WarSclerotic

Azerbaijan nabs Iranian agents setting trap for Israel-made drone.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 17, 2012, 8:37 PM (GMT+02:00)

Hermes-450 UAV made in Israel

debkafile Special: Last week, the Azerbaijani police rounded up six Iranian agents who had infiltrated the country and were looking for the air bases where their government housed the drones purchased from Israel. The spies were found in possession of cash, fake passports, automatic pistols, advanced electronic equipment for tracking aircraft and electronic warfare devices for jamming flying vehicles and down them. Questioning the detainees uncovered an Iranian plot to capture one of the Israel-made UAVs as it flew over the Caspian Sea.

Following the arrests, Azerbaijan barred entry to the Iranian culture attaché serving at the embassy in Baku on his return from home leave in Tehran. No valid reason was offered for this step except that his visa had expired. Azerbaijani investigators were able to establish that he was an undercover agent who was running the captured ring.
The episode which triggered the considerable friction between Baku and Tehran surfaced on Dec. 9 when Iran spread through its media allegations that he US and Israel had stepped up their intelligence surveillance of the Astara Rayon region of southeastern Azerbaijan along the Caspian maritime frontier with Iran.

The Americans were claimed to have expanded the coverage of their radar, while Israel was said to have increased the number of Orbiter ultra-light drones spying on the region, as well as using the 10 Hermes-450 UAVs, made in Israel and recently sold to Azerbaijan. According to Iranian sources, the Hermes drones’ spying operations over the Iranian border are guided by Israeli military satellites.

In Israel, there was little doubt that Tehran was laying the groundwork for an attempt to force down an Israeli-Azerbaijani drone with the same sort of  traps used against two American drones – the ScanEagle, which was downed over the Persian Gulf earlier this month, and the MQ 1 Predator which came under fire from two Iranian Air Force SU-25 fighters as it approached the skies over the Bushehr nuclear reactor.
Referring to the ScanEagle, Revolutionary Guards Navy commander Adm. Ali Fadavi said Tuesday, Dec. 4, that one of his units had captured a US drone flying over his forces in the Persian Gulf.
Catching Israeli drones is a challenge of a different order since none fly near Iranian borders. All the same, Tehran was suspected of planning to net one of the drones Azerbaijan bought from Israel and, despite the purchaser’s military markings, present it as the capture of an Israeli spy drone controlled by the Israeli Air Force and military intelligence, MI.
This would have been a feather in Tehran’s cap on a par with its success on Oct. 6 in keeping an Iranian drone, launched by Hizballah from Lebanon, on the loose for two hours in Israeli airspace before it was downed.

Iranian FM: Nuclear deadlock wit… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Iran says it captured 2 US drones prior to the one it boasted of two weeks ago | The Times of Israel.

Revolutionary Guard naval chief says a ScanEagle captured in early December was the third American UAV the army has downed

Iranian state TV shows what purports to be an intact ScanEagle drone aircraft, December 4, 2012 (photo credit: AP/Al-Alam TV)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The naval chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claims Iranian forces had captured at least two other US drones before unveiling a purportedly downed ScanEagle craft earlier this month.

Monday’s report by the official IRNA news agency does not say when the two other drones were allegedly taken.

It quotes Adm. Ali Fadavi as saying the drone shown on state TV was the third captured ScanEagle, a relatively simple surveillance craft made by a Boeing subsidiary.

Fadavi says Iranian-made copies of the ScanEagle have been put into service, but did not elaborate.

Earlier this month, the US Navy said none of its drones were missing from recent missions, but some might have fallen into the sea in the past. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Explosion in Hezbollah weapons depot – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Lebanese media reports of mysterious blast in Tair Harfa, town near Israel border. Hezbollah cordons off area

AP, Roi Kais

Lebanon‘s state agency has reported a large explosion in the country’s south near the border with Israel. The blast hit a Hezbollah weapons cache.

National News said early Monday the reasons behind the blast near Tair Harfa were not clear. Andrea Tenente, who is a spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in the area, UNIFIL, said it was investigating.

South Lebanon, the scene of bitter fighting between Israel and Lebanese militant Hezbollah guerrillas in 2006, is considered a Hezbollah stronghold.

Security officials said Hezbollah had cordoned off the area. They asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly.

Some two months ago, a series of blasts killed at least nine people and wounded seven in the Hezbollah-controlled Beqaa Valley of eastern Lebanon.

The Shiite terror group announced that three of its members were killed and a few others were injured in the blasts, which hit an arms stockpile in a building under construction in an uninhabited area between the villages of Nabishit and Khodr.

Last July, an air-to-ground missile fired by an Israeli plane detonated a surveillance device that was planted between the southern Lebanese towns of Zrariyeh and Tayr Filsay.

According to the report, the device was planted on a Hezbollah telecommunications cable. The device was destroyed by Israel because the terror group had exposed it, the National News Agency reported.