Taking cover.

 

Twice this week I have had to take cover during an air-raid. Missile and drone attacks mainly from Lebanon caused me to ’wait it out’ in the safest place in my house, the computer room. Admittedly, I wouldn’t survive a direct hit on the house, but I’m safe there from blasts and shrapnel. Alternatively, I could rush down to the nearest air raid shelter. Reconsidering my options, I’m safer in my computer cubbyhole. There are numerous reports of Israelis injured, tripping and falling while trying to get to an air raid shelter. They tend to ignore the IDF’s Home Front Command’s specific instructions regarding where and how to take cover during an air raid. I hasten to add that air raids are a rare occurrence in our area. Nevertheless, family and friends called to make sure I was okay.

My attention this week has been focused on efforts to strike Hezbollah’s financial resources.

A BBC correspondent reported that the IDF is targeting money held by the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association (AQAH). It offers financial services to civilians in areas where Hezbollah has strong support, but Israel and the US accuse it of being a cover for the Iran-backed group to fund its terror activities.

AQAH is a key part of Hezbollah’s social services network. Before the Israeli strikes, it had more than 30 branches, often located on the ground floor of residential buildings.

Many people came to depend on AQAH after Lebanon sank into a deep economic crisis five years ago, causing the local currency to lose 90% of its value and commercial banks to restrict foreign currency withdrawals. AQAH allowed people to take out small, interest-free loans in dollars backed by gold or a guarantor, and to open savings accounts.

 The report aroused a certain déjà vu. Two weeks into the Gaza war, the Israel Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority (IMPA) received secret intelligence information from two European countries that warned: "A large, well-known organisation is raising funds for Hamas through posts on social networks, and fintech company platforms outside Israel, under the guise of donations to Gaza residents." The information included the name of the organisation, its fundraising methods, and the identity of the entities behind it. Their concern was that, within days, the millions of dollars raised would go directly to Hamas. In a swift joint international action, at IMPA’s request, one of the European countries blocked the organisation’s money pipeline by immediately freezing its financial activities.

About three years ago the Saudi state-owned international Arabic news television channel Al Arabiya published an exposé on Hezbollah’s illicit activities. In late 2016, a high-placed Hezbollah operative named Nasser Abbas Bahmad came to what is known as the Tri-Border Area (TBA), where the frontiers of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet. His mission was to establish a supply line of multi-ton shipments of cocaine from Latin America to overseas markets in order to generate funds for Hezbollah.

Investigative pieces soon followed in the Argentinian and Paraguayan press. As a result, Bahmad and his business partner, Australian-Lebanese national Hanan Hamdan, were put on a US watchlist.

Over recent decades, Hezbollah has built a well-oiled, multibillion-dollar money-laundering and drug-trafficking machine in Latin America that cleans organised crime’s ill-gotten gains through multiple waypoints in the Western hemisphere, West Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

  A piece in The Guardian stated that Israel has accused Hezbollah of keeping hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold in a bunker under a hospital in the Dahiyeh quarter of Beirut, though it said it would not strike the complex.

The Sahel hospital’s director, denied the allegations.  Nevertheless, he decided to evacuate the hospital.

During a stopover in Rome, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday that he had not seen evidence that there was a Hezbollah bunker filled with cash built under a hospital in Beirut, adding that Washington would continue to work with Israel to get better insights.

In a televised statement on Monday, the IDF's chief spokesman said Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, killed by Israel last month, had built the bunker which was designed for lengthy stays.

Israel did not provide evidence for its claim that cash was being kept under the hospital. Instead, it published an animated graphic that purported to show a bunker under the hospital and said it had previously been used to hide the former secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

 

I want to add a margin note here – For obvious reasons the IDF often refrains from divulging its sources of information.

 

This week the IDF launched extensive attacks on Hezbollah's financing pipeline with an emphasis on Al-Qard Al-Hassan, which helps to finance Hezbollah’s terror activities.

Many economic affairs observers in Israel agree that the attacks were justified and perhaps should have been undertaken earlier. An opposing opinion was voiced by Dr. Udi Levy, the former head of the Mossad's Economic Warfare Division and today a Senior Researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. He insists that there will be no immediate economic damage to Hezbollah.

Levy explains. "The money hasn't been there for a long time. Hezbollah withdrew the money and assets and transferred them through underground channels. So, the money has probably not been harmed." However, the damage according to Levy is found among other things in the message that the attack conveys. The message is, "We will damage your softest underbelly - the money." Without it, a resurrected Hezbollah is ‘not in the cards’."

Levy also points to additional damage that has been done. "The critical point from Hezbollah’s point of view is that the IDF attack is expected to cause panic among the Shia population, whose assets were deposited in Al-Qard Al-Hassan. People can now be expected to demand the withdrawal of their funds, and this may result in severe damage to Hezbollah, which is already in dire straits."

 At the risk of repetition, I’ll add a few more details about Al-Qard Al-Hassan (AQAH).  It’s not a bank in the classic sense of the word. It was founded in 1982 by Hezbollah as a financial enterprise. It offers customers three different types of accounts, and even gives interest-free loans, in exchange for collateral (such as gold). However, for 17 years the bank has been subject to US sanctions, which prevent direct access to the global banking system.

These sanctions have not prevented the bank from prospering. According to the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies (FDD), the volume of loans extended by Al-Qard Al-Hassan grew from $76.5 million in 2007 to $480 million in 2019. The total activity of the banking association until 2019 is estimated at about $3.5 billion. According to estimates by Israel's Ministry of Defence, Hezbollah stored hundreds of millions of dollars in some 31 Al-Qard Al-Hassan branches.

I’ll conclude with a comment or two on how US investigators are trying to find out how a pair of highly classified intelligence documents were leaked online.

The documents, which appeared on the messaging app Telegram last Friday, contain an alleged US assessment of Israeli plans to attack Iran.

There has been considerable speculation regarding the motives of the person or persons who leaked the documents. Some observers claim that their purpose was to embarrass Biden and Harris, while others believe the leaks are related to Israel’s anticipated retaliatory attack on Iran.

Recently, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant caused even more speculation when he promised that Iran will be hit hard in places it least expects.

Some social media posts in recent days singled out a US Defense Department employee as supposedly being under investigation for the leak, but offered no evidence.

Speaking to reporters in Rome, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said there were no indications any employees from the Office of the Secretary of Defense were being probed for the leak.

 

Take care,

 

Beni,

24th of October, 2024.