| New York Times | - |
An Iranian dhow seized off the Yemeni
coast was carrying sophisticated Chinese antiaircraft missiles, a
development that could signal an escalation of Iran's support to its
Middle Eastern proxies, alarming other countries in the region and
renewing a ...
Seized Chinese Weapons Raise Concerns on Iran
By ROBERT F. WORTH and C. J. CHIVERS
Published: March 2, 2013
An Iranian dhow seized off the Yemeni coast was carrying sophisticated
Chinese antiaircraft missiles, a development that could signal an
escalation of Iran’s support to its Middle Eastern proxies, alarming
other countries in the region and renewing a diplomatic challenge to the
United States.
Yemeni Defense Ministry, via Reuters
Some of the weapons that officials said were seized
off the coast of Yemen in January, from a dhow seen leaving an Iranian
port.
Among the items aboard the dhow, according to a review of factory
markings on weapons and their packing crates, were 10 Chinese
heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles, most of them manufactured in 2005.
The missiles were labeled QW-1M and bore stencils suggesting that they
had been assembled at a factory represented by the state-owned China National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation, sanctioned by the United States for transfers of missile technology to Pakistan and Iran.
The Chinese missiles were part of a larger shipment interdicted by American and Yemeni forces in January, which American and Yemeni officials say was intended for the Houthi rebels in northwestern Yemen. But the presence of the missiles in the seized contraband complicates an already politically delicate case.
The shipment, which officials portray as an attempt to introduce
sophisticated new antiaircraft systems into the Arabian Peninsula, has
raised concerns in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen, as the weapons would
have posed escalated risks to civilian and military aircraft alike.
And it has presented the Obama administration with a fresh example of
Iran’s apparent transfer of modern missiles from China to insurgents in
the larger regional contest between Sunni-led and Shiite-led states, in
which the American military has often been entwined.
The United States has previously accused Iran, a Shiite-led theocracy,
of sending weapons to the Houthis, who follow an offshoot of Shiite
Islam. Saudi Arabia, an American ally, is considered the leading Sunni
power in the region. Both sides have aided and equipped groups or
governments they deem aligned with their interests, helping to fuel
violence in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Sudan and elsewhere.
Iran has rejected the allegations as “baseless and absurd.” Neither the
Iranian government nor the Chinese firm that markets QW missiles
answered written requests for comment.
The government of Yemen has asked the United Nations to investigate the
shipment and report the findings to the Security Council. Yemeni news
media reported that United Nations experts were in Yemen last week.
The analysis of the weapons’ markings and origins was based on
photographs taken when Yemeni officials briefly displayed the weapons to
journalists.
Concerns over sophisticated Chinese missiles reaching Iran’s proxies
have considerable regional history. They are part of both the larger
worries over antiaircraft weapons set loose by conflicts across the
Middle East in the past decade and the lingering frustration in
Washington over China’s military aid to Iran.
In 2008, late in the Bush administration, the United States complained
to China about two similar antiaircraft missiles that were recovered
from Shiite militants in Iraq, according a diplomatic cable made public
by WikiLeaks.
“We have demarched China repeatedly on its conventional arms transfers
to Iran, urging Beijing to stop,” the cable noted.
The cable said the QW-1 missiles recovered in Iraq had been manufactured in China in 2003.
Like the American-made Stinger, China’s QW series is part of a class of weapons known as man-portable air-defense systems, or manpads.
The cable instructed American diplomats to warn China of the
“unacceptably high risk that any military equipment sold to Iran,
especially weapons like manpads, that are highly sought-after by
terrorists, will be diverted to nonstate actors who threaten U.S. and
coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as civilians across the
region.”
The latest discovery of Chinese manpads came after the United States Navy detected the dhow,
the Jeehan 1, as it took on cargo in an Iranian military-controlled
port. The vessel then embarked on a high-seas smuggling run, according
to accounts by Yemeni and American officials.
The vessel tied off on a pier in the harbor on Lesser Tunb Island, a
tiny spit of land just west of the Strait of Hormuz that is claimed by
both Iran and the United Arab Emirates, officials familiar with its
voyage said. The island is occupied by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
After passing eastward through the strait and heading south along the
Arabian Peninsula, the dhow was stopped on Jan. 23 by the American
destroyer Farragut and a Yemeni boarding team off the coast of Al
Ghaydah.
The dhow’s Iranian crew initially insisted the vessel was
Panamanian-flagged and carried only fuel, an American official said. The
military cargo, which included many ammunition crates that had been
painted over with white or black paint, was found in hidden
compartments, American officials said.
That cargo also included 316,000 cartridges for Kalashnikov rifles,
nearly 63,000 cartridges for PK machine guns or the Dragunov series of
sniper rifles, more than 12,000 cartridges for 12.7-millimeter DShK
machine guns and 95 RPG-7 launchers.
The rifle cartridges were packaged in crates strongly resembling packaging used by Iran’s Defense Industries Organization, another firm under American sanction, according to James Bevan, director of Conflict Armament Research, a private arms-tracking firm that has documented the spread of Iranian ammunition in East and West Africa.
The vessel also carried 10 SA-7 shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles
with two gripstocks for firing them, nearly 17,000 blocks of
Iranian-made C-4 plastic explosives, 48 Russian PN-14K night vision
goggles, and 10 LH80A laser range finders made, according to their
placards, by the state-run Iran Electronics Industries, also under American sanction.
The original provenance of the SA-7s was not clear, though the crates they were in had stenciling in Bulgarian.
The captain and crew of the Jeehan 1 remain in Yemeni detention, and the
dhow has been impounded under Yemeni custody, a Yememi official said.
An American official called the shipment “deeply disturbing” and said it
“clearly appeared to violate” Security Council resolutions prohibiting
Iran from exporting arms.
Two independent arms-trafficking researchers who have reviewed
photographs and written a summary of the markings on the missiles and
crates said the weapons appeared to be of Chinese origin.
Matthew Schroeder, an analyst for the Federation of American Scientists
in Washington and the Small Arms Survey in Geneva, said that this was
the first time to his knowledge that the QW-1M had left state control.
“If so, and these missiles were indeed bound for insurgents, this
shipment is extremely worrisome, both from a regional security and a
global counterterrorism perspective,” he said.
Unlike many older shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles seen in insurgent
hands around the world, the QW-1M is believed by analysts to have a
seeker head more resistant to countermeasures intended to deceive it.
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