Syria to get Mig31s

Damascus will take receipt of advanced MiG 31E fighter jets in the near future, the outgoing head of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency Lt.-Gen. Michael D. Maples told the Senate earlier this month.

A MiG 31 warplane.Photo: Courtesy

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Reports of the sale surfaced in 2007 but were quickly denied by Moscow and the official state arms-trading monopoly Rosoboronexport, which issued a statement saying "Russia has no plans to deliver fighter jets to Syria."
In his testimony "annual threat assessment" to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Maples provided the first official confirmation that the advanced fighter jets will be delivered to Damascus soon.
"With regard to its external defense, Syria's military remains in a defensive posture and inferior to Israel's forces, but it is upgrading its missile, rocket, antitank, aircraft and air defense inventories," Maples told the committee. "Recent Syrian contracts with Russia for future delivery include new MiG-31 and MiG-29M/M2 fighter aircraft."
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Israeli defense officials said they were not surprised by Russia's intention to sell Syria the advanced jets but expressed concern that if the deal went through it would alter the balance of power in the region.
"Syria currently has an obsolete air force based on outdated MiGs," one official explained. "If Syria gets new MiG 31s then this will pose a definite threat to our air force."

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The contract will be the first export deal for the MiG-31E, a heavy twin-engine interceptor fighter capable of flying at nearly three times the speed of sound and simultaneously shooting several targets at ranges of up to 180 km.
The aircraft was designed in the 1980s for tackling low-flying cruise missiles and other difficult targets and remains the mainstay of Russia's air defenses. The MiG-31 was considered a key component of defenses against a possible US attack.
Damascus will also receive a number of MiG-29M fighters - a version that features a significantly improved range, has an improved radar and carries a broader array of weapons compared to basic MiG-29 model.
In his testimony, Maples also referred to Syria's development of chemical and biological weapons. He said that Damascus did not have a biological weapon but was at the stage where it knew how to manufacture one.
"Based on the duration of Syria's long-standing biological warfare program, we judge some elements of the program may have advanced beyond the research and development stage and may be capable of limited agent production," he said.

"Syria is not known to have successfully weaponized biological agents in an effective delivery system, but it possesses a number of conventional and chemical weapon systems that could easily be modified for biological agent delivery."

Jerusalem Post

By BENJAMIN WEISER
Published: March 17, 2009

A Palestinian-born businessman was convicted in New York Tuesday on charges that he conspired with the Syrian arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar in a plot to sell weapons, including 15 surface-to-air missiles, to a Columbian terrorist organization.
The businessman, Tareq Mousa al-Ghazi, was told that the arms would be used to kill American military officers, the evidence showed.
Mr. Ghazi, 62, is the third man found guilty in the plot, which involved an elaborate sting operation run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which used informants who posed as middlemen and said they were seeking the weapons for a Columbian rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Prosecutors said the men also agreed to sell 4,000 grenades, nearly 9,000 assault rifles and thousands of pounds of explosives to the FARC for a profit of more than $1 million.
Mr. Ghazi was acquitted of a broader charge, conspiring to kill Americans generally. But he was convicted of three conspiracy counts, including the plot to kill American military officers and providing material assistance to a terrorist group.

Mr. Kassar, who the authorities say had been involved in arms trafficking since the 1970s, was convicted along with an associate in November and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The associate, Luis Felipe Moreno Godoy, received 25 years in prison.
Mr. Ghazi faces a minimum of 25 years in prison and could receive a life term when he is sentenced by Judge Jed S. Rakoff of Federal District Court in Manhattan.
Mr. Ghazi’s lawyer, Marc A. Agnifilo, said he would appeal. At trial, he argued that his client had been entrapped by the government, lured into the plot as a way for the government to apprehend Mr. Kassar.
But prosecutors denied that, saying Mr. Ghazi had been a willing and ready participant. “He did everything he could to get the deal done and get paid,” a prosecutor, Boyd M. Johnson III, told the jury.

Jurors interviewed after the verdict said they spent more than a day discussing the question of entrapment, but ultimately rejected it after receiving clarification on the law from the judge.

The whole article from The New York Times

Ship from Iran siezed by Cyprus with Arms for Gaza

February 19, 2009:

Cyprus, was recently assured by UN inspectors that an Iranian ship, being held in Cyprus, was in violation of UN sanctions.

Cyprus then unloaded 90 cargo containers of materials used in manufacturing munitions.

