Iran fires new anti-ship ballistic missile
Iran claims to have test-fired a new
anti-ship ballistic missile (Hat Tip:
MFS - The Other News).
Iran's armed forces has test-fired a new anti-ship ballistic missile
in the Persian Gulf waters, Deputy Defense Minister Brigadier General
Majid Bokaei said on Tuesday.
According to Bokaei, the projectile can pinpoint targets at sea with high precision, the IRNA News Agency reported.
He also noted that once fired, the missile leaves the atmosphere, and hits enemy warships on return.
All enemy vessels left the area near Iran's maritime border, after the missile was tested, Bokaei added.
The official went on to say that the new projectile is a modified version of a ground-to-ground missile.
Let's just say that whether or not this story is true, the next to last sentence hardly seems credible.
Labels: anti-ship missiles, Iran
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, July 23.
1) The necessity of "occupation"
In The Levy report and the "occupation" narrative Dore Gold writes ( via Daily Alert):
At the end of the day, there is a huge difference in how a compromise will look if Israel’s negotiating team comes to the peace table as “foreign occupiers,” who took someone else’s land, or if they come as a party that also has just territorial claims. If the Palestinians are constantly fed the “occupation” narrative by the international community, their propensity to consider making a real compromise, which is critical for any future agreement, will be close to nil. In fact, this false narrative only reinforces their mistaken belief in the delegitimization campaign against Israel as an alternative to seeking a negotiated settlement of the conflict.
If, prior to 1993, someone said that Israel would cede significant land to the Palestinians over the next decade and would experience increases in terror and international isolation; many would respond that then it wouldn't be a good idea. In fact Israeli concessions haven't brought the peace many expected.
One response is to understand this and show sympathy for Israeli reticence to make further concessions to an unreliable partner. The other response is to insist that another reason exists for Israel to continue making concessions and that not making them will be even more disastrous than the consequences of making them and suffering more violence and betrayal. That is the importance the "occupation" narrative and its related "demographic" threat. Without them there would be no rational reason for Israel to continue pursuing peace with the Palestinians until the Palestinians changed their views of Israel. The occupation narrative and the demographic threat are fundamental beliefs of those who value the peace process over actual peace.
2) The proper response
In PostScript: Stay calm. The procedure is well-known, Hirsh Goodman writes (via Daily Alert)
Now we have yet another cycle of international terror being directed against Israelis, this time as manifested on Wednesday, when an Israeli tourist bus was attacked in the Bulgarian resort town of Burgas, an extremely popular destination with Israeli youngsters in particular. Seven people were killed and dozens injured, and both the prime minister and the Israeli intelligence services were quick to finger the Iranians and Hezbollah as behind the attack.
So it’s time for more surgery, not panic or demonstrative responses. As Israelis we have lived with these problems for years, and if it’s not the Palestinians, or the Red Brigades, so it’s the Iranians and Hezbollah. The tools available to those who fight international terror today are infinitely better than those available to Yariv way back when, and as opposed to having to work behind the backs of friendly countries, Israel now enjoys unprecedented international cooperation in the war on terror.
Many attempts to attack Israelis on foreign territory have been foiled in recent months. This one “succeeded.” There will always be holes in the net. Burgas was bound to happen.
3) Not just two sided
In the initial report about the terrorist attack against Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, the reporters for the New York Times wrote:
Mr. Netanyahu convened security consultations after the bus explosion, which he called a “terror attack in Bulgaria.”
“All signs point to Iran,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement. He and other Israeli officials noted that the explosion came on the 18th anniversary of a bombing of an Argentine Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and wounded hundreds, an attack for which Argentine prosecutors have blamed Iran.
Bellicose adversaries, Israel and Iran have a long history of accusing each other of terrorist attacks. Iran, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and has sometimes referred to Israel as a Zionist plague on the Middle East, has blamed Israeli agents for a string of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists over the past five years, for which Iran has vowed revenge.
Note the balance. The words "bellicose adversaries" and "accusing each other" set up a moral equivalence between Israel and Iran. These words also serve to suggest that Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, are primarily threats to Israel.
