Thread by @Javanmardi75

The secret war on oil smuggling to fund Hezbollah
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The #smuggling axis and the money laundering- hundreds of millions of dollars that pass through 🇸🇾Syria to the #terrorist organization (#Hezbollah) in 🇱🇧Lebanon. This is how the "oil war" is conducted.
1/25–Part 1

#Iran's oil smuggling into Syria is not a new issue. They have been in place for several years, even before the #Trump administration imposed sanctions on Iran and on Syria.
The question facing Western intelligence was how #Syria pays Iran for the oil it receives. 2/25

As of May2018, when the #Iranians were barred from transferring funds in the international financial system, they had trouble getting the proceeds or payments for the oil they smuggled to China, North Korea, Syria & other countries like Turkey where oil was smuggled inland. 3/25

In Western #intelligence communities, including 🇺🇸Washington and 🇮🇱Israel, there is a well-founded suspicion that money for #Iranian oil smuggled into Syria is being laundered in some way. 4/25

Then news began to circulate that #Syria's debt to #Iran for oil was making its way to #Hezbollah's coffers, & this way Iran was hitting two birds w/ one stone: it should not launder money in overly complicated ways, through third parties not belonging to the Iranian axis. 5/25

Should not look for creative ways to transfer money to #Hezbollah, through Lebanese banks under international supervision. In fact, #Assad is giving the Iranians a favor under a favor - and this is a win-win situation for all involved. 6/25

#Syria has traditionally served as the main channel through which #Iran supplies #Hezbollah with weapons, munitions, missiles and other lethal means. It is now also a money transfer pipeline that can continue to operate with U.S. sanctions under the “Caesar Act,” which 7/25

prevents international deals with banks in #Lebanon because they serve as a bypass pipeline to Syrian banks (which are also subject to sanctions). The journey from Damascus to Beirut takes less than two hours; the money can be transferred without difficulty, if necessary, 8/25

in luggage - from Syria straight into #Nasrallah's pocket. It can be estimated that the #IRGC rubbed hands on the success, even after the assassination in January 2020 of Qassem Suleimani , commander of the Quds Force. 9/25

He is probably the man who devised these tripartite deals - Iranian oil smuggled to Syria on #IRGC ships. The Syrian economy, which is desperate for oil, pays the proceeds to #Hezbollah (probably hundreds of millions of dollars a year) & everyone benefits. 10/25

This triangle, of smuggling, money laundering & terrorist financing, is nothing new in the global scene.
#Hezbollah has specialized in the genre even when it comes to the drug business that financed much of its activity & smuggled stolen vehicles from Europe to the ME. 11/25

Ships sailing from the Kharg oil port in the #PersianGulf or the island of Qeshm, laden with Iranian oil, are something that is difficult to hide. In the shortest route they have to cross the Strait of Hormuz, enter through the Egyptian Bab al-Mandab into the Red Sea, 12/25

from there to the Suez Canal and Fort Said towards the Syrian coast. There they anchor in the middle of the sea and transfer their cargo to a Syrian tanker that unloads the oil on shore - or they sail to the port of #Latakia or the port of #Tartus and unload there. 13/25

The #Iranians understand that this route is completely visible to all Western #intelligence services, including Israel, so in 2019 they tried to send ships on a long route that avoided sailing in the Red Sea & across the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean - bypassing 14/25

the entire African continent, entering the #Gibraltar Strait & then sailing towards Syria. Among many ships sailing in the #Mediterranean & also in its eastern basin.
The🇬🇧British, who control the Strait of Gibraltar, stopped such a ship & seized it claiming it was headed 15/25

for #Syria & that it was violating the sanctions imposed by the UN on the country. The #Iranians in response took control of a British ship in the Persian Gulf. The oil cargo on it. This incident illustrates how in fact #Hezbollah's smuggling, money laundering & terrorist 16/25

financing project was visible to the #intelligence services, who also had no trouble keeping track of the last dollar that made its way to #Hezbollah's secret coffers. Funding is the oxygen of #terrorism, & without massive Iranian funding, Hezbollah cannot hold tens 17/25

of thousands of different fighters & infrastructure which are used for both its social & military activities. It is very likely that #Israel has an important interest in stopping Iranian funding for Hezbollah, & the sanctions imposed by #Trump on #Iran have given important 18/25

leverage, both by the #US intelligence agencies & by the #Israeli intelligence community. The simplest way to operate this crane is to cut off the #axis of oil smuggling -thereby achieving a dual goal: both to stop Syrian payments to #Hezbollah, & to put Assad & his regime 19/25

in distress that will force them to end the civil war & reduce its dependence on smuggled #Iranian oil. Against this background, it is reasonable to estimate that the article published in @WSJ regarding Israeli damage to Iranian ships is related to the common desire of.../20/25

all Western democracies to stop #funding Hezbollah #terrorism. The publication talks about at least dozens such attacks by naval mines in 2019 on Iranian tankers sailing in the Red Sea or the Mediterranean on their way to Syria, & more like this number in 2020.../21/25

(by the way, exposure is now coming from the @POTUS, signaling @IsraeliPM to calm down). Meanwhile, #Iran announced that its cargo ship was damaged after being attacked in the Mediterranean last Wednesday. A spokesman for Iran's National Shipping Company #IRISL called the 22/25

incident a #terrorist_attack. "The ship was slightly damaged by an explosion. There were no casualties on board," he said. The damaged Iranian ship, the Shahré Kord, was a cargo ship & not an oil tanker. It transported goods to Europe & was hit in exactly the same way as../23/25

"Helios Ray" hit by the #IRGC in the Gulf of Oman about two weeks ago. The damage there was also as small & measured as the damage caused to an Israeli-owned cargo ship that sailed under the Bahamas flag from a port in Saudi Arabia to South Korea. 24/25

It is likely that the attack on the #Iranian ship two days ago in the Mediterranean was a retaliatory action against the damage to an #Israeli-owned cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman.
But back to the oil tankers - if indeed #Israel hit these tankers, then it is likely that../25/25