Free Republic

Will the worldwide recession actually benefit Chinese arms exports? That's what WPR managing editor Judah Grunstein speculated last week, citing Chinese defense companies' ability to reproduce foreign weapons systems and then sell them on third-party markets at lower prices than the original. It is too early to identify a clear trend, but not premature to consider potential unwelcome scenarios. The tremendous diplomatic exertions that the United States and Israel are making to keep Russia from selling its S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran or Syria, for instance, will matter little if China chooses to sell them its HQ-9 surface-to-air...

Dorset man smuggling parts to Iran, says US By Patrick Sawer A British pensioner is at the centre of a worldwide police hunt after being accused by United States authorities of smuggling military parts to Iran. Brian Woodford, 77, who owns a 17th century manor house and 100-acre estate in Dorset, has been charged in his absence with selling millions of pounds worth of US military and civilian aircraft parts to the Islamic regime in Tehran. His wife Laura was arrested after arriving at San Francisco on a flight from Hong Kong with two catalogues from a Chinese company that...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

The FBI says it's all part of an ongoing investigation into a group of Sri Lankans with terrorist plans. The FBI says there were no plans to attack Americans, but that the group, known as the "Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam" was targeting their home country of Sri Lanka. Officials say that terror group is responsible for assassinating a former prime minister of India. The Joint Terrorism Task Force raided the Amherst home. Neighbors say three men were taken out in handcuffs. They say the task force also removed files, a computer and suitcases. While it's not clear what role...

ALARM - Russia started to deliver missiles TOR-M1 to Iran MOSCOW - Russia started to deliver systems of ground-to-air missiles TOR-M1 to Iran, brought back Friday the Russian news services quoting of the sources within the complex Russian militaro-industrialist.

Rafael close to signing $239m deal with Indian Air Force “Aviation Week”: Rafael will supply its Spyder short-range air defense system. Amnon Barzilai 25 Sep 06 15:07 The Indian Air Force (IAF) is in advanced negotiations with Rafael Armament Development Authority Ltd. and MBDA of France for a $239 million contract to procure the Spyder SR short-range air defense system. The Spider air defense system combines two types of air-to-air missiles developed by Rafael which have been converted into an air defense system. One missile is the Python 5, designed for short-range aerial combat; the other is the Derby, designed...

Eighteen months after the Chicago City Council torpedoed a South Side Wal-Mart, 24,500 Chicagoans applied for 325 jobs at a Wal-Mart opening Friday in south suburban Evergreen Park, one block outside the city limits. The new Wal-Mart at 2500 W. 95th is one block west of Western Avenue, the city boundary. Of 25,000 job applicants, all but 500 listed Chicago addresses... "we saw a little bit of everything -- people who hadn't worked for a long time, people who saw an opportunity to do something with themselves. That's the information I got from applicants."

The new Wal-Mart Stores Inc. location opening Friday in suburban Evergreen Park received a record 25,000 applications for 325 positions, the highest for any one location in the retailer’s history... The only other site that’s come close to the number of applications is a store in Oakland, California that received 11,000 applications for about the same number of positions last year. Wal-Mart's Chicago-area manager Chad Donath said generally stores receive between 3,000 and 4,000 applications for about 300 to 450 positions. He says Wal-Mart has been participating in job fairs and advertising the positions as it does in other communities...

Russia sells anti-missile systems in Iran MOSCOW - Iran signed a contract with Russia on the sale of 29 Russian systems anti-missile Tor M-1, affirmed Friday the financial daily newspaper Russian Vedomosti, quoting sources in Russian military industry. "Iran will defend itself against the United States and Israel with the Russian systems Tor M-1", titrated Vedomosti with the one. According to the sources of the daily newspaper, expressing itself under cover of anonymity, 29 systems' anti-missile Tor M-1 able to intercept cruise missiles and airborne bombs were manufactured by the military factory Koupol with Ijevsk (the Volga) for Greece...

