Kathianne
10-14-2024, 11:09 AM
If you can't pay your fighters, they can't feed their families. The results are pretty easy to predict:
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2024/10/14/too-fun-to-check-hezbollah-may-be-broke-n3795769
Too Fun to Check: Hezbollah May Be BrokeEd Morrissey 11:20 AM | October 14, 2024
AP Photo/Bilal Hussein
File this under Too Good to Check, although it's now clear that Hezbollah has written figurative checks that it can't cash. Now the Voice of America reports that Hezbollah literally can't cash checks either, thanks in large part to Israeli attacks on its financial infrastructure.
In other words, all of those strikes in Dahiyeh didn't just target Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safidienne. The IDF also apparently vaporized Hezbollah's ATMs, and more:
Hezbollah has been allegedly faced with severe financial difficulties as a result of Israeli military actions that have targeted their funding sources, according to an exclusive Voice of America report. ...
VOA’s report of Hezbollah’s lack of funding has come after Israel has reportedly escalated its attacks on the terror group’s assets, including airstrikes on AQAH’s branches, causing significant damage.
AQAH has operated as a key financial institution since its founding in 1982 and has grown into a major source of funding for Hezbollah’s operations, according to the report.
“Hezbollah is facing a very serious financial problem. They are unable to pay rank-and-file members who have fled their homes and need to feed their families,” said Hilal Khashan, a Lebanese political science professor.
Hezbollah created Al-Qard al-Hasan in 1982 to serve as cover for its terror financing. Supposedly, AQAH existed to provide Islam-compatible interest-free loans; in reality, AQAH laundered money from Hezbollah's drug operations and terrorist disbursements. The US State Department estimates AQAH had a half-billion dollars before the IDF began destroying their locations in Dahiyeh, but that might have been a conservative estimate. A couple of weeks ago, rumors flew that one IDF strike had vaporized well over a billion dollars of gold and currency in one strike alone.
And as the VOA reports, that was not just a lucky strike. The IDF knows where Hezbollah keeps its cash, and they want to vaporize as much of it as possible. And the bankers that cooperated with AQAH know it, and so does Iran:
“I’m hearing from Lebanese bankers, including Hezbollah financiers, that Lebanon’s wealthiest bankers who can afford to fly have fled to Europe and the Gulf, fearing they could be targeted next by Israel for helping Hezbollah,” said Asher, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute. Asher said he is in contact with Lebanon-based sources whom the U.S. recruited over the years to provide information about Hezbollah.
“These Lebanese bankers, most of them billionaires, see the wind is blowing against Hezbollah, so they are not going to let it take millions of dollars out of their banks, which still have cash despite being bankrupt on paper,” Asher said. “They know that if they do, Israel probably will eliminate them, too.”
Another Hezbollah funding source that has dried up, according to Asher and Khashan, is deliveries of cash on planes flying to Beirut’s airport, particularly from Iran, the group’s main patron.
Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters on September 27 that Israeli warplanes had begun patrolling the airspace of Beirut’s airport and would not allow hostile flights carrying weapons to land at a civilian facility. He did not mention the issue of cash being transported aboard what Israel deems to be hostile flights.
It's not just the Israelis that have put an end to Dollar Air. VOA notes that the collapse of Hezbollah leadership has allowed the previously supine Lebanese government to assert its authority. A Saudi media outlet reports that the Lebanese Army has "scrambled" to seize control of the customs process at the airport and to prevent any more arms and financial smuggling. Not only does that allow them to keep Hezbollah's remnants suppressed, it would aim to keep the airport from being destroyed by the Israelis, who have threatened to put an end to the air smuggling permanently unless the Lebanese government takes care of business.
That won't put an end to Hezbollah as a fighting force in the short run, of course. They just scored their biggest success so far since Israel turned its full attention to the north, striking a military base near Haifa and killing four IDF soldiers. They used a "swarm of drones" to pierce the Israeli air defenses, which have been a bit ragged in the Haifa area the last couple of weeks.
However, put that "success" in perspective. The Israelis have taken out thousands of Hezbollah leaders, destroyed their communications infrastructure, and now has reportedly stripped it of any financial resources, at least in liquid form. Hezbollah fighters will probably stay on the job, so to speak, even without pay, given the all-out war with Israel for which they have lusted for decades. But armies without pay and without effective leadership don't hold together for long, especially when they are also without resupply and effective communications with any form of stable leadership. A swarm of drones might be a morale booster for a moment, but empty stomachs and empty earpieces are a morale killer -- and not even over a long run.
