Iran to supply Hezbollah with surface-to-air missiles

[kpete]

Iran to supply Hezbollah with surface-to-air missiles
Fri Aug 4, 11:28 AM ET

LONDON (AFP) - Iran will supply Hezbollah with surface-to-air missile systems in the coming months, boosting the guerrillas' defences against Israeli aircraft, according to a report by specialist magazine Jane's Defence Weekly, citing unnamed Western diplomatic sources.

...................

Hezbollah's representatives pressed for "an array of more advanced weaponry, including more advanced SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems," Jane's said Friday.

"Iranian authorities conveyed a message to the Hezbollah leadership that their forces would continue to receive a steady supply of weapons systems,"it added.

........

According to Jane's Defence Weekly, Iranian authorities have supplied the militia with Iranian-made Noor radar-guided anti-ship cruise missiles and Chinese QW-1 (Vanguard) shoulder-launched SAMs.
Russian-made SAMs will reportedly be supplied at a later date.

more at:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060804/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictiranhezbollahweapons

[bamacrat]

1. There trying to get B*sh to declare it WW3 arent they?

[Ravenseye]

6. Looks that way

[Dhalgren]

29. Happy Birthday, bamacrat!

[Subdivisions]

2. Isn't the first Rule of War to...

cut off your enemy's supply lines?

Is this the play that will bring Iran and Syria out of the darkness and into the war? Or, will Israel and the US allow Iran to supply their proxy army in Lebanon and continue to fight them on the ground there?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. I Thought Israel Has Pretty Much Cut Off Their Supply Lines.

I guess Iran wants to bring on their own destruction.

Sounds suicidal to me.

[Subdivisions]

7. Israel hasn't cut off Hezbollah's supply lines...

which should be quite evident considering they just hit Hadera, 50 miles south of the Lebanon border into Israel and they've been lobbing record numbers of rockets the last two days despite being pushed back by Irael beyond the Litani River.

And besides, Israel can't cut off the supply line when they are not even in Syria - you have to cut off the supply line before it reaches Lebanon and the Hezbollah.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. Because They Started With 12,000 to 15,000 Missile

The article refers to future arms shipments.

[Subdivisions]

12. So, how do you get future arms shipments to the Hezbollah?

You fly them into Syria and then truck them overland to the Lebanese border. Israel cannot tolerate the delivery of arms to Hezbollah on Syrian soil and so attacks the supply line.

[chibi]

3. I'm sure they won't be the only ones

there are many other players on this grand chess board and i am sure most would love to see israel & the US get theirs... it's a shame that we the people will be feel'n most of the pain and doin all of the suffering.

[kurth]

5. How are they going to deliver the goods?

Ground? Fed Ex?

[Ravenseye]

8. In some really obvious way

That way they can "provoke" an attack on their plane/ship etc and blame Israel as the agressor. It's like Iran is begging for Israel to attack them. They can't jump in directly until they're attacked. They know they'd be on the wrong side of the PR war, and if anything Iran has shown that they're very tuned in to using PR tactics.

So they'll play their little game, Israel will have no choice but to stop the shipments with force, and Iran will have their excuse to directly jump in.

Next thing you know...WW3

[k_jerome]

9. interesting take...

I do not think Iran wants any part of Israel. That is a war they cannot win.

[Subdivisions]

11. Even if you throw in...

Syria, Lebanon, and Venezuela?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. How Does Venezuela Get To The Battlefield?

By ferry.

No, Israel would defeat any array of conventional forces which moved against her.

[Ravenseye]

14. I think you'd be right, if Iran were led by sane men

Lets not forget that the leadership of Iran isn't exactly stable. They might even accept losing a few of their cities to nuclear attack if it meant defeating Israel. They're that crazy. They'd see those civilians killed as martyrs.

Plus they have a massive army. They could easily jump in, destroy a large part of the oil production in the region by lobbing missiles at the Saudi Oil fields, and take advantage of the destruction.

They might actually believe that they could take their 10 million man army and just do a human wave attack on Israel.

If they don't want any part of Israel, announcing they're going to supply Hezbollah with surface to air missiles, isn't a good way to keep out of it.

[Subdivisions]

18. Agreed

[DemocratSinceBirth]

They might actually believe that they could take their 10 million man army

More like 400,000....


