Homemade In Iran

At the end of November, Iran announced a new class of warships, the Sina-7 class frigates. All that was shown was pictures of the completed hull and superstructure. The ship had yet to be fitted out with weapons, electronics, or most other equipment. That is supposed to take place over the next year or two. But the Iranians couldn’t wait to announce what a great ship this would be. These announcements are seen as useful to cheer the population up.

The Sina-7 appeared to be a 2,000-2,500 ton vessel armed with one 76mm gun, missiles, and a helicopter. Basically its an improvement over the earlier Jamaran class corvettes. Two of these have been put into service so far. Until the Sina-7 came along the Jamaran class was the largest locally built surface warship in Iran. One of the Jarmarans was assigned to the Caspian Sea, the other to the Indian Ocean. The Jarmarans were described as “destroyers” when first announced (as under construction) five years ago. In fact, it's a 1,400 ton corvette. The new ship has a crew of 140 and is equipped with anti-aircraft, (one 40mm and two 20mm cannon, four small missiles) anti-submarine (six torpedoes), and anti-ship (four C-802 missiles) weapons. At the moment, the Jarmaran seems to be filled mostly with hope and press releases. The navy made a point that the Sini-7s were better built than the Jarmarans. 

The Iranian navy could certainly use some new warships. Currently, the only major surface warships it has are three elderly British built frigates (1,540 tons each) and two U.S. built corvettes (1,100 tons each). There are about fifty smaller patrol craft, ten of them armed with Chinese anti-ship missiles. There are another few dozen mine warfare, amphibious, and support ships. The three most powerful ships in the fleet are three Russian Kilo class subs. There are about fifty mini-subs, most of them built in Iran.

All that's been heard of from Iran's naval shipbuilding facility at the Bushehr shipyard are reports of labor problems. There have been strikes and lockouts as well as complaints of poor designs and sloppy management. Iran has, for the last two decades, announced many new, locally made, weapons that turned out to be more spin than substance.

Iran does have commercial shipbuilding firms that produce merchant ships that are larger than destroyers. Thus it was believed that Iran could build something that looks like a destroyer. The Jamaran class ships have Chinese C802 anti-ship missiles, but a lot of the other necessary military electronics are harder to get and install in a seagoing ship. Iran has coped by using commercial equipment. This does not make for a formidable warship but does enable high seas operations.

Iran is trying to expand its growing (slowly) naval power on all its coasts (Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf, and Indian Ocean). Thus, for the last four years, Iran has had one or more of its few surface warships working with the international anti-piracy patrol off Somalia. This was the first time since the 1970s that the Iranian Navy has conducted sustained operations outside its coastal waters. Despite their own Islamic radical government, the Iranian sailors have got along with the other members of the patrol, including the United States (which is officially the "Great Satan" back home). 

Encouraged by this, Iran announced that it would send more of its warships off to distant areas, mainly to show the world that Iran was a naval power capable of such reach.

Technically, the Iranians can pull this off but just barely. And this is mainly because, in the last decade, Iran has been building some larger warships. Not really large but big enough to take trips across the Indian Ocean. Two years ago, for example, the Iranian Navy sent its first domestically built destroyer, the Jamaran, to sea. In two years it hopes to do the same with the larger Sina-7s. But both these vessels are hastily built by yards with no experience in building surface warships. That means a lot of mistakes will be made. Moreover, the Iranians cannot get modern weapons and are equipping these ships with whatever they can scrounge up.

Iran confirms military aid to Hamas, sending long-range missile technology

Iran has supplied military assistance to Hamas in Gaza, including technology needed to build long-range Fajr-5 rockets used to target Tel Aviv, a military leader from the Islamic republic said.

"Gaza is under siege, so we cannot help them. The Fajr-5 missiles have not been shipped from Iran. Its technology has been transferred and (the missiles are) being produced quickly," the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari was quoted as saying by the semiofficial ISNA news agency on Wednesday.