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2024/10/14/too-fun-to-check-hezbollah-may-be-broke-n3795769
Too Fun to Check: Hezbollah May Be BrokeEd Morrissey 11:20 AM | October 14, 2024
AP Photo/Bilal Hussein
File this under Too Good to Check, although it's now clear that Hezbollah has written figurative checks that it can't cash. Now the Voice of America reports that Hezbollah literally can't cash checks either, thanks in large part to Israeli attacks on its financial infrastructure.
In other words, all of those strikes in Dahiyeh didn't just target Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safidienne. The IDF also apparently vaporized Hezbollah's ATMs, and more:
Hezbollah has been allegedly faced with severe financial difficulties as a result of Israeli military actions that have targeted their funding sources, according to an exclusive Voice of America report. ...
VOA’s report of Hezbollah’s lack of funding has come after Israel has reportedly escalated its attacks on the terror group’s assets, including airstrikes on AQAH’s branches, causing significant damage.
AQAH has operated as a key financial institution since its founding in 1982 and has grown into a major source of funding for Hezbollah’s operations, according to the report.
“Hezbollah is facing a very serious financial problem. They are unable to pay rank-and-file members who have fled their homes and need to feed their families,” said Hilal Khashan, a Lebanese political science professor.
Hezbollah created Al-Qard al-Hasan in 1982 to serve as cover for its terror financing. Supposedly, AQAH existed to provide Islam-compatible interest-free loans; in reality, AQAH laundered money from Hezbollah's drug operations and terrorist disbursements. The US State Department estimates AQAH had a half-billion dollars before the IDF began destroying their locations in Dahiyeh, but that might have been a conservative estimate. A couple of weeks ago, rumors flew that one IDF strike had vaporized well over a billion dollars of gold and currency in one strike alone.
And as the VOA reports, that was not just a lucky strike. The IDF knows where Hezbollah keeps its cash, and they want to vaporize as much of it as possible. And the bankers that cooperated with AQAH know it, and so does Iran:
“I’m hearing from Lebanese bankers, including Hezbollah financiers, that Lebanon’s wealthiest bankers who can afford to fly have fled to Europe and the Gulf, fearing they could be targeted next by Israel for helping Hezbollah,” said Asher, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute. Asher said he is in contact with Lebanon-based sources whom the U.S. recruited over the years to provide information about Hezbollah.
“These Lebanese bankers, most of them billionaires, see the wind is blowing against Hezbollah, so they are not going to let it take millions of dollars out of their banks, which still have cash despite being bankrupt on paper,” Asher said. “They know that if they do, Israel probably will eliminate them, too.”
Another Hezbollah funding source that has dried up, according to Asher and Khashan, is deliveries of cash on planes flying to Beirut’s airport, particularly from Iran, the group’s main patron.
Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters on September 27 that Israeli warplanes had begun patrolling the airspace of Beirut’s airport and would not allow hostile flights carrying weapons to land at a civilian facility. He did not mention the issue of cash being transported aboard what Israel deems to be hostile flights.
It's not just the Israelis that have put an end to Dollar Air. VOA notes that the collapse of Hezbollah leadership has allowed the previously supine Lebanese government to assert its authority. A Saudi media outlet reports that the Lebanese Army has "scrambled" to seize control of the customs process at the airport and to prevent any more arms and financial smuggling. Not only does that allow them to keep Hezbollah's remnants suppressed, it would aim to keep the airport from being destroyed by the Israelis, who have threatened to put an end to the air smuggling permanently unless the Lebanese government takes care of business.
That won't put an end to Hezbollah as a fighting force in the short run, of course. They just scored their biggest success so far since Israel turned its full attention to the north, striking a military base near Haifa and killing four IDF soldiers. They used a "swarm of drones" to pierce the Israeli air defenses, which have been a bit ragged in the Haifa area the last couple of weeks.
However, put that "success" in perspective. The Israelis have taken out thousands of Hezbollah leaders, destroyed their communications infrastructure, and now has reportedly stripped it of any financial resources, at least in liquid form. Hezbollah fighters will probably stay on the job, so to speak, even without pay, given the all-out war with Israel for which they have lusted for decades. But armies without pay and without effective leadership don't hold together for long, especially when they are also without resupply and effective communications with any form of stable leadership. A swarm of drones might be a morale booster for a moment, but empty stomachs and empty earpieces are a morale killer -- and not even over a long run.