Written question asked by Lord Turnberg (Labour), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Lord Triesman (Labour) on Wednesday, 11 October 2006.

Lebanon: Hezbollah Weapon Stocks

Question: What estimates they have made of the current stock of long and short range missiles held by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Answer: Using a definition of a missile as a surface-to-surface rocket, we can make the following estimate. Before the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel that began on 12 July, Hezbollah claimed, and Israel agreed, that Hezbollah had approximately 12,000 rockets. We have no way of independently verifying this figure, but have no reason to think it was false. During the conflict Hezbollah fired approximately 4,000 of its rockets, reducing its stockpile by about one third. We therefore broadly assess that there are about 8,000 rockets remaining in Hezbollah's arsenal. There are no estimates available on the division between short and long range rockets. However, around 90 per cent of rockets fired were short range and this ratio is possibly reflected in the remaining stockpile.

Secondary information