A senior Hamas commander has admitted in an interview to the British Sunday Times that the group's operatives have been training in Iran alongside Revolutionary Guard forces.
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The commander told the Times that 300 of Hamas' fighters have been sent to Iran, and that about half are still being trained there. An overall of seven separate groups of militants have spent time there since 2005, he added.
The commander explained that the operatives were learning how to make explosives and produce deadlier rockets, how to use tunnels in attacks on IDF forces and that some have been trained as snipers.
"Iran is our mother,” the commander told the Times. “She gives us information, military supplies and financial support.”
Shin Bet Chief Yuval Diskin has already warned in the past that Hamas has sent dozens of militants to Iran for training.
The New York Times paper quoted Diskin last year as saying that Hamas has begun sending men to Iran for training ''tens and a promise of hundreds.''
Diskin said he saw this as a ''strategic danger, more than any weapons smuggled into Gaza.'' Without offering concrete proof of the allegation, Diskin said the training could last months or years.
AP contributed to the report
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