The video shows a large Hezbollah Brigades convoy transporting weapons, troops and American-made military vehicles, including an M1 Abrams tank, M113 armored personnel carriers, Humvees, and Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. Iranian-made Safir 4x4s and armed pickup trucks also were in the convoy.
The U.S. considers the Hezbollah Brigades a terrorist organization that killed hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq. The State Department described the Hezbollah Brigades as "a radical Shia Islamist group with an anti-Western establishment and jihadist ideology that has conducted attacks against Iraqi, US, and Coalition targets in Iraq."
The group was directly linked to the murder of two UN employees in November 2008, and conducted attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces, the Long War Journal reported.
The video shows the Hezbollah Brigades flag flying over the vehicles, including the M1 tank, the U.S. Army’s main battle tank, which had been sold to and utilized by the Iraqi Army. The video is the first evidence of Iranian-backed militias having M1 tanks at their disposal, the Long War Journal reported.
It is unclear if the Hezbollah Brigades seized the American vehicles from an Iraqi Army unit that dissolved in the face of an ISIL onslaught, or if the Iraqi military gave the militia the equipment.
The video’s release follows debate over the U.S.’ ability to keep track of weapons and equipment it provides to the Iraqi military in its fight against ISIL, and whether the Iraqis are then turning over that equipment to Iranian-backed Shia militias, including Hezbollah Brigades.
As Sputnik reported, some in Washington acknowledge that a portion of weapons ultimately end up in the hands of fighters who have killed American soldiers. But administrators fear that without the help of the militia, the Iraqi military would be overrun by ISIL.
Others, including officials in the White House and Pentagon, insist that the government in Baghdad prohibits unauthorized weapons transfers, and that the U.S. military can account for all of the equipment it has provided the Iraqis.
