Free Republic

https://t.me/missilesnukes "Ukraine does not have the means to protect against Iranian ballistic missiles, said Yuriy Ignat, spokesman for the Air Force Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces" "Unfortunately, we have information that Russia will strengthen its capabilities with the help of Iranian ballistic missiles. Our specialists say that the best defense against them is to destroy them in warehouses," he said." According to Ignat, the world will be able to help Ukraine if it finds mechanisms to prevent the delivery of Iranian missiles to the Russian Federation. Ukraine don't have anti ballistic missile capabilities - according the Ukrop air force...

Not only were they among the last Boeing 707 derivatives ever built, but they are also packed full of EMP hardened systems and highly skilled crews that would literally hold the world as we know it in their hands during a major crisis. Although advanced and highly secure satellite communications and line-of-sight data-links are critical parts of their capability set, a far more cumbersome system is used to talk to ballistic missile submarines hiding deep below the waves. The deployment of this fascinating capability was caught today by a plane tracker that was monitoring an E-6B operating off the coast...

Turkey's leaders have called Israel the "West's spoiled child," and the "bully" of the eastern Mediterranean. When a Tel Aviv soccer team showed up in Istanbul recently for a match, the welcome was less than warm. In September, Turkey kicked out the Israeli ambassador, suspended military and trade deals and threatened legal and naval action to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. As roars of approval went up around the Arab world, few noticed another announcement quietly slipped in by Ankara: Turkey had signed off on a plan to host an American X-band radar system as part of a...

“I do not fear Trump. We must thank the new American president because he showed the real face of America and because he exposed what we have been saying for decades about the political, moral and economic corruption in it.” This is the recent statement made by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against the newly-elected US administration. Yes, we’re passing through a new phase. There has been a major transformation following the reactive years of isolationism which show the depth of the roots that America has returned to in terms of engaging with world crises and contributing to managing...

CONCLUSION: "Based on North Korea’s experience developing the KN-02 missile, which underwent at least 20 flight tests, it seems likely that each new missile system currently being developed will require a similar number of test launches. However, one cannot dismiss the possibility that leaders in Pyongyang are already satisfied with the test results achieved to date, as it is highly probable that the current KN-23, -24, and -25 missiles are more accurate that their Scud-based counterparts. In this case, the last remaining hurdle would be missile reliability and the proven knowledge that they perform as designed under a variety of...

A new unclassified report by the Defense Intelligence Agency is warning of technological gains against the U.S. military that include pulling ahead of the Pentagon in the development of key weapons systems, particularly China. “China is building a robust, lethal force with capabilities spanning the air, maritime, space and information domains which will enable China to impose its will in the region,” wrote DIA Director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, in a preface to the report. In a briefing to reporters at the Defense Department on Tuesday, a senior Pentagon official said that in terms of ballistic and cruise missile technology,”...

Amid continuing criticism of his plan to quit a major arms control treaty with Russia, US President Donald Trump on Monday referred to China as being a factor in his strategic calculations. Trump announced last week the US would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which was signed in 1987, on the grounds that Russia had violated the agreement with the development of new missiles. The INF treaty bars the US and Russia from developing ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges varying from 500km to 5,500km; the treaty covered both non-nuclear and nuclear warheads. On Monday, Trump...

FULL TITLE: 'A serious mistake': Read Barack Obama's statement on President Trump's decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal "I believe that the decision to put the JCPOA at risk without any Iranian violation of the deal is a serious mistake," Obama. Here's Obama's full statement:

Tuesday's bombshell Washington Post story that the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has determined North Korea is capable of constructing miniaturized nuclear weapons that could be used as warheads for missiles – possibly ICBMs – left out a crucial fact: DIA actually concluded this in 2013.  The Post also failed to mention that the Obama administration tried to downplay and discredit this report at the time. During an April 11, 2013, House Armed Services Committee hearing, Congressman Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., inadvertently revealed several unclassified sentences from a DIA report that said DIA had determined with “moderate confidence” that North Korea has...

Two weeks after China allegedly unveiled a new ICBM system "in response to Trump's provocative remarks", a report which however was subsequently denied by Chinese officials, China had no qualms about revealing another highly accurate ballistic missile in recent Rocket Force drills, which is capable of threatening not only Taiwan and the contested South China Sea islands, but also U.S. and Japanese bases in Asia.As AP reports, the medium-range DF-16 featured in a video posted last week on the Defense Ministry's website showing the missiles aboard their 10-wheeled mobile launch vehicles being deployed in deep forest during exercises over...

