Iran 'steps up military aid to Syria'

Iran 'steps up military aid to Syria'

Even though Iran's locked in a confrontation with the West in the Persian Gulf, it appears to be stepping up its military efforts to save its strategic Arab ally, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, as he battles an insurrection aimed at toppling his regime.

Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, head of Israel's Military Intelligence, claimed Wednesday Tehran's main Arab proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, is also "providing Assad with intelligence, weapons and other means, recently with active involvement."

On Tuesday, Turkish customs officials, acting on a tipoff, intercepted four trucks allegedly carrying "military equipment" from Iran to Syria on the Iranian border.

Turkey, one of Assad's most prominent and vociferous critics, imposed economic sanctions on the Syrian regime in November, following the European Union and the 22-member Arab League.

Earlier Sunni-dominated Turkey imposed an arms embargo on Syria to protest the slaughter of anti-regime protesters across the country by Assad's powerful security services and military forces.

By U.N. count, more than 5,000 people have been killed since the insurrection broke out March 15, 2011.

On Wednesday, a ship believed to be carrying tons of weapons to Syria was intercepted when it made an unscheduled stop at Limassol on the southern coast of Cyprus, 70 miles west of Syria, a day earlier.

Cyprus state radio reported the freighter, the Russian-owned St. Vincent-flagged Chariot, was seized by customs authorities after they found "tens of tons of munitions" aboard.

The ship was released after the Russian owners promised it would not go to Syria.

The Cypriots did not say where the Chariot was headed when it left Limassol Wednesday.

But security sources said it could well make a dash for the Syrian port of Tartus, where the Russian navy has a base, or nearby Latakia.

Russia is Syria's main arms supplier and has stood behind its former Cold War ally in the current crisis. A Russian navy flotilla led by Moscow's only aircraft carrier recently visited Tartus in a show of solidarity with Assad.

Kochavi said Tehran and Hezbollah are determined to ensure the survival of Assad's regime that's dominated by minority Alawite Muslims.

Syria is Tehran's gateway to the Levant, where it can directly confront Israel from Lebanon through Hezbollah.

The loss of Syria would be a major strategic setback for Tehran's expansionist plans across the Arab world, which is dominated by the mainstream Sunni sect, and dramatically change the Middle East's geopolitical landscape.

If Assad is overthrown, Syria's Sunni majority, led by the radical Muslim Brotherhood, would likely take over.

"The radical axis is trying to retain its power and as time passes, Iran and Hezbollah increase their efforts to help the Assad regime survive," Kochavi said.

Assad, who succeeded his late strongman father, Hafez al-Assad, in June 2000, vowed Sunday he will never step down and insisted, despite the carnage, he had the support of Syria's people.

"We will declare victory very soon," he declared in a rambling speech at Damascus University that frequently verged on the delusional as the uprising becomes increasingly violent with army defectors turning their weapons on the regime.

Assad's speech, and his refusal to acknowledge the scale of the swelling opposition, domestic and international, to his regime after nearly a year of bloodshed reinforced observers' suspicions he may not actually be in charge any longer.

He has displayed this apparent denial of the harsh realities surrounding his position in the three other public appearances he has made since the uprising began.

Assad, a self-effacing former eye doctor in London whose iron-fisted father chose him to take over after his eldest son and heir apparent, Bassil, was killed in a 1994 car crash, has appeared uncomfortable as president of one of the Arab world's harshest dictatorships.

"Assad Â… never really wanted the presidency and has proved himself spectacularly ill-suited to it," observed international affairs analyst Simon Tisdall in The Guardian daily of London.

"The Syrian leader's state of mind is increasingly relevant as the Â… crisis deepens, with no sign yet of how or when it may be resolved.

"Critics say the president is isolated and out of touch with reality; others that he's a pawn, or even a hostage, in the hands of more powerful relatives and military figures," Tisdall observed.

"He certainly does not give the impression of being happy in his work."

Nuclear knowhow, S300 are Iran's price for Russian, Chinese access to US drone

Nuclear knowhow, S300 are Iran's price for Russian, Chinese access to US drone

Iran is driving a hard bargain for granting access to the US stealth drone RQ-170 it captured undamaged last week, as Russian and Chinese military intelligence teams arriving in Tehran for a look at the secret aircraft soon found.Moscow sources disclose that the price set by Revolutionary Guards commander Gen. Ali Jaafari includes advanced nuclear and missile technology, especially systems using solid fuel, the last word on centrifuges for enriching uranium and the S-300PMU-1 air defense system, which Moscow has consistently refused to sell Tehran.

This super-weapon is effective against stealth warplanes and cruise missiles and therefore capable of seriously impairing any large-scale US or Israeli air or missile attacks on Iran's nuclear sites.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent Russian-speaking Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to Moscow on Dec. 7 to try and dissuade Prime Minister Vladimir Putin from letting Iran have the S-300 batteries as payment for access to the captured US drone.

Sources in Washington report that before sending Lieberman to Moscow, Netanyahu first checked with the White House at the highest levels.

Although he had his hands full with stormy demonstrations in Moscow protesting alleged election fraud, Putin received Lieberman at the Kremlin. But the interview was short. The Russian prime minister refused to discuss the episode with his Israeli guest or even confirm that Moscow was engaged in any deal with Tehran. 

In answer to reporters' questions, Lieberman commented: "Russia's positions on the Middle East were not helpful." 

American efforts to reach President Dmitry Medvedev and Putin on the drone deal through other channels were likewise rebuffed. 

The Israeli prime minister's decision to sent Lieberman post-haste to Moscow to intercede with Putin followed intelligence tips which indicated to Washington and Jerusalem that the Russians may have played a major role in Iran's capture of the RQ-170 on Dec. 4. They are suspected of even supplying Iran with the electronic bag of tricks for downing the US stealth drone undamaged.

If that is so, it would mean Moscow is deeply involved in helping Iran repel the next and most critical stage of the cyber war that was to have been launched on the day the US UAV was brought down.

Our exclusive intelligence sources add that that the RQ-170 was the first US drone of this type to enter Iranian skies. Its mission was specific.

Iran's success in determining the moment of the unmanned vehicle's entry and its success in transferring command of the drone's movements from US to Iranian control systems is an exceptional intelligence and technological feat in terms of modern electronic warfare.

Western intelligence watchers keeping track of the Russian and Chinese teams in Tehran have not discovered where the negotiations stand at this time or whether the Iranians have taken on both teams at once or are bargaining with each separately to raise the bidding.

Saturday, Dec. 10, the Revolutionary Guards Deputy Commander Gen. Hossein Salami, said Iran would not hand the captured drone back to the United States. He boasted: "The gap between us and the US or the Zionist regime and other developed countries is not so wide."

He sounded as though the bargaining with the two visiting teams was going well. 

Iran military downs US spy drone

Iran military downs US spy drone

A senior Iranian military official says Iran's Army has downed a remote-controlled reconnaissance drone operated by the US military in the eastern part of the country.


The informed source said on Sunday that the Iranian Army's electronic warfare unit successfully targeted the US-built RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft after it crossed into Iranian airspace over the border with neighboring Afghanistan. 

He added that the US reconnaissance drone has been seized with minimum damage. 

The RQ-170 is an unmanned stealth aircraft designed and developed by the Lockheed Martin Company. 

The US military and the CIA use the drone to launch missile strikes in Afghanistan and in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region. 

The unnamed Iranian military official added that “due to the clear border violation, the operational and electronic measures taken by the Islamic Republic of Iran's Armed Forces against invading aircraft will not remain limited to Iran's borders." 

However, NATO forces say operators lost control of a surveillance drone flying over Afghanistan last week that may be the same one Iran says it has downed. 

"The UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] to which the Iranians are referring may be a US unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week. The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status," the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement. 

The statement about the UAV was issued in Kabul on Sunday and released to reporters covering an international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany. 

The incident comes as the United States has beefed up its military presence in and around the Persian Gulf region in recent months in the wake of a popular uprising in Bahrain. 

The US Department of Defense says Washington is closely monitoring developments in Bahrain, which hosts the headquarters of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, where 4,200 US military personnel are based.

Iran displays captured RQ-170

Iran displays captured RQ-170

Iran has released video of the unmanned Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel that apparently crash-landed inside Iran. A short video, released by Iranian news agency Nasim Online, shows what appears to be an immobile but undamaged RQ-170.

Though Iranian officials claim to have forced the aircraft down through electronic warfare, anonymous US officials claim a mechanical problem was to blame.

The new Iranian video is by far the most detailed view of the aircraft ever made public. The aircraft appears largely undamaged, though the underside and landing gear are not visible. Details of the aircraft are clearly discernable. The video alone would be a potential bonanza for interested intelligence agencies. Iran which has been under increasingly heavy sanctions from the US and EU, is likely to find interested parties in China and Russia.

The existence of the RQ-170 Sentinel was classified until a series of pictures emerged from Kandahar airfield, the military's largest aviation base in southern Afghanistan. Its existence and operation was subsequently acknowledged by the USAF, but technical and operational details remain tightly controlled.

