Weapons aboard Karine-A ship
Weapons aboard Karine-A shipIsrael news photo: IDF

A report Thursday said that Turkey several months ago halted and detained an Iranian shipment of arms bound for Syria, which held weapons meant for Hizbullah. The report, in the Munich-based S?ddeutsche Zeitung, quoted “Western diplomats” as saying that Turkish soldiers had seized a truck full of weapons at the border between Turkey and Syria.

The incident occurred on April 30,  the report said. Turkish soldiers halted a suspicious truck at the Killis border crossing, and found that it contained a “substantial amount” of weapons, the report said. The weapons may have reached Turkey by ship, and were to have been taken to Syria, where Hizbullah is known to have major weapons depots. The weapons would then have been taken to Lebanon for use by Hizbullah terrorists.

It was at least second time this year that Hizbullah had attempted to use Turkey as a delivery port for weapons from Iran. On March 30, Turkey filed a complaint with the UN Security Council over Iranian weapons that had been discovered on a cargo plane that landed in Turkey. The plane had been bound for Syria and contained a large inventory of “car parts,” which turned out to be some 1,800 mortar shells, 60 AK-47 assault rifles and 14 machine guns. That  seizure occurred just days after Israeli intercepted the Iranian “Victoria” weapons ship, bound for Syria.

According to Thursday's report, Turkey has greatly increased security along the Syrian border, in light of the recent smuggling incidents and the flood of Syrian refugees seeking shelter in Syria, running away from the terror being imposed on ordinary Syrians by the government of Bashar al-Assad. “There is little chance of any shipment getting over the border now, as opposed to last March or April, because of the increased security,” the report said.