Leak: Iran used Red Crescent to smuggle weapons

Wikileaks document shows Iranian Revolutionary Guards helped Hizbullah in 2006 Lebanon War, disguised as Red Crescent officials.

By YAAKOV KATZ
lebanon war 311 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
lebanon war 311
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Iran used the cover of the Iranian Red Crescent to smuggle intelligence agents and missiles into Lebanon during the Second Lebanon War, according to a leaked US Embassy cable published on Sunday by WikiLeaks.
Dated October 2008, the cable, which originated in Dubai, was based on a meeting between a US diplomat and an unnamed source. According to the cable, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps smuggled officers into Lebanon during the 2006 war with Hizbullah under the guise of Red Crescent officials.
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The source also said, according to the cable, that medical supplies had been used to facilitate weapons shipments.
“He [the source] said that [the] Iranian Red Crescent had seen missiles in the planes destined for Lebanon when delivering medical supplies to the plane. The plane was allegedly ‘half full’ prior to the arrival of any medical supplies,” the cable read.
According to the cable, after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran in 2005, Iranian Red Crescent workers had to undergo a counterintelligence course before being accepted to the agency.
Ahmadinejad also switched the agency’s leadership with officials from the Revolutionary Guards, with the cable claiming that as a result the Iranian Red Crescent was now considered an agency of the Guards.