It's a great time to be a despotic tyrant who threatens your neighbors. And as Khamenei knows, to be quite open about it. Who's going to do anything? Who would be enough of a fool to think that anyone with real power in Iran thought otherwise? Oh. Right. As always, beware of media characterizations that pretend this or that Iranian official is “moderate” or “more moderate” or whatever. They’re grading on a pretty radical curve when they tell you that, but it’s irrelevant at any rate. Only the mullahas have real power in Iran, and lest you have any doubt...

Thanks to the Obama administration, Iran presently has a free hand to develop and test ballistic missiles capable of nuclear weapons along any pathway of attack it chooses The United Nations Security Council met in an “emergency” closed door session on Monday March 14th to discuss Iran’s recent testing of ballistic missiles reportedly designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons. The words “Israel must be wiped out” were written in Hebrew on the side of the missiles. These most recent tests followed in the wake of missile tests conducted last fall, which the Security Council did nothing about at...

North Korea fired two ballistic missiles Thursday morning, a South Korean military official said, in the latest controversial move amid U.S.-South Korean military drills that have angered the rogue state. The two missiles flew about 310 miles at about 5:20 a.m. (3:20 p.m. Wednesday ET) and were fired from North Korea's northern shore, the military official said. Analysts said they were Scud-type missiles. The apparent launch comes after heated rhetoric from North Korea in recent days that has included threats of a preemptive nuclear strike.

I wonder if all the attention being paid to ISIS these days has the Iranians feeling a bit left out of the international headlines? While everyone else was busy delving into the affairs in Paris and San Bernardino, Iran took the opportunity to test fire another Ghadr-110 ballistic missile, a model allegedly capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and with a range sufficient to hit anyone in the region. By all accounts, the test was a success. (Fox News) Iran has carried out a new medium range ballistic missile test in breach of two United Nations Security Council resolutions,...

North Korea: Development of Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile Continues By Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. 14 October 2015 Commercial satellite imagery indicates that North Korea is continuing the development of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) at the Sinpo South Shipyard, including planning for a test of the vertical launch tube intended to fire the weapon. These developments may account for a CNN report on October 9—the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK)—that US officials believed the DPRK might conduct an SLBM test soon.

Despite an annex in the UN adoption of the Iran nuclear deal calling on the Islamic regime to desist from nuclear-capable ballistic missile activity, Iran is planning to resume long-range ballistic missile drills in the coming months according to a key army commander. Iranian Ground Force Commander Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan announced on Thursday that six specialized military drills testing domestic rocketry are to be held by next March, reports the semi-official Fars News Agency. […] There has been a push in the Iranian parliament to resume ballistic missile drills following the nuclear deal as a show of force...

Briefing the Iranian parliament Tuesday on the nuclear agreement reached with the U.S. and five other nations, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said Iran had achieved its “main objectives” in the negotiations—“maintaining Iran’s dignity and might, establishing the nuclear program, [uranium] enrichment and retaining the heavy-water reactor.” The negotiators on the other side of the table, meanwhile, essentially achieved very little, he implied. Their main goal was to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but Iran had no intention from doing so in the first place, he said, pointing to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s purported “fatwa” outlawing them. Zarif also...

The framework agreement on Iran’s nuclear program announced in Switzerland on Thursday has no direct reference to reining in Tehran’s ballistic missile activities, despite international concerns that the Iranians in past years carried out work relating to developing a nuclear payload for a missile. From the outset of the marathon nuclear talks, Iran refused to discuss its missile program, with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ridiculing Western attempts to include it on the agenda as “stupid and idiotic.” Thursday’s joint statement by Iran and the P5+1 world powers, represented by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and European Union (E.U.)...

N. Korea launches ballistic missile submarine: gov't sources 2014/11/02 08:00 SEOUL, Nov. 2 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has launched a new submarine capable of firing ballistic missiles, military and government sources in Seoul said Sunday, raising further concerns over the North's evolving missile and nuclear threats. The communist country "imported a Soviet-era Golf-class diesel submarine and modified it," a government source said on condition of anonymity. The Soviet vessel was built in 1958 and decommissioned in 1990. "The new submarine is 67 meters long with a beam of 6.6 meters, and has a dived displacement in the 3,000-ton range," the...

China recently conducted the second flight test of a new, ultra-high-speed missile that is part of what analysts say is Beijing’s global system of attack weapons capable of striking the United States with nuclear warheads. (please see article for full text)