Hezbollah's Unit 133 Exposed
Ronen Solomon with new details about the secret terrorist unit, which have arisen from recent affairs in which it was involved
Ronen Solomon
| 22/02/2015
Collecting: Ronen Solomon
A series of new affairs enables to outline the profile of one of the most secretive units of Hezbollah: Unit 133.
At the head of Unit 133 is Mouhammad Ataya, who was previously a senior commander in Unit 1800, the foreign operations unit of Hezbollah operating in the territories of Palestine, Egypt and Israel. Alongside him work, according to the website "STOP910", Muhammad Callas, Ali Mahmoud Nasrallah, Ahmed Fouad Hamadeh and Muhammad Yusef Mansur (known as "Abu Yusuf"), a resident of Southern Lebanon, who was the head of the terrorist activity exposed in Egypt in 2009, that intended to attack Israeli targets through Sinai Peninsula.
The purpose of Unit 133 is to promote to mount terror attacks in Israel, in the West Bank, in Egypt and Jordan. Unlike Unit 1800, Unit 133 has cells working for this purpose as well in Turkey and in Eastern and Western Europe.
The Unit is assisted by Lebanese drug dealers who work with Israeli smugglers, as was done in summer 2012, as the Unit made use of Israeli-Arab drug dealers in order to smuggle sophisticated explosive charges meant to be used for attacks in Israel.
The affair was exposed by the Shin Bet and the Israel Police. The explosive devices, M-16 rifles and other weapons that were seized, were intended to be used for mass attacks by "inactive" terrorist networks of Hezbollah.
The weapons that were found were transferred in four bags through the border of Ghajar village in Lebanon by a Lebanese drug dealer named Saad Khamoz, a former Israeli who fled to Lebanon and was in contact with the Israeli dealer Shahid Yousef Ibrahim, a resident of Ghajar in the Golan Heights. Then it was forwarded by a courier to the hands of Arafat Bayoumi – a resident of Nazareth, and was meant to be collected by the same infrastructure of "terrorism" Hezbollah is working to establish in the territories of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The method of operation of the unit focuses on locating and recruiting potential candidates, even among non-Shia Arabs. After enlistment, new recruits undergo military training and security training in a variety of fields including intelligence gathering, recruitment of new properties, managing sources, the construction of a cover story, mapping targets, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Most of the operating activity between recruits and their operators is done in meetings on the land of Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Europe, Asia and additional locations.
One of those recruits was probably Assam Hashem Ali Mashahra, 38, a bus driver by profession, an Israeli citizen from the village of Jabel Mukaber in southern Jerusalem, who was recruited for Hezbollah during a visit to Lebanon in June 2012, and was arrested on 24 October 2012. During interrogation, Mashahra admitted in recruiting to the Hezbollah and providing information on a long list of local sites, including government sites like the Knesset and government complex, as well as public sites. The connection with his operators was made through the Internet.
In April this year, journalist Majd Kayal, Editor of Adalah, was detained after traveling from Jordan to Beirut for the convention of the newspaper As-Safir, where he then came in contact, according to the Shin Bet, with an agent of Hezbollah. It is possible that the current publication is designed to make it difficult or discourage an organization's recruitment efforts in countries as Jordan, Turkey and other European countries where Arab-Israeli and Palestinian students holding a "blue" Israeli ID study.
A series of new affairs enables to outline the profile of one of the most secretive units of Hezbollah: Unit 133.
At the head of Unit 133 is Mouhammad Ataya, who was previously a senior commander in Unit 1800, the foreign operations unit of Hezbollah operating in the territories of Palestine, Egypt and Israel. Alongside him work, according to the website "STOP910", Muhammad Callas, Ali Mahmoud Nasrallah, Ahmed Fouad Hamadeh and Muhammad Yusef Mansur (known as "Abu Yusuf"), a resident of Southern Lebanon, who was the head of the terrorist activity exposed in Egypt in 2009, that intended to attack Israeli targets through Sinai Peninsula.
The purpose of Unit 133 is to promote to mount terror attacks in Israel, in the West Bank, in Egypt and Jordan. Unlike Unit 1800, Unit 133 has cells working for this purpose as well in Turkey and in Eastern and Western Europe.
The Unit is assisted by Lebanese drug dealers who work with Israeli smugglers, as was done in summer 2012, as the Unit made use of Israeli-Arab drug dealers in order to smuggle sophisticated explosive charges meant to be used for attacks in Israel.
The affair was exposed by the Shin Bet and the Israel Police. The explosive devices, M-16 rifles and other weapons that were seized, were intended to be used for mass attacks by "inactive" terrorist networks of Hezbollah.
The weapons that were found were transferred in four bags through the border of Ghajar village in Lebanon by a Lebanese drug dealer named Saad Khamoz, a former Israeli who fled to Lebanon and was in contact with the Israeli dealer Shahid Yousef Ibrahim, a resident of Ghajar in the Golan Heights. Then it was forwarded by a courier to the hands of Arafat Bayoumi – a resident of Nazareth, and was meant to be collected by the same infrastructure of "terrorism" Hezbollah is working to establish in the territories of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The method of operation of the unit focuses on locating and recruiting potential candidates, even among non-Shia Arabs. After enlistment, new recruits undergo military training and security training in a variety of fields including intelligence gathering, recruitment of new properties, managing sources, the construction of a cover story, mapping targets, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Most of the operating activity between recruits and their operators is done in meetings on the land of Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Europe, Asia and additional locations.
One of those recruits was probably Assam Hashem Ali Mashahra, 38, a bus driver by profession, an Israeli citizen from the village of Jabel Mukaber in southern Jerusalem, who was recruited for Hezbollah during a visit to Lebanon in June 2012, and was arrested on 24 October 2012. During interrogation, Mashahra admitted in recruiting to the Hezbollah and providing information on a long list of local sites, including government sites like the Knesset and government complex, as well as public sites. The connection with his operators was made through the Internet.
In April this year, journalist Majd Kayal, Editor of Adalah, was detained after traveling from Jordan to Beirut for the convention of the newspaper As-Safir, where he then came in contact, according to the Shin Bet, with an agent of Hezbollah. It is possible that the current publication is designed to make it difficult or discourage an organization's recruitment efforts in countries as Jordan, Turkey and other European countries where Arab-Israeli and Palestinian students holding a "blue" Israeli ID study.
