Two UN Russian GRU Platoons will keep Hizbollah and Syria Advised of Israeli Activities along Israel’s Northern Border.
October 14, 2006
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Two Russian GRU cards are what one would call “down and dirty” in five-card draw poker, and they are not being dealt to northern Lebanon out of Russia’s good will or to help being peace to the region. And, even worse, the United Nations knows all about them and why Russia dealt them.
During the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israel Wars the Soviets kept the Syrian forces briefed on intelligence gathered by electronic intercept from tank chatter between Israel command centers and tank commanders. The next war along the northern Israeli border will have a repeat of 1967 and 1973, except the electronic intercept will be more sophisticated. I believe the DEBKAfile Exclusive, which follows, is on target when it indicates some of the foreign forces, operating under the guise of being involved in serving the UN, will be helping the forces opposing Israel, rather than remaining neutral.
Having worked in interpreting and plotting Soviet Union intercept in the Middle East in 1952-53 and 1967-71, I am somewhat familiar with their surveillance equipment and techniques, which are certainly more sophisticated than when I retired from the USAF-NSA. There is no question in my mind the Russians sent these two platoons to keep them, and their Islamic friends, supplied with valuable tactical information.
This electronic intelligence information will be used for their benefit, as well as Syria and all pro-Syrian military units in Lebanon, as an aid for making present and future decisions in military actions against Israel.
Since I anticipate queries as to what the Russian GRU is all about, I am including the following information to read before the DEBKAfile.
From Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia
GRU is the English transliteration of a Russian acronym, which stands for “Glavnoe Razvedyvatel’noe Upravlenie”, meaning Main Intelligence Directorate. The full name is GRU GSh (GRU GenShtaba, i.e. “GRU of the General Staff”). The GRU was created in 1918 by Lenin, and given the task of handling all military intelligence.
It operated residencies all over the world, along with the SIGINT (signals intelligence) station, in Lourdes, Cuba (22.995 N, 82.464 W), and throughout the former Soviet bloc countries, especially in Lithuania, Latvia, and most other power centers in the Soviet Union, most famously the CPSU and KGB.
At the time of the GRU’s creation, Lenin ordered the Cheka (predecessor of the KGB) not to interfere with the GRU’s operations. The rivalry between the GRU and KGB was even more intense than the rivalry between the FBI and CIA.
The existence of the GRU was not publicized during the Soviet era. It became widely known in Russia, and the West outside the narrow confines of the intelligence community, during perestroika, in part thanks to the writings of “Viktor Suvorov” (Vladimir Rezun), a GRU agent who defected to Britain in 1978, and wrote about his experiences in the Soviet military and intelligence services.
According to Suvorov, even the Communist Party general secretary couldn’t enter GRU he adqu
arters without going through a security screening.
The GRU still remains to this day a very important part of the Russian Federation’s intelligence services, especially since it was never split up like the KGB was. The KGB was dissolved after aiding a failed coup (1991) against then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
It has since been divided into the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service) and the FSB (Federal Security Service).
According to the Federation of American Scientists: “…Though sometimes compared to the US Defense Intelligence Agency, [the GRU’s] activities encomp ass those performed by nearly all joint US military intelligence agencies
as well as other national US organizations. The GRU gathers HUMINT through military attaches and foreign agents. It also maintains significant signals intelligence (SIGINT) and imagery reconnaissance and satellite imagery (IMINT) capabilities.” [1]
In 2002, Bill Powell wrote Treason, an account of the experiences of former GRU colonel Vyacheslav Baranov. Baranov had been recruited by the CIA and agreed to spy for them, but was betrayed to the Russians by a mole in either the FBI or CIA and spent five years in prison before being released.
The identity of the mole remains unknown to this day, though some speculation mounted that it could have been Robert Hanssen.
Begin DEBKAfile Exclusive
DEBKAfile Exclusive: S. Lebanon’s largest town, Sidon, is taken over as Russian-Syrian spy base and Hizballah stronghold
October 9, 2006, 10:09 PM (GMT+02:00)
The two Russian Chechen GRU platoons, Vostok and Zapad, revealed by DEBKAfile Oct.
6 as be ing deployed
in S. Lebanon, are setting up their headquarters and surveillance posts in the Lebanese port of Sidon and giving Syrian intelligence a window on their input.
Syria is drumming up local support in the strategic port-town, the largest in S. Lebanon, by pumping weapons to local branches of the two Shiite groups, Hizballah and Amal, and the two pro-Syrian clans which dominate the town.
The carve-up of South Lebanon since Israeli troops pulled out is unfolding as follows: The UN force mandated by UN Security Council resolution 1701 is centered in the Tyre region, whereas Hizballah, Syria’s supporters and the Russian intelligence platoons have taken control of Sidon further up the Mediterranean coast. The three elements are ideally positioned for Hizballah to control the south Lebanese coastal region and for the Russians
and Syrians to keep track of the military movements of the Israeli army, UNIFIL and the European naval units off the Lebanese shore.
Senior Israeli officers told DEBKAfile that the takeover of parts of Sidon by Hizballah and Syrian intelligence – plus a Russian intelligence presence – places the security of northern Israel in extreme danger. After lagging behind Hizballah for years, Amal, the Shiite movement headed by the Lebanese parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, is now being rewarded for backing Hizballah in the war with new weapons and training by Syrian and Iranian instructors in civilian dress.
Arms are also being lavished on the powerful and wealthy South Lebanese Bizeri and Saad clans which oppose the anti-Syrian Saad Hariri, whose father Rafiq Hariri was murdered in February 2005. Hizballah’s domination of Sidon, backed up by Russian and Syrian intelligence, is a blow which virtually wipes out any advantages Israel gained from the Lebanon war. It transforms UNIFIL and the Lebanese army into a buffer that sterilizes the Syrian-Russian effort to rebuild Hizballah’s military strength and intelligence capabilities.
What is most astonishing is the Israeli government and army’s passivity in the face of this gathering security deterioration which adds up to several blatant violations of the letter and spirit of Resolution 1701.
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