Seized ship carried arms for Hezbollah from Iran, says Israel

JERUSALEM — Israel's navy seized a cargo ship Wednesday, intercepting what officials described as 300 tons of weapons being smuggled from Iran to Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas. The haul was the largest in Israel's decades of efforts to curb the flow of weapons to its militant Middle East foes.

Hundreds of crates — some opened to reveal rockets, mortar shells and boxes of grenades and bullets — lined the dock in Israel's port of Ashdod hours after the operation in the Mediterranean Sea near Cyprus. By evening, Israeli forces were still unloading the 40 containers reported found aboard the Antigua-flagged vessel Francop, which remained under guard in the port.

The weapons, including hundreds of Katyusha rockets, were concealed beneath civilian goods and enclosed in a plastic material capable of fooling electronic scanners, Israeli officials said.

The Katyusha was the main weapon used against Israel by Hezbollah in a monthlong war in 2006. During that war, about 1,200 people were killed in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and about 160 people were killed in Israel.

Rear Adm. Roni Ben-Yehuda, deputy Israeli navy commander, said the cache was "a drop in the ocean" of weapons being shipped to Hezbollah.

Israel made the most of the seizure to bolster its claim that Iran, with Syria's complicity, is arming enemies of the Jewish state, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions that bar Iran from exporting weapons. Iran and Syria reject the accusation.

"Today the whole world can see the large gap between Syria and Iran's statements and their actual activities," Israeli President Shimon Peres said.

Captured containers on display in the port bore Iranian shipping codes in English: IRISL on one side, I.R. Iranian Shipping Lines Group on the other.

Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman, said a cargo certificate gave the containers' origin as the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. Ben-Yehuda said the shipment was headed for Latakia, Syria's principal port.

The certificate was not shown to reporters. Israeli officials offered no evidence that Hezbollah was the intended recipient of the weapons, except to note that Israeli intelligence previously identified Latakia, on the Mediterranean, as a conduit for armaments sent by land to the guerrilla group's strongholds in neighboring Lebanon.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem acknowledged Wednesday during a visit to Iran that the commandeered vessel had been sailing to his country but denied weapons were aboard, according to Iran's Mehr news agency. Iran denied sending weapons. Hezbollah issued no response.

Israeli officials said the Francop picked up the weapons in Damietta, Egypt.

An official of United Feeder Services, the Cyprus-based shipping company that leased the 450-foot commercial vessel from German owners, told Israel's Ynet online-news agency the company did not know what was in the containers and was not allowed to inspect them.

Israeli officials said they believed Egypt's government, the vessel's Polish captain and its crew were unaware of any weapons.

After days of surveillance, Israel sent a naval force to intercept the Francop in international waters off the Cypriot coast, about 100 miles west of Israel, officials said.

They said a commando team met no resistance as it boarded the ship, conducted an inspection and began finding weapons. The Francop was then escorted to Ashdod.

Ben-Yehuda would not say whether Israel had prior intelligence about the cargo. He said Israeli and Western intelligence agencies keep constant tabs on suspected smuggling lanes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the arms supply "was intended to hit Israeli cities."

Los Angeles Times staff writer Borzou Daragahi in Beirut contributed to this report. Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.