• This all began last month, when a U.S. warship in the Gulf of Aden began following a former Russian merchant ship, the Monchegorsk, that was now flying a Cypriot flag.
• At first, it was believed that the ship was carrying weapons for Syria, or Hezbollah, or Hamas, or all three.
• The Monchegorsk was originally spotted leaving an Iranian port, and heading for the Suez canal.
• Egyptian authorities were alerted and the Monchegorsk was forced into an Egyptian port to be searched before it was allowed to proceed through the canal.
• Suspicious munitions components, believed headed for Gaza, were found in the cargo. But the Monchegorsk was released because Department of Defense lawyers were uncertain if the materials found were sufficient evidence that Iran was in violation of UN resolution 1747, and, even so, did anyone have the authority to seize anything.

But once the ship exited the Suez canal, the U.S. persuaded Cyprus (which, technically, has control over the ship) to seize it when it passed nearby, and do a thorough search.

• UN resolution (1747) prohibits Iran from exporting weapons.
• The exact wording of the resolution is; "Decides that Iran shall not supply, sell or transfer directly or indirectly from its territory or by its nationals or using its flag vessels or aircraft any arms or related materiel, and that all States shall prohibit the procurement of such items from Iran by their nationals, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, and whether or not originating in the territory of Iran. "
• The U.S. was apparently using 1747 as a license to mess with Iranian efforts to export weapons to its terrorist customers.
• U.S. warships in Task Force 151 (the anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden) has been ordered to watch for ships that have taken on cargo in Iran, and then head through the Gulf of Aden for the Suez canal.

Iran is believed to be increasing its efforts to smuggle weapons into Gaza for Hamas, a terrorist organization that has been supported by Iran since the 1990s. Such Iranian cargo ships have been caught carrying weapons to Gaza before.

The Iranians try to either land the weapons on the Gaza coast, or smuggle them into Egypt and then through the smuggling tunnels under the Gaza/Egyptian border.

The recent ceasefire in Gaza included Egypt agreeing to use American sensors, and U.S. technicians, to detect and destroy these tunnels. The sensors and technical experts began their work at the end of January.

Israel has, for several years, increased it security along the Gaza coast, making the tunnels the main route for Iranian weapons and munitions.

But material found off the Gaza coast indicates that Iran still uses waterproof containers, that float just under the surface, to get weapons to Palestinian fishing boats, and then into Gaza.

Cyprus says it will hold the Iranian cargo until the UN advises how the material can be disposed of. Cyprus refused to detail exactly what was in the 90 containers. Iran and Syria have been quiet as well.

The Rest @ Strategypage.com

Iranian Arms Bound For Syria Captured in Cyprus

Jan 31 Cyprus stopped a ship bound for Syria from Iran, loaded witgh weapons.


Source Shimron letters

Jean-Charles Marchiani Pardoned by French President

French pardon of bribe-taker raises hackles
By VERENA VON DERSCHAU – 9 hours ago
PARIS (AP) — Among 27 prisoners granted French presidential pardons this holiday season is one with an unusual resume.
Jean-Charles Marchiani, a former secret agent, helped free French hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s and Bosnia in the 1990s, and served in the European parliament and as a governor in the south of France.
The influential conservative has also been convicted twice of taking big bribes for business contracts and is currently on trial in an international arms trafficking case. But French President Nicolas Sarkozy decided that Marchiani has paid his dues, and granted him a partial pardon this week that could see him soon free.

Sarkozy's enemies are crying foul.

"How can we talk about justice, when the same rules are not applied to everyone?" asked the leader of France's main opposition force, Socialist Martine Aubry. She noted that Sarkozy has rejected appeals for a mass early release for prisoners convicted of certain minor crimes.
Sarkozy was in Brazil all week, away from the fray.

The president's office made no direct comment about Marchiani's pardon, but issued a statement Tuesday announcing 27 partial or total pardons "motivated by acts of courage or bravery ... exhibited during or before their incarceration."

The CGT-Penitentiary prison workers' union called the gesture "scandalous." "What an act of bravery, to reside in the VIP section of the La Sante prison," the union said in a statement, referring to Marchiani, held in the La Sante prison in Paris.

Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said Marchiani's "personality and past actions were certainly taken into account" in deciding the pardon.

Four former French hostages in Lebanon appealed to Sarkozy to pardon Marchiani. So did Marchiani's former boss — Charles Pasqua, an icon of France's conservative establishment facing a tangle of corruption accusations himself.

