats,” parliamentarian Yisrael Hasson said.

Hasson, a former deputy director of the Israel Security Agency, said the traffic from Syria to Lebanon was being closely monitored. He did not elaborate.

The sources said the Syrian convoys to Hizbullah were believed to
contain strategic weapons. They said Syria was using civilian semi-trailers rather than military vehicles for the nightly transport to Lebanon.

“If chemical weapons are brought into Lebanon, it is reasonable to
assume that Israel would not hesitate and would attack,” Israeli defense analyst Alex Fishman said.

The sources said the convoys were organized amid accelerated Iranian
deliveries to the regime of President Bashar Assad. They said the Iranian
airlift increased dramatically since mid-December 2012.

On Jan. 23, the Israeli leadership met to discuss the military convoys
to Hizbullah. Officials said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led the
session, which included briefings by the intelligence community. Later, the
government approved the deployment of two Iron Dome missile and rocket
defense batteries in northern Israel.

“We will have to take decisions,” Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom
said.

At the same time, Israel, said to be on high alert, has sought to
coordinate any operation with the United States. But the sources, despite
statements by Netanyahu, reported a cool reception by the administration of
President Barack Obama, which earlier in January said the U.S. military
could not stop a Syrian CW attack.

“We’ve had very close cooperation on all things, including the
developing matters in Syria, very close cooperation between our two
governments.” Netanyahu said on Jan. 28.

The sources said the Assad regime was believed to have at least 1,000
tons of CW. They said the Syrian military has designed most of its
Scud-class ballistic missile arsenal to be fitted with CW warheads.

“A tiny percentage of this quantity falling into the hands of global
jihad organizations — and afterwards finding their way out of Syria —
would suffice to create an unprecedented terrorist threat,” Amir Rapaport,
another defense analyst, said.

  Bashar Assad, Bekaa Valley, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli intel tracking convoys from Syria to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Silvan Shalom, Yisrael Hasson