Intelligence Reports On Hezbollah's Immense Firepower

Intelligence Reports On Hezbollah's Immense Firepower
By: William Mulgrew, The Bulletin
02/14/2007

Hezbollah can fire approximately 150 Katyusha rockets into Israel per day for four months, according to a current intelligence assessment that has reached Jerusalem.
High-ranking political officials said that Hezbollah is becoming stronger at an alarming rate and has already succeeded in rehabilitating its capability almost entirely.

One of the things that worries Israel the most is the smuggling of Iranian Zelzal rockets that have reached Lebanon by way of Syria. A high-ranking political source said that at present, Hezbollah has dozens, if not hundreds, of Zelzal rockets. As Yedioth Ahronoth reported, according to information that reached Israel, the Syrians recently sent Hezbollah shipments of new Kornet* anti-tank rockets.

Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted publicly for the first time that Russian anti-tank rockets have trickled from Syria to Hezbollah. In statements he made during the Munich Conference, he said: "There are boxes of our anti-tank systems in Lebanon, that is true. Our Israeli partners told me about that immediately."

Jerusalem officials say that the Russians did not use their supervisory apparatus, as they had promised, and did not prevent the trickle. The quantity is not at the level that it was before the war, but rather at the beginning of a worrying trend.

*The AT-X-14 Kornet (the X designated that it is not yet in production) is a tripod mounted laser-beam riding antitank guided missile. The AT-X-14 is a laser beam riding missile with a semi-automatic command line of sight (SACLOS) guidance system. The Maximum range of the AT-X-14 is 5000 to 5500 meters. The minimum range is 100 meters. There are two types of warheads available for the AT-X-14, a tandem high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead, and a blast enhanced fuel-air-explosives (FAE) warhead. The HEAT warhead is claimed to be able to penetrate up to 1200-mm of RHAe protected by explosive reactive armor (ERA). FAE warheads are effective against not only buildings but also against troops in the open and various types of armored vehicles. While the FAE will not penetrate the armor, it will create a massive overpressure which will cause injury to the troops inside the vehicle. The basic system has a day sight but a thermal night sight has been developed which enables targets to be recognized at a range of up to 3500 meters depending on conditions. The thermal sight is clipped onto the right side of the launcher with the bottle at the rear.