on August 25, 2019 Two Israeli Drones Loaded With Explosives Crashed in Beirut.
According to latest The Times report Israeli drone attack targeted a Hezbollah site in Beirut that believed to contain machinery to mix high-grade propellant for precision missiles.
It damaged a planetary mixer — an industrial-sized mixer weighing about eight tons, needed to create propellants that can improve the engine performance of missiles and increase their accuracy.
The machine was hit, as far as we know, shortly before Hezbollah planned to move it to a secured site.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who accused Israel of carrying out this strike and a second one – which killed two Lebanese Hezbollah fighters near Damascus a few hours earlier – threatened retaliation for both strikes. The Israeli army is readying for a reprisal, possibly within the next few days.
The aerial strike in Beirut, which Nasrallah said was conducted by two explosive-laden drones sent by Israel, hit the mixer, which had been temporarily placed in a Hezbollah-controlled area of the city’s Shi’ite quarter Dahiyyeh. The mixer was damaged, but the main blow was to the machine’s control panel, which is separate from the mixer itself.
Replacing the controller, an expensive bit of electronics manufactured in Iran, will likely take a long time. Were the mixer to become operational, it could have enabled Hezbollah to set up a production line capable of turning out rather large quantities of precision-guided long-range missiles. Because of its use in manufacturing ballistic missiles, the mixer was delivered to Hezbollah by Iran in violation of international treaties.
According to Hezbollah the two drones which fell in the group’s stronghold neighborhood of Dahiya were both armed with 5.5 kilos of C4 explosives.
“After the Islamic Resistance’s specialized experts inspected and dismantled the first drone, it was clear that it was laden with a bomb which was professionally wrapped and isolated,” Hezbollah said in a statement.
“We confirm that it was not on a reconnaissance mission, and that its target was to carry out a suicide attack, exactly like the second drone,” the statement continued.
The city was “subjected to a raid carried out by two drones: the first came down due to a technical failure while the second exploded.”
Hezbollah spokesman Muhammad Afif said Sunday that one Israeli drone exploded and caused significant damage to the group’s media office, wounding three people. The other drone crashed shortly afterwards, causing no damage.
The IDF has remained mum on the subject, saying that it does not comment on foreign reports.
Israel did take responsibility for striking an Iranian position south of the Syrian capital of Damascus, killing two Hezbollah militants and one Iranian planning to attack northern Israel with armed drones.
The two men, Hassan Youssef Zbeeb and Yasser Ahmad Daher, were reported by Hezbollah’s al-Manar website as having been childhood friends and were killed “while they were performing their duty.”
