LONDON, Aug 21: Night vision goggles that were apparently made in Britain were found in Hezbollah’s command bunkers in southern Lebanon by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), a spokesman for the British Foreign Office said on Sunday.
“The Israeli Defence Forces, we understand, have found some equipment in southern Lebanon that they think is British-made,” the spokesman said.
“We are, obviously, working with them to ascertain whether it was British-made and if so, who it was manufactured by, and who it was sold to.”
He said that only night-vision goggles had been found, and that the IDF had a discussion about the issue with the Foreign Office on Friday.
According to The Times in an early edition of its Monday newspaper, the Israeli government filed a formal protest to Britain after it was revealed Britain had sold 250 night-vision systems to Iran in 2003 to battle drug smuggling.
The newspaper also said the equipment bore the stamp: “Made in Britain”.
The Foreign Office spokesman said he was not aware of any formal protest, and added that there was no evidence yet to suggest that the night-vision kits supplied to Iran, which provides Hezbollah with military and financial backing, were then passed on to militia.
The Times also reported that one set of the equipment was found by Israeli forces in the southern Lebanese village of Mis-a-Jebel on Aug 10 in a house owned by a man whose four sons are all Hezbollah fighters.
