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Terrorvision
How did British night vision equipment end up in the hands of Hizbollah terrorists?
In their haste to leave command bunkers under attack from Israeli forces earlier this month, Hizbollah militiamen abandoned some equipment. Among the devices found by Israeli troops when they entered the bunkers were pieces of night-vision equipment stamped "Made in Britain." Electronic listening equipment and radios - some also made in Britain - were also discovered.
The equipment allowed Hizbollah to monitor Israeli troop movements. Israeli military sources say that linked by a computer, the equipment would give Hizbollah a complete, real-time picture of Israeli activity in the region. In one case, the Times reports, stacks of British night-vision equipment was found in a Hizbollah hideout in a 60 year old man's house in the village of Mis-a-Jebel. The man's four sons were Hizbollah fighters - the Israelis lost six men in and around the village.
It's understandable why they want to find out how Hizbollah ended up with British military technology.
One obvious route is via Iran. The British foreign office says that in 2003, 250 night vision systems were sold to Iran to help it fight heroin smugglers passing from Afghanistan. British officials spin the sale pointing to the fact that much Afghan heroin ends up in the west, and it may be better to prevent it leaving Afghanistan in the first place. Moreover, as heroin production in Afghanistan picked up again after the invasion in 2001, perhaps it could be argued that occupying forces have an obligation to help Afghanistan's neighbours police their newly volatile borders.
In any case, there were high hopes for reform in Iran in 2003: Prior to the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, many in the west hoped for closer relations with a reform-minded Iran. The sale might also have been part of a sweetener designed to illustrate to Tehran the benefits of closer ties with the west, and thus keep up pressure on the Islamic state to halt its nuclear weapons programme.
This might have suited the Foreign Office, but the average Brit - never mind the average Israeli - would be a damn sight more suspicious of the idea and consequences of selling any equipment to Tehran.
However, early inquiries by the FO suggest that night vision equipment found in Lebanon is not part of the 2003 shipment. The FO, along with the Department of Trade and Industry, has launched an "urgent" investigation into British firms and manufacturers to discover whether export licence laws were broken to supply Hizbollah with the equipment, the military versions of which require an export licence before sale.
A spokesman for FLIR Systems, which produces the Thermovision 1000 discovered by Israeli forces, told The Guardian that the equipment in question went out of production "many moons ago." He added that FLIR produces both military and civilian night-viewing equipment.
At the time of the sale, the FO's junior minister told Parliament that there was "no chance" of the equipment being diverted for use by Iran's military.
