Beirut – Georges Chahine
Lebanese television channel MTV cited sources on Tuesday saying experts from Iran and North Korea recently set up an electronic monitoring station in Lebanon\'s Qentira region at the top of Mount Sannine. The station reportedly has the ability to cover 90 percent of Israeli land and sits opposite to Lake Tiberius. It is the second Iranian aerial monitoring station located in Mount Sannine on behalf of the Syrian army to ensure an early alert for Iran in the event of an Israeli attack. The source added that Iran has provided the two stations with staff from the intelligence wing of Tehran\'s elite Revolutionary Guards military battalion who received training in Russia. The source claimed that the stations\' upgraded technology was extremely advanced, which allowed for the surveillance of north Israel up until Tel Aviv as well as northern Jordan, the west of Iraq, the Gulf of Aqaba south of Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. There exists a Russian-Syrian-Iranian agreement aims at enhancing Russian surveillance on the overall situation in the Middle East, especially in Mount Sannine, according to the source. There are also about 40 Syrian officers serving in Lebanon at the station according to a Syrian-Lebanese military agreement. This is the sole Syrian military presence in Lebanon after the withdrawal of the Syrian forces from Lebanon in 2006. Iran is capable of tracking and monitoring US and Israeli marine and air movements in the eastern Mediterranean, the sources added. About sixty Russian officers and experts contributed in the development of the two stations in accordance with an agreement with Iran which links them up with Russian satellites.