Pasqua, a former interior minister, said "there is nothing extraordinary" about Sarkozy's decision. "Let's look at the services rendered, look at the risks undertaken, the courage that he exhibited, the results he obtained in freeing the hostages," Pasqua said on RTL radio.
Marchiani, close to former President Jacques Chirac, rose to national political prominence after helping negotiate the release of three French hostages held by the pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad movement in Lebanon in 1988. They were among several foreigners, including Americans, held in Lebanon at the time.

In exchange, France agreed to restore diplomatic relations with Iran strained over the Iran-Iraq war, and paid off the last segment of a billion-dollar dispute over a nuclear energy project with Iran.

Marchiani was later accused of laundering money meant for use as a ransom for the hostages, though the French government has denied paying a ransom.

In 2005, Marchiani was convicted in two corruption cases: one for taking kickbacks in the sale of gearboxes from a German company to the French Defense Ministry for use in Leclerc tanks, and another for profiting from a contract between a Dutch firm and the Paris airports authority over the sale of conveyor belts in the 1980s. He was a government official for at least part of the period when he received the bribes.

At the time, he said, "I don't think I deserve this kind of sentence. I think I have, for 42 years, served my country in dignity." He said he didn't regret anything he had done and would do it again.

The court disagreed. It said Marchiani "gave France the image of a country where corruption allows one to buy public decision-makers without difficulty."

Marchiani, 65, was notified Tuesday that his sentence was reduced by six months. Since he has already served 13 months of a three-year sentence, the partial pardon means he is now eligible to request conditional release.

Even if Marchiani leaves prison soon, he won't be free of legal woes.
He and his former boss Pasqua are among 42 people on trial in a tangled case of alleged arms trafficking to Angola. The trial began in October and is expected to last until March

Article @ The AP

Western Balkans a Source of Weapons for Jihad

Western Balkans is known as junction of different kind of trafficking. Biggest profits probably are coming from drugs arriving from Afghanistan to be distributed in EU area. Related to issue of terrorism the arms trafficking is now alarming not only because their selling in EU but because their planned use in Europe by radicals.

Last week an article in Serbianna (24/1/208) gave more light to topic.

• A group of radical Islamists that is ready to engage in terror activities is based in Bosnia, says Bosnia’s police chief Zlatko Miletic. “Wahabis have become the synonym for that sort of terrorism, but here is matter is about salafis as well,” says Miletic.
• He continues that 4 different groups operate in Bosnia, all of interest, because of their views of the world.
• Most concerning, says Miletic, is that these groups are buying suicide vests
• In 2008, Wahabis and other groups sympathetic to al-Qaeda are moving large quantities of explosives and weapons to Croatia.
• Islamic terrorists believe that Croatia will soon become a member of the EU which would allow an unimpeded weapons transfer from Croatia and into Europe.

The Rest @ ariruslia

Carlos Menem Charged With Weapons Trafficking

BUENOS AIRES, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- Former Argentine President Carlos Menem was charged with weapons smuggling in a trial he attended via videoconference on Friday due to health problems. Menem, 78, was allowed to attend the trial on live video in his hometown in La Rioja province due to "anemia and stress."

• He is charged with having signed presidential decrees authorizing weapons sales to Venezuela and Panama, knowing those arms would end up in Ecuador and Croatia.
• Argentina was barred from supplying Ecuador with weapons after a brief war between Ecuador and Peru in 1995, while arms embargo to Croatia was internationally observed during the wars in the former Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1995.

Apart from Menem, former Defense Minister Oscar Camilion, Menem's former brother-in-law Emir Yoma and former chief of the Air Forces Brigadier Juan Paulik, are also being tried for the same crime.

Menem's lawyer Maximiliano Rusconi denied the charges, saying that the decrees Menem signed were of legal exports to Panama and Venezuela.

• Even if the weapons ended up in Ecuador and Croatia, that was because "the presidential decree was not followed," Rusconi said.
• "What was ordered by the former President Menem was totally contrary to what happened, and the customs and military are the ones that are supposed to give explanations to the event," said the lawyer.

Meanwhile, many former army officers who are accused of the same crime said that Menem should be responsible, because by themselves they couldn't have been able to do such a big maneuver which included seven maritime and three aerial transportation from1991 to 1995.

The weapons that arrived in Ecuador and Croatia included anti-tank missiles, hand grenades, land mines and rockets, prosecutors said.

The Rest @ China View