Hezbollah has American TOW anti-tank missiles...where did they come from?

IDF

[janetjanet998]

These are IDF pictures of the American TOW missiles they found with other hezbollah arms...CNN also mentioned they have found some TOWS

[janetjanet998]

any army types out there know if the US army uses the metric system now or still the older US scale for things like weight and temp?

[elhombrelibre]

The dates don't work for Iran Contra.

[bnelson44]

Those are Iranian

[janetjanet998]

is that the same thing(TOW)? the Box looks different

[Darkwolf377]

After scanning the thread I see the dates are reported as 1997, 2000 and 2001, so I don't know about an Iran-Contra connection. More likely swiped in Iraq, or Afghanistan. I have no idea how such things are tracked but I would bet the military has an answer sooner rather than later.

[bnelson44]

No, looks to be laser guided

[bnelson44]

From LGF site:

The second picture looks like a Konkurs laser guided anti tank missile. Both of these Soviet weapons are made in Iran. The latter is a last generation laser guided ATGM which would probably be able to take out a Merkava tank.

[operation clinton cleanup]

Lot numbers and dates are easy to stencil on.... could be someone selling the Iranians/Hezbos DRMO junk... have not heard of any TOWs being fired anywhere recently.

[GeronL]

I didn't see the pics, they were still loading on my putter with dialup

[Frank_2001]

France? (why let weapons get in the way of a perfectly good surrender;)

[Diogenesis]

Many types of boxes.

[kitchen]

That's the way I was taught at Erding (bei Munchen) AFB Elementary, but I've only rarely run across another American that writes like that. Would you expect to typically find hand notations on U.S weapons cases in that style?

[kitchen]

Can't help on that one.

[LegendHasIt]

Beats me... I never paid much attention to the style weapons containers were labeled back then, and it has been twenty years since I had ANY opportunity to study such things at all.

[Candor7]

UN forces?.................

That is the best bet, UNFOR would have had a soldier requisition them from his home country, warehouse them in a bunker, and pay the soldier handsomely , and then hand them to Hezbo forces.

[infowarrior]

No, looks to be laser guided...

TOW is wire guided, always has been... That's part of why it's called TOW...

the infowarrior

[defenderSD]

Yeah, in my view the most likely source is France. They have a history of illegal arms sales to countries in the ME.

[bnelson44]

Talking about the lighter green ones pictured. Those are not TOW missiles

[defenderSD]

I'd take 3:2 odds that the TOW's were illegally sold to a ME country by some French back-stabbers.

[TomGuy]

When I saw those pix in Diogenesis' GOTTA SEE thread, I wondered whether those were US made because of the English printed on the boxes.

There should be a way to trace the ID numbers and find out where those boxes are supposed to be.

Specter and Congress are always wanting to hold hearings. Let them hold hearings on something important like why Hiz has these missiles and where did they get them.