From Congressional Research Service: “In September 2006 and April 2007, Intelligence Online, a French internet publication specializing in political and economic intelligence in the Middle East, published two reports detailing an extensive program by North Korea to provide arms and training to Hezbollah. The reports described Iran as the facilitator of the North Korea-Hezbollah relationship. According to Intelligence Online, the program began in the late 1980s and early 1990s with visits by Hezbollah cadre to North Korea. These visits were reported to involve training courses of several months run by the North Koreans. The September 2006 Intelligence Online report cited three current top Hezbollah officials who, it says, received training in North Korea during this earlier period: Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general and head of Hezbollah’s military organization; Ibrahim Akil, the head of Hezbollah’s security and intelligence service; and Mustapha Badreddine, Hezbollah’s counter-espionage chief. Intelligence Online reported that after 2000, the program expanded with the dispatch of North Korean trainers to southern Lebanon where they instructed Hezbollah cadre in the development of extensive underground military facilities, including tunnels and bunkers. Takashi Arimoto, Washington correspondent for the Japanese newspaper, Sankei Shimbun, has reported “a document of an international organ” that in 2004, Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad met with North Korean officials in Damascus and requested North Korean assistance in helping Hezbollah to design and construct underground military installations.81 (North Korea is believed to have extensive underground military installations inside North Korea.) Another report, from the London-based newspaper, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, cited “a high-ranking officer in the [Iranian] Revolutionary Guard” that one such North Korean-assisted facility in southern Lebanon was asophisticated, 25-kilometer, underground tunnel with numerous assembly points that Hezbollah used to move and concentrate troops. These underground tunnels and bunkers, according to numerous reports, significantly improved Hezbollah’s ability to fight the Israelis during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. These reports asserted that Hezbollah was able to hide many of its 1,000-1,500 rocket launchers underground; and thus, Israeli aerial surveillance had only limited effectiveness in locating the rocket launchers before Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel. When Israeli ground troops entered southern Lebanon, Hezbollah troops used networks of underground tunnels and bunkers to move from location to location and often to attack the Israelis from the rear. Deep underground bunkers also were found to have large storage rooms. Additional information on North Korean assistance to Hezbollah in constructing underground tunnels and bunkers has come from Lenny Ben-David, a former Israeli diplomat who served as Israel’s deputy ambassador to the United States. Ben-David specified that North Korean experts and equipment were brought into southern Lebanon by the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation. He asserted “The description of North Korean tunnels and cooperation with Iran are based on fact.” An Israeli report from Jerusalem Update asserted that North Korean also had sent trainers into Lebanon to engage in the psychological training of Hezbollah cadre who are to be suicide bombers. Another report of the North Korea-Hezbollah relationship appeared in the South Korean newspaper, JongAng Ilbo, in November 2007. The author of this report was Professor Moon Chung-in, a professor at South Korea’s Yonsei University. Professor Moon is a specialist on Korean security issues and was a close adviser to the South Korean government of former President Roh Moo-hyun. This advisory role has given him access to the U.S. government and other foreign governments. He is well-known to American experts on Korean issues, and he has advocated policies to improve relations with North Korea. It is noteworthy that Professor Moon cited Mossad, the Israeli government’s main intelligence agency, as the source of an assessment that “vital missile components” of Hezbollah missiles fired into Israel during the 2006 war came from North Korea. Dr. Moon stated that Mossad believes that the missiles with North Korean components were assembled in Iran and were transported to Hezbollah in Lebanon via Syria. (North Korea also has sold Syria an assortment of missiles since the 1980s.) According to Professor Moon, Mossad “partially blames North Korea” for the effectiveness of Hezbollah’s missile strikes into Israel. In 2008, the Israeli government reported that Hezbollah has received new missiles from Iran with longer ranges than the missiles that Hezbollah used in the 2006 war. These include 10,000 longrange missiles with a range up to 185 miles compared to a maximum range of 45 miles during the 2006 war. Hezbollah leaders reportedly admit that their missile arsenal has increased since the 2006 war. The Intelligence Online report of April 20, 2007, asserted that top Hezbollah leaders, including Hassan Nasrallah, visited Tehran in early April 2007, where Iran pledged to deliver new medium-range missiles to Hezbollah. If the Israeli estimate is correct and if the reported Mossad assessment of North Korea’s role in providing components to missiles supplied to Hezbollah prior to the 2006 war is correct, it would appear highly possible the missiles that Iran is supplying to Hezbollah continue to have North Korean components. The Intelligence Online report of April 20, 2007, asserted that North Korea and Hezbollah were strengthening their relationship in the aftermath of the Israel-Hezbollah war. Citing sources in “the Pasadaran [Iranian Revolutionary Guard] leadership, the report stated that Iran and North Korea had reached an agreement under which about 100 Hezbollah field commanders would receive training in North Korea from North Korea’s elite commando infiltration units and also training on intelligence-gathering and counter-espionage.90 This apparently was part of a broader Iranian program after the Israel-Hezbollah war to bring Hezbollah cadre to Iran for advanced military training. This report suggests the possibility that Hezbollah has sought training in infiltration tactics from North Korean military units that U.S. commanders in South Korea have described as trained to infiltrate deeply into South Korea in time of war through tunnels, by air, and by sea, to attack bases, command centers, and transportation and communication facilities. The object of such training could be to give Hezbollah the capability to infiltrate troops into Israel in another war. Another possible element of continued North Korean support for Hezbollah came in a statement from a Lebanese government official in early 2008 that Hezbollah was constructing new underground military facilities north of the Litani River in Lebanon (the Litani River was the northernmost point of Israeli military penetration in the 2006 war).”