MEMRI, however, found a threat on Hezbollah's website - against the United States - last week:
The official Hizbullah website www.english.moqawama.org, along with the Iranian weekly Panjereh (http://panjerehweekly.ir), published an infographic titled "Hormoz [sic] Straits– A Choke Point In the Hand of the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps]."[1]
The infographic simulates an attack on a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Strait of Hormuz using IRGC missiles, including the Nasr (3 ton cruise missile with anti-ship capabilities), Zafar (short range radar guided missile fired from swift watercraft), Khalij-e Fars (solid fuel ballistic missile with a range of 300 km), Saeqhe (a missile with a range of 300 km), Tondar (a ballistic missile fired from land), Qader (a cruise missile with a range of 200 km, designed for aircraft and watercraft), Noor (A surface-to-sea or sea-to-sea missile with a range of 170 km), and Kowsar (a surface-to-sea, sea-to-sea, and air-to-sea medium range, radar and TV guided missile).
There is an unfortunate tendency in the media to treat threats against Israel in an evenhanded fashion ("Israel blamed ... Israel's enemy blamed"). This obfuscates the true nature of many of Israel's enemies as well as the reality that many of Israel's enemies hate (and threaten) the United States too.
Labels: anti-ship missiles, Bulgaria, demography, Hezbullah, Islamic terrorism, Middle East Media Sampler, occupation, Soccer Dad
Israel's war with Iran
Yaakov Katz explains what the IDF meant when they told us on Tuesday that the quality of the weapons on the Victoria was of
deep concern.
After contacting the captain of the ship by radio, the commandos climbed aboard and, encountering no resistance, began a brief search of the cargo. They went to the “suspicious” containers, the ones that were loaded at the Syrian port of Latakia and were slated to be unloaded at the Egyptian port of Alexandria, according to the cargo manifest.
The commandos found the containers fitted with heavy locks, unusual for shipments of lentils and cotton. Behind a row of sacks, they found what they were looking for: crates of mortar shells, and then the real prize – the C-704 anti-ship missiles [pictured].
The seizure of the Victoria was not impressive for the quantity of arms found – the Francop cargo ship captured by Israel in late 2009 was carrying 10 times more weaponry – but for the quality.
The C-704 is an anti-ship missile made in China and used by Iran, which calls it the Nasr. Like surface-to-air missiles, the C-704 is the type of weapon that Israel fears could shift the balance of power in the region and undermine its operational freedom.
But while the discovery is impressive and was the result of major intelligence and operational efforts, it is just another chapter in the larger covert war that Israel is waging against Iran and its terror proxies throughout the Middle East, and joins a long list of similar special operations that have taken place in recent years.
The battle against Iranian arms shipments to Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas is extremely complicated and involves unprecedented coordination between Israel and its allies, primarily the United States.
Israel boards dozens of ships annually, and hundreds more are questioned by radio at sea. In the case of the Victoria, Israel had intelligence that the ship might be carrying weaponry, but there is never certainty until the ship is boarded and the weapons are found. One senior official described the mood in the navy command center as being so tense that a knife could have cut through the air.
For Iran and Hamas, the seizure of the Victoria is a major blow. But it will not stop Iran from trying other ways to get advanced weaponry to its proxies, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. In many cases, Iran has succeeded.
In 2009, during Operation Cast Lead, Hamas did not have rockets that could hit Tel Aviv. Today it does.
Read the whole thing.
The C-704 is also known as a Silkworm missile. A similar missile - the C-802 - hit and severely
damaged an Israeli submarine enforcing a blockade on Lebanon during the Second Lebanon War in 2006. A the time, the Iranians had to operate the missiles. But Hamas has apparently learned how to do so itself.
With the C-704, Hamas would be able to attack Israeli vessels trying to prevent weapons ships from reaching Gaza. That's why the IDF regarded it as a game changer.
Labels: anti-ship missiles, C-704 missiles, Hamas, Iran, silkworm, weapons shipment
