Jul 15, 10:58 AM EDT
Israel: Iran Aided Hezbollah Ship Attack
By MATT MOORE
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/MOHAMMED ZAATARI
JERUSALEM (AP) -- A missile fired by Hezbollah, not an unmanned drone laden with explosives, damaged an Israeli warship off Lebanon, the army said Saturday. Elite Iranian troops helped fire the missile, a senior Israeli intelligence official said.
One sailor was killed and three were missing.
The intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information, said about 100 Iranian soldiers are in Lebanon and helped fire the Iranian-made, radar-guided C-102 at the ship late Friday.
The official added that the troops involved in firing the missile are from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, an elite corps of more than 200,000 fighters that is independent of the regular armed forces and controlled directly by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Initial information indicated the guerrillas had used a drone for the first time to attack Israeli forces. But the army's investigation showed that Hezbollah had fired an Iranian-made missile at the vessel from the shores of Lebanon, said Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan.
"We can confirm that it was hit by an Iranian-made missile launched by Hezbollah. We see this as very profound fingerprint of Iranian involvement in Hezbollah," Nehushtan said in an interview with The Associated Press.
(con't)
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/ISRAEL_ATTACKED_SHIP?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-07-15-07-28-21
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