"The regular military has about 400,000 men on active duty."


http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2001/issue1/jv5n1a2.html

[scarletwoman]

30. The leaders of Iran are no crazier than our own leaders.

Not that that's any comfort, of course, our own guys being batshit crazy and filthy evil to boot.

But all this idiotic blather about how Iran's leaders aren't stable, or that they're so crazed by their hatred of Israel that they'll commit national suicide is just base propaganda of the crudist sort -- it's fundamentally racist as well.

Our own gang of crazy guys in charge is MUCH more dangerous to the entire world. The best thing we could do to insure a non-beligerent Iran would be to pull our own demented leadership off the world stage as quickly as possible. The Cheney administration et al is going to blow up the whole Middle East if they aren't stopped.

sw

[atreides1]

31. Let's also not forget

That the Russians and the Chinese have been supplying arms to the Iranians, so while some here would like to live in the glow of Israel's past, the future may very well prove to be interesting.

I think the Iranians are playing a very adept game. Just look on this thread alone, the majority of you have nothing but contempt for the Iranians and the Syrians. The Iranians are waiting because they know that the Israelis have a history of obsessive behavior, and eventually the Israelis will make a mistake.

[Teaser]

15. Hezbollah is doing a pretty good job of defeating Israel

already, anyway.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. How ?

The Israelis have lost 20 or so soldiers...


Hezbollah has lost 300-500 soldiers according to best estimates.


I guess they won in the sense that Chuck Wepner won against Muhummad Ali. He let himself be a punching bag for fifteen rounds before Ali finally dropped him.

[dogday]

22. Nobody wins in these situations

We all lose.. that is the point to all of this... Yes there are two sides, one side is everyone loses and the other is nobody wins... The only thing that happens is that people like you and me die for the choices of those in power... And in the end, nothing will be settled, nothing will be achieved except the death and destruction of the people and the lands....

[Teaser]

13. Easily.

Iran controls Iraq.

Iraq borders Syria.

Syria is allied with Hezbollah and borders Lebanon.


Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon -> Hezbollah.

[Subdivisions]

20. EXACTLY!

and, as I said earlier, Israel can only affect that supply line by stopping it before the Lebanese border, which is Syria. BAM! Bush has his WWIII.

[Xenotime]

21. Does everybody in this region...

just fuckin thirst for blood? This is so sickening.

[spanone]

17. Jane's is a radical right wing rag. They are commited to war.

Therefore I find them to be a difficult source to believe.

[Subdivisions]

23. Some background on your comment

might just be able to calm my fears over the subject of this thread. Care to elaborate?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

26. I Thought "Janes" Were Military Geeks Not Ideologues

eom

[progressivebydesign]

24. Ah.. "(AFP)" and "unnamed sources". Wow.. pretty credible.

not.

[scarletwoman]

25. Folks, please be aware that Jane's Defense Weekly is not above posting

disinformation. Notice that this information comes from "unnamed Western diplomatic sources" -- there's no way to know if these aren't people with their own agenda for contributing to the "Evil Iran" narrative that we're constantly being subjected to in order to soften us up for an attack on Iran.

Think before you swallow this whole! Notice also that this alleged shipment is supposedly going to happen "in the coming months" -- just the timeframe needed to get the war frenzy going this fall.

Furthermore, notice that the alleged purpose of these arms to be delivered "in the coming months" is to "boost" "the guerrillas' defences against Israeli aircraft." -- does that mean this "diplomatic source" expects Israel's war on Lebanon to continue for months more? That there really will be NO ceasefire allowed to happen?

Jane's Defense Weekly isn't reporting a result of any sort of independent investigation, it is merely transcribing that which has been dicated to it.

sw

[Opusnone]

27. The propaganda machine is humming today!

I thought you didn't want to bring out new products in August?

'From a marketing point of view,' said Andrew H. Card, Jr., the White House chief of staff on the rollout this week of the campaign for a war with Iraq, 'you don't introduce new products in August.'" New York Times, September 7, 2002

Just because the congresscritters and * are on vacation doesn't mean that the lying stops.

[Dhalgren]

28. This information is completely suspect.

"report by specialist magazine Jane's Defence Weekly, citing unnamed Western diplomatic sources." Who was it, Bolton? I call bullshit on this. "Western diplomatic" sources are not what I would consider unimpeachable. These "sources" know what was asked for and the response and , oh forget it...