Weapons and other goods are now shipped via ports in Antwerp, Valencia and Ravenna, The Telegraph has been told.
They arrive at the Syrian port of Latakia, before moving south to Lebanon.
“Using Europe helps to hide the nature and the source of the shipments, switching paperwork and containers… to clean the shipments,” a senior intelligence source in Israel said.
“Europe has huge ports so Iran is using that as a camouflage. It’s very easy to do manipulations in those big ports where things have to get moved quickly, rather than a small port where there will be more scrutiny.
“It’s like a cat and mouse between us and the Iranians. They’re trying to smuggle and we’re trying to stop it. It’s been at least three years like this.”
Israeli attacks prompt a change in tactics
Ronen Solomon, an independent intelligence analyst based in Israel, said that Iran was also shipping weapons directly to Syria. The use of separate routes via Europe was to “legitimise” their own cargo and “distract attention” from those direct shipments.
The port of Latakia was targeted by air strikes in 2021, though these were not claimed by Israel, which rarely confirms operations in Syrian territory.
“The reason we see Iran’s efforts to transfer through the sea in the last month is because of Israeli attacks on air and land infrastructure in Syria to Lebanon, so we are seeing an increase in container shipments,” Mr Solomon said.
Mr Solomon, who works with intelligence officials in Israel, said the Iranian corridor to Syria and Lebanon by land, air, and sea “operates continuously”.
The flow of weapons comes amidst the worst tensions between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel since the second Lebanon war.