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A video of the laser-guided Kornet anti-tank rocket belies Hamas claims it did not know a school bus was targeted in last week’s attack that critically wounded Daniel Viflic, still hanging on to life. The Kornet is manufactured in Russia and reached Hamas terrorists in Gaza via Iran or Syria. Damascus was clearly marked as the destination of the advanced rockets that Hizbullah employed in the Second Lebanon War. The weapon gave Hizbullah a strategic and psychological advantage. Israeli intelligence, severely hampered since Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered a hasty withdrawal from the “security region” in southern Lebanon in 2000,...

A short video clip shot by Reuters' correspondents in southern Lebanon shows the newest model of Kornet antitank rockets, which Russia recently supplied to Syria. Israel has claimed since the first days of the conflict with Hezbollah that its opponent was well trained and well armed. Israel suffered most of its losses in tank units. The Israeli military claimed that Hezbollah was using Russian-made arms, particularly 105-mm. RPG-29 Vampire multiuse antitank grenade launchers and Kornet rockets. Both of those weapons were recently provided by Russia to Syria. Israel protested loudly when the arms deal between Moscow and Damascus was concluded,...

<p>WASHINGTON -- US officials have found evidence corroborating White House allegations that Russian companies sold Saddam Hussein high-tech military equipment that threatened US forces during the invasion of Iraq last March, a senior State Department official said yesterday.</p> <p>The official said the United States has found proof that Russian companies exported night-vision goggles and radar-jamming equipment to Iraq, the official said. The evidence includes the equipment itself and proof that it was used during the war, according to the official. Such exports would violate the terms of United Nations sanctions against Iraq.</p>

The war in Iraq, which has seen stiff Iraqi resistance against US and British troops, has opened up market opportunities for Russian weapons used by Baghdad's forces, military experts say. "We got a great advertising gift for our weapons in Iraq," Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov was quoted as saying by the Interfax-AVN news agency on Friday. The conflict will "generate a surge in interest in anti-aircraft defences and radio-electronic equipment," predicted Alexander Nozdrachev, head of the state-run Russian Agency for Conventional Weapons, quoted by Interfax-AVN. Russian weapons sales last year totalled $4.5-billion, concentrated mainly on just two countries, China...

Ukraine's arms export agency denied on Monday a report in U.S. magazine Newsweek that Ukrainian dealers sold Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles to Iraq in violation of UN sanctions. "Nothing like that could have gone past us," Ukrspetsexport spokesman Alexander Urban said by telephone from Kiev. Newsweek reported that Iraq has purchased 1,000 laser-guided Kornet missiles and identified the sellers as Ukrainian arms dealers. The magazine cited unnamed Pentagon generals as saying Ukrainian dealers sold about 500 Kornets in January. Iraqi forces have used the missiles, made by KBP of Tula, to destroy two U.S. Abrams tanks already, the sources said....

KORNET E ANTI-ARMOUR MISSILE, RUSSIA Kornet E is the name given to the export version of the Russian Kornet missile system. The system, first shown in 1994, has been developed by the KBP Instrument Design Making Bureau, Tula, Russia and is in production and service with the Russian Army and has been sold to the Syrian Army. .. Kornet is a third generation system, developed to replace the Fagot and Konkurs missile systems in the Russian Army. It is designed to destroy tanks, including those fitted with explosive reactive armour (ERA), fortifications, entrenched troops as well as small-scale targets. The...

NEW YORK: Iraqis have secretly bought as many as a thousand Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles which are lightweight, very powerful and easy-to-use, Pentagon officials claimed. The sellers are Ukrainian arms dealers and possibly some entrepreneurial Syrian generals or the Syrian government itself, the officials were quoted as saying by Newsweek. They reportedly sent Baghdad some 500 Kornets in January. The Kornet anti-tank missiles were used to attack two US tanks, both Abrams M1A1s during the ongoing war in Iraq. The first M1s ever destroyed by enemy fire in battle, they were caught in an ambush of the US Army's 3/7...

Iraq using Russian-made anti-tank missiles, U.S. saysBy S. Thorne Harper and Drew BrownKnight Ridder Newspapers   S. THORNE HARPER, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. A soldier surveys damage to the Tillil Airfield.   NEAR AS SAMAWAH, Iraq - Coalition soldiers operating in central Iraq have been instructed to search for Russian-made anti-tank missiles that Iraqi soldiers or guerrillas are suspected of using to damage two U.S. M1A1 tanks and a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The subject of the search is the Kornet AT-14, an anti-tank missile system the Russians developed that is guided to its target by a laser beam and is capable...

Iraq: Desert Dispatch -- U.S. Surprised By Iraqi Use Of 'Kornet' Antitank Missiles By Ron Synovitz RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz is embedded with a unit of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division currently outside Najaf, a city in central Iraq now encircled by U.S. troops following 36 hours of heavy fighting. He reports that U.S. troops are encountering an unanticipated, and formidable, weapon in the Iraqi arsenal -- Russian-built Kornet antitank missiles. Najaf, Central Iraq; 27 March 2003 (RFE/RL) -- U.S. military intelligence is warning American troops that Iraqi soldiers have begun to use a wire-guided missile system against American...

WITH THE THIRD INFANTRY DIVISION, in Central Iraq, March 26 — The Army's 3rd Infantry Division encircled the city of Najaf early today after seizing three bridges across the Euphrates River in the division's fiercest clashes since the war began. The fight around Najaf — which lasted more than 36 hours — has considerably slowed the division's march northwards, as have the swirling winds and sand. The storm continued relentlessly today, reducing visibility to a few hundred feet and casting an eerie burnt orange glow as the sun set. Najaf, a city of more than 100,000 about 90 miles from...