The United States denied Wednesday a claim by a senior Israeli military official saying that Hezbollah has been using in his battles in Syria US-supplied armored vehicles given by Lebanon’s official army.
The Israeli official speaking on condition of anonymity said Israel believes these vehicles were drawn from stocks supplied by Washington to the Lebanese Armed Forces.
However, US State Department spokesman John Kirby said US officials have investigated and do not believe that Lebanon has violated its agreement not to transfer on US-supplied equipment.
“When this allegation was raised in November, the Department of Defense did a structural analysis of the armored personnel carriers in question at that time and concluded that these vehicles were not from the Lebanese Armed Forces. Our assessment remains the same now,” Kirby told AFP.
“As we noted when this first came up, the Lebanese Armed Forces stated publicly that the vehicles depicted online were never part of their equipment roster,” he added.
Last month, footage emerged of Hezbollah fighters operating M113 armored personnel carriers in Syria, where the Shiite party — blacklisted by Washington as a terrorist organization — is fighting in support of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.