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IPFS News Link • World News

Hezbollah Parade Features US-Made Armored Vehicles, Raising Eyebrows

• http://news.antiwar.com, by Jason Ditz

Hezbollah recently paraded their considerable arsenal of vehicles around publicly, and one of the sets of vehicles raised a number of questions: a collection of US-made M113 armored personnel carriers mounted with old Soviet ZPU-2 anti-aircraft weapons.

Hezbollah's militia understandably is built out of a lot of rag-tag equipment and hand-me downs, but it is unclear exactly where they got ahold of the US made M113s. The initial speculation was that they'd gotten them from the Lebanese military, somehow, though this doesn't appear likely, and indeed the M113s are of an older model, suggesting a more obscure origin.

Some US officials suggested the age might be a clue, pointing to the long-collapsed Israel-backed Southern Lebanese Army (SLA). Israel gave the SLA 20 such M113s back in 1985, and it's possible Hezbollah might've ended up with those after the SLA collapsed.