Weapons (illustrative)
Weapons (illustrative)Israel news photo: Flash90

Iran is using commercial aircrafts to smuggle weapons and explosives to Syria and Hizbullah in Lebanon, the German broadcaster ZDF reported Wednesday.

Citing Western security sources, ZDF said that Iran Air and Yas Air have repeatedly used aircrafts designated as passenger planes to transport weapons to the Assad regime and Hizbullah.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, which supports the regime of President Bashar Assad and the Lebanese party, is reportedly behind the operation.

According to the broadcaster, Turkish security officials found weapons and explosives on board a Yas Air passenger jet in March last year.

The arms were allegedly being shipped to Damascus.

A senior commander in the Revolutionary Guards has admitted that Iranian forces are operating in Syria in support of the regime, the Guardian reported Monday.

"If the Islamic republic was not present in Syria, the massacre of people would have happened on a much larger scale." Ismail Gha'ani, deputy head of Iran's Quds force, the arm of the Revolutionary Guards tasked with overseas operations, said in an interview with the semi-official ISNA news agency.

ISNA published the interview over the weekend, but subsequently removed it from its website.