Israel has long accused Iran of supplying Hamas with its Fajr 5 missile, which has been used to target Tel Aviv and Jerusalem since the Israeli Defense Force's (IDF) ongoing military operation in Gaza was launched one week ago.

Iranian lawmaker Ali Larijani said on Wednesday his country was “proud” to defend the people of Palestine and Hamas according to remarks published on the Islamic Republic’s parliamentary website.

Larijani stressed the assistance had been both “financial and military." On Tuesday, Larijani lauded the Palestinian missile capability, saying it had given them a “strategic [source] of power.”

 Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ramadhan Abdallah Shalah also told Al-Jazeera TV on Tuesday: “the weapons that are fighting the Israeli aggression and arrogance in Palestine come mainly from Iran, as the entire world knows. This is no secret. These are either Iranian weapons or weapons financed by Iran.”

On Thursday two Fajr rockets struck on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, marking the first time the metropolitan area had been targeted with missiles since the Gulf War. Two more Fajr-5 missiles launched towards the city were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defense system on Saturday, while another  pair of rockets exploded on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Two more errant rockets targeting Jerusalem landed in the West Bank on Tuesday. No casualties have been reported from any of the strikes.

The Iranian produced Fajr-5 missile has an approximate range of 75 kilometers, which far exceeds the more mobile Palestinian-made Qassam rockets which came into use following the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2001.

The introduction of long-range missiles into Hamas’ arsenal came as a surprise to the Israeli military, who had initially viewed Tel Aviv and Jerusalem as out of play in the run up to Operation Pillar of Defense.

The IDF was forced to revise infographics enumerating the Hamas rocket threat following the introduction of the Fajr rockets into the conflict. Israel’s Iron Dome system has mostly neutralized this Hamas’ newly acquired threat, however, with the periodic air raid sirens having more of a psychological impact than a material one.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was highly critical of other Muslim states for not standing behind Gaza during the week-long Israeli military operation that has seen at least 140 Palestinians killed following a thousand-plus IDF airstrikes.

"Some of them sufficed with words, and some others did not condemn [Israel],"  the official Islamic Republic News Agency cites  Khamenei as saying.

Iraq - Fear Of The Iranian Ally

Iraqi Shia from pro-Iranian militias in Iraq have been encountered in Syria. Many of them are not there to back the Assad government but to protect Shia religious shrines. There is growing fear that the Syrian rebels, especially the Sunni radical groups, will attempt to destroy Shia holy places in Syria. Sunni radicals frequently do this sort of thing. Lebanese Shia from Hezbollah have also been seen in Syria as well as Shia volunteers from some other nations. Despite this help, the Assad government is on the defensive and losing ground. Despite the declining fortunes of the Assads at the hands of the Sunni rebels, Iraq still tries to limit the activity of Iraqi Sunnis trying to help the Syrian rebels. Iraq officially limits the number of Syrian refugees (most of them Sunni) from entering Iraq. Iranian arms shipments to Syria (via Iraq) are technically illegal, but continue anyway. Iraq pretends to halt these shipments, to keep the Americans and the Sunni neighbors happy.

Most Iraqi Shia (over 60 percent of the population) don’t trust Iran. This is largely the result of ethnic differences (Iranians are Indo-European, not Semitic and have long openly despised and abused Arabs) and a long history of Iranian aggression. There is still religious unity, but, again, many Iraqi Shia are not comfortable with Iranian efforts to replace the Sunni Sauds as the protector of the Islamic holy places in Mecca and Medina. After all, over 80 percent of Moslems are Sunni and the Shia would just like to be left alone. That is unlikely to happen, not with Iran lusting after Iraq (as it has in the past) and the Sunni world increasingly seeing Iran as a religious and military threat.

Within Iraq, Sunni terror groups continue to thrive. These terrorists have killed over a thousand people in the last four months. The Sunni terrorists survive because many Iraqi Sunni Arