Posted on 01/25/2010 1:15:07 AM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Iran has acquired surface-to-air missiles modified with chemical weapons. Western intelligence sources said Iran has acquired modified SA-2 air defense systems from North Korea. They said Pyongyang has converted the SA-2 from a surface-to-air to a surface-to-surface missile.
"The North Koreans took an old clunky SAM system and turned it into a tactical non-conventional missile with excellent accuracy," an intelligence source said.
The sources said Iran was believed to have acquired the converted SA-2 in 2008. The system has been deployed along the Iranian coast near Qatar in what has become escalated regional tension.
The heritage SA-2, a 1950s-era Soviet SAM, has an interception range of 35 kilometers. But the sources said the new surface-to-surface variant could strike at distances of more than 200 kilometers, allowing Iran to conduct precision strikes on nearby Gulf Cooperation Council states.
North Korea has installed a CW warhead on the modified SA-2 missile. The sources did not provide any data on the warhead, but said it could destroy strategic facilities, including desalination plants and liquefied natural gas complexes.
"This has given Iran a strategic capability against Qatar," the source said
(Excerpt) Read more at geostrategy-direct.com ...
I agree
Ping
Previously...
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1263147908423&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
(AP)
Jan 17, 2010 10:34 | Updated Jan 17, 2010 11:26
“Hizbullah: Arab leaders buckling to US”
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIRUT
SNIPPET: “US President Barack Obama’s special envoy, George Mitchell, is expected in the region this week to press for a resumption of peace talks.
In other Hizbullah-related news, a senior US official revealed on Sunday that Syria has allowed Hizbullah guerrillas to train on its soil in the operation of advanced SA-2 anti-aircraft.
Speaking to the Kuwaiti A-Rai newspaper, the official warned that if Syria were to supply Lebanon with such missiles, Israel would bomb targets in Damascus since it would be deemed a crossing of red lines.”
MEMRI.org - Special Dispatch No. 2579: "AHWAZI ORGANIZATION: IRAN IS PLANNING TO ATTACK GULF COUNTRIES; IRAN IS PRODUCING CHEMICAL WEAPONS AND BURYING THE WASTE IN AHWAZ" (October 6, 2009)
This has nothing to do with Qatar, it has to do with shutting down Shipping in the Hormuz or the Gulf.
It is a tactical assault weapon to be used against shipping to ceate terror, or to be fired from shipping to attack a foreign port with chemical weapons: like Baltimore or New York City or Long Beach.
Attacking shipping with foreign flags will not cause the direct ire of national governments, while a direct attack on a foreign soil will bring the combined wrath of God down upon the Iranian government, a combined Islamic Army of Sunni against Shiite and possibly Sunni against Shiite and Al-Qaeda to end this nonsense once and for all with the Taliban.
Check post 11.
Missile length, diameter and alignment in the launcher is radically different than the original, are you sure that’s an SA-2 variant and not a new missile?
You may be right. It looked a little “off”, but I took the site at its ‘word’ so to speak, and they may have it wrong. Could be the photo was doctored a bit, too.
The US has long had the open policy that the use of chemical weapons against its airfields or fleets will likely result in nuclear retaliation. No sense of humor about these things.
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