Thousands of Tehran-backed militants are preparing to enter Lebanon for the purpose of joining Hezbollah in a potential war against Israel, according to a report this weekend by The Associated Press.
The development comes as in the past few weeks Jerusalem has been considering a ground intervention against the terrorist organization in response to unrelenting drone, missile, and rocket bombardments that Hezbollah is deploying against military bases and civilian communities in northern Israel since the onset of the war in Gaza.
In a speech Wednesday, Hezbollah’s top commander, Hassan Nasrallah, confirmed the support of associated organizations in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen who have offered tens of thousands of personnel if his eight-month-long offensive escalates into a wider conflict.
“We will be shoulder to shoulder with Hezbollah,” a representative from one of the Islamic Republic’s allies in Iraq told the news outlet before confirming several of his colleagues are already in Lebanon.
An official from Hezbollah told the AP that Afghanistan’s Fatimiyoun, Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, Pakistan’s Zeinabiyoun, and Yemen’s Houthis were the likely participants if the regional security situation warranted it.
The report noted that many of these jihadists are operating in neighboring Syria, and observers fear their close location and access to a porous border could make such an action easy to implement.
Some of these groups have individually launched attacks against the Jewish state since the October 7 massacre.
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