TWO GROUND-to-air MISSILES of Soviet manufacture, of type SAM 18, imported into Europe remain untraceable. Acquired in 2002 by a group of French and Algerian islamists near the Maffia tchetchene, these weapons are in the center of a terrorist project aiming at cutting down a civil aircraft near an airport of the Hexagon. Until now, Bruguière judge, who inquires into this cell of radical islamists, suspected them of having prepared attacks chemical or bacteriological in Paris. But the testimony of a high person in charge for Al-Qaida held in Jordan revealed that this group involved in Tchétchénie had other...

[CHECK SCHLUSSEL's SITE, www.debbieschlussel.com, FOR THE FUNNY PIX IN THIS POST (I couldn't figure out how to post them here.)] After seeing Wes Craven's (Freddy Kruger of "Nightmare on Elm Street") "Red Eye" (in theaters, today), I've changed my mind on my earlier trepidations about this movie. Overall, "Red Eye" is one of the few exciting movies this summer. With all of the sequels, remakes, etc., "Red Eye" is certainly one of the few originals and one of the few with an interesting plot. The plot: A terrorist corners a luxury resort hotel manager on a red-eye flight. He blackmails...

Russian State arms export corporation Rosoboronexport and the Almaz/Antey Concern of Air Defence have delivered four S-300PMU1 air batteries to China. The prime contractor of the deal, signed in early 2003, was the Academician Raspletin Almaz Research and Production Association, the primary contractor/developer of the S-300PMU1. According to a Russian defence industry official, the last ship carrying the components of the S-300PMU1 system arrived in China from Vladivostok early in August. Each of the four missile battalions has: a 30N6E1 illumination and guidance radar; an F5MU antenna post; an F52MU equipment container; a GAZ-66T survey vehicle; and 12 four-tube 5P85SE...

Originally designed to threaten U.S. and allied military aircraft in the event of conventional war, today these Russian weapons – and their Chinese knock-offs – pose one of the greatest terrorist threats in the hands of Al Qaida. Shoulder-fired surface to air missiles, sometimes referred to as MANPADS (Man Portable Air Defense Systems), are not new, but they have emerged recently as one of the major worries for counter-terrorists around the globe for two primary reasons:

Fears are growing that six portable missiles may have been smuggled into Thailand for use in terror attacks during the Apec summit. The missiles are reported to be similar to one fired at a chartered Israeli commercial jet loaded with holiday makers as it left Mombasa airport in Africa last year. It missed and the plane continued on to Tel Aviv. A highly-placed Crime Suppression Division police source said urgent orders had been issued to trace the missiles. The detectives' report on the missing missiles is sketchy, giving no details on their origin, when they were smuggled into Thailand,...

The seven defendants were charged at the end of a five-year investigation into the illegal shipping of sensitive weapons, including parts used in surface-to-air missiles and fighter aircraft, prosecutors revealed. All seven, including two people of Chinese origin, were based in the Los Angeles area and allegedly attempted to export parts for weapons such as the AIM-9 "Sidewinder" heat-seeking anti-aircraft missile to China. "The investigation ... was launched in 1998 to stem the illegal flow of military and defense equipment in and out of the United States," Assistant United States Attorney Mary Carter Andrues said in a statement. The...

Terrorists trying to take down airliners with portable missiles has been a threat for a long time. Actually, over the last thirty years, it's been a reality. Some 29 commercial aircraft have been shot down by such missiles. However, the downed aircraft have been small, and most of these tragedies have taken place in Africa. The wars in Africa are the worst on the planet, so violent that most journalists avoid them. For three decades, this has kept the use of portable missiles against civilian aircraft off the front page. Larger airliners, like the Airbus's, and 757s, 767s and 747s,...

WASHINGTON, Sept 27 (AFP) - US warplanes struck surface-to-air missile sites at two locations in southern Iraq in the latest of a flurry attacks on Iraqi air defenses, the US military said Friday. Coalition aircraft used precision guided weapons to bomb the sites Thursday at Qalat Sikur, about 209 kilometers (130 miles) southeast of Baghdad, and at Tallil, 274 kilometers (170 miles) southeast of the Iraqi capital. The Central Command said the raid was in response to Iraqi "hostile acts" against aircraft patroling a no-fly zone over southern Iraq. It came a day after US forces struck a mobile...