Several media sources have since claimed the aircraft was used before and during the special operations raid in Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden, and there has been intense but unconfirmed speculation that the aircraft was flown over Iran.

Media reports from US bases in South Korea and Japan describe aircraft operations consistent with the RQ-170.

The aircraft is operated by the 30th Reconnaissance Squadron at the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada, where the Air Force has operated numerous classified aircraft, including the Lockheed F-117 and captured foreign aircraft. The drone is also operated by the 432nd Wing at Creech AFB, the primary operating base of the Air Force's mainstay UAVs, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems' MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper

Iranian Experts Develop Electromagnetic Gun (Railgun)

Iranian Experts Develop Electromagnetic Gun (Railgun)

Iranian experts announced that they have designed and developed an electromagnetic gun that fires steel bullets without explosive propellant. 

 The home-made advanced gun (Railgun) enjoys a capability to fire thirty 8mm steel bullets per minute at targets. The gun needs 2 seconds to recharge after each shot and fires bullets at a velocity of 330 meters per second (about the speed of the sound). The gun's specification, including its high technology, soundlessness and its ability to fire bullets without explosive propellant has made it desirable for guarding important persons, protecting ammo caches, oil and gas installations and refineries and other vital centers and remote-protection of military and other sensitive and vital sites and facilities.

Tehran launched an arms development program during the 1980-88 Iraqi imposed war on Iran, to compensate for a US weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and fighter planes. Yet, Iranian officials have always stressed that the country's military and arms programs serve defensive purposes and should not be perceived as a threat to any other country. 

Iran to Unveil New Cruise Missile

Iran to Unveil New Cruise Missile

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi announced on Friday that Tehran would soon unveil a new cruise missile called 'Zafar (Triumph).
"We unveiled the Qader cruise missiles in the Week of Sacred Defense and we plan to showcase Zafar which is a new cruise missile in the near future," Vahidi told reporters in the Western city of Hamedan today.

"We also have other plans in area of ballistic missiles which will be unveiled once their production phases are complete," he added.

Iran has made giant progress in arms production, specially in area of missile technology, in the last decade.

Iran's latest cruise missile production, Qader (Mighty), was displayed to the public during the military parades marking the Week of Sacred Defense in September.

Later in September, the Iranian Defense Ministry supplied large numbers of the Qader anti-ship cruise missiles to the Iranian Army's and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) naval forces to boost Iran's naval defense power.

Addressing the ceremony, also attended by Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari and Commander of the IRGC Naval Force Brigadier General Ali Fadavi, Vahidi said that Iran has managed to mass-produce the missile in the shortest time possible.

He stressed that production of the missiles showed that the Iranian Defense Industries are able to satiate the Iranian Armed Forces' missile needs.

As regards the features and specifications of the new missile, Vahidi said Qader is an anti-ship cruise missile with a range of 200km and enjoys a short launch time and is able to hit all naval vessels, including frigates and warships, as well as onshore enemy targets.

Tehran launched an arms development program during the 1980-88 Iraqi imposed war on Iran to compensate for a US weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and fighter planes.

Yet, Iranian officials have always stressed that the country's military and arms programs serve defensive purposes and should not be perceived as a threat to any other country. 

Iran begins large-scale production of cruise missile

Iran begins large-scale production of cruise missile

Iran said Wednesday it has begun large-scale production of a domestically-developed cruise missile designed for sea-based targets and capable of destroying warships.

Defence Minister Gen Ahmad Vahidi said an unspecified number of the missiles, called “Ghader,” or “Capable” in Farsi, were delivered to the Iranian military and the powerful Revolutionary Guard’s naval division, which is assigned to protect Iran’s sea borders.

Vahidi said the missile, which has a range of 124 miles (200 kilometers), can travel at low altitudes and “can sink giant warships.”

The comments appeared to suggest that the new missile could potentially counter the US naval presence in the Persian Gulf.

The West is already concerned about Iran’s military capabilities, especially the implications of the country’s disputed nuclear programme.

The US and some of its allies, and as the UN nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, fear that Iran is trying to produce a nuclear weapon. Tehran denies the charges.

Iran’s growing arsenal includes short and medium range ballistic missiles that are capable of hitting targets in the region such as Israel and US military bases in the Gulf.

Iran frequently makes announcements about new advances in military technology that cannot be independently verified.

Iran began a military self-sufficiency programme in 1992, under which it produces a large range of weapons, including tanks, missiles, jet fighters, unmanned drone aircraft and torpedoes.