Israel Matzav: Wikileaks (Stratfor): Israel traded Georgian UAV codes to Russia for Iranian Tor M-1 codes, Turkey gave Israel S-300 codes

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Wikileaks (Stratfor): Israel traded Georgian UAV codes to Russia for Iranian Tor M-1 codes, Turkey gave Israel S-300 codes

Wikileaks' Stratfor email dump is reporting that Israel gave Russia the codes for UAV's that Israel sold to Georgia in exchange for the codes for the Tor M-1 anti-aircraft systems that Russia sold to Iran. Again, I am putting this in chronological order:

PUBLICATION: ask me first
ATTRIBUTION: N/A
SOURCE DESCRIPTION: MX301 - Former Mexican cop, Latam military analyst,
writes for Jane's
SOURCE RELIABILITY: A
ITEM CREDIBILITY: 1
SUGGESTED DISTRIBUTION:
SPECIAL HANDLING: n/a

...

Ok, here's the really juicy part:
There is a private Mexican company called Idra that the government funded
to make UAVs. They are actually pretty high standard according to him and
beat out the Israeli UAVs in testing. My friend was consulting Idra at the
time and so he was privy to a lot of deals that were on the table. This is
the story --

The Mexican government is now paying some $25m (? can get the #s later)
for UAVs from Israel. Idra is basically like WTF, but the reason is
basically corruption. There is a deal b/w the Mexican interior ministry
and the Israelis where they're getting a hefty kickback.

This is the interesting part, though.

Idra had an offer to sell UAVs to Georgia (this was happening during and
after the war). The reason Georgia needed the UAVs is because the UAVs
they had bought from Israel had been compromised by the Russians. The
Russians got the data link for the UAV (there is some suspicion that the
Israelis after the war may have given this to them. Remember all the
intense mtgs b/w the Israelis and the Russians where the Russians got the
Israelis to back off of defense deals to Georgia in return for Russia
backing off Iran?). Anyway, the Georgians gave Idra a picture of one of
their crashed UAVs. The source explained though that if the UAV were
targeted, it would have been blown to pieces pretty much (it's like the
size of a car basically). But the picture he saw showed the UAV intact. He
inquired and basically what happened was that the Russians acquired the
data link to hack into the system and force the UAV into the ground. I
think they may have crashed another one too.

So, since the Georgian UAVs were compromised, they then tried to sell them
to the Azerbaijanis. I dont know if that deal went through. Idra backed
off the deal to Georgia because they were advised that it would raise a
lot of political complications between Mexico and Russia.

...

PUBLICATION: No, but ask first
ATTRIBUTION: N/A
SOURCE DESCRIPTION: MX301 - Former Mexican cop, Latam military analyst,
writes for Jane's
SOURCE RELIABILITY: A
ITEM CREDIBILITY: 1
SUGGESTED DISTRIBUTION:
SPECIAL HANDLING: n/a

Met with my Mexican source/friend again today and dude is getting shadier
by the day. We followed up on our past discussion on Russia compromising
the Israeli-made Georgian UAVs prior to the August war.

Here is what else I learned

One of the source's friends/colleagues -- formerly military i think but
now does private defense deals on the side (it's Mexico) contacted him in
July (prior to the Georgia war). Apparently the Georgians had contacted
this guy because they were frantically looking for a replacement for the
Israeli UAVs that were compromised....

Here is the most interesting part:

I inquired more about the compromised Israeli UAVs. What he explained was
that Israel and Russia made a swap -- Israel gave Russia the 'data link'
code for those specific UAVs; in return, Russia gave Israel the codes for
Iran's Tor-M1s.

I asked about the S-300 (source tracks a lot of defense deals for Jane's).
He doesn't think the Russians will give it to the Iranians. Besides, he
said... Israel and Turkey have been collaborating very closely on the
S-300s. He explain how about 8 years ago when Russia sold S-300s to Greece
to base in Crete (which were supposed to protect Cyprus), Russia delivered
those with a carrier so that Turkey wouldn't try to sink them. (things got
a bit noisy so i may have misheard some of this). The gist of what he said
is that Turkey has been cracking the S-300 since the Crete sale and has
been sharing intel on the S-300 with the Israelis to ensure that they
retain an advantage over Iran should Iran get them from the Russians.

as far as the Georgian UAVs go, they were interested in the Mexican ones
because the Mexican UAVs had something (forget the name. it was
auto-something' that basically backs up teh UAV system in case someone
hacks into it and immediately returns the UAV to base.

Hmmm.

By the way, that's a Tor M-1 at the top.

UPDATE 1:41 AM

I forgot to add that Israel Radio has been reporting all evening that Georgia's Foreign Minister was here for a one-day 'secret' mission on Tuesday. But if Stratfor was correct and Georgia knew its UAV's had been compomrised, one has to wonder why he was here now. It may have had nothing to do with this.

UPDATE 5:07 PM

Photo updated (thanks to Asher G).

Labels: Georgia, Iran, Israel, Mexico, Russia, S-300 missile defense system, Stratfor, Tor M-1, Turkey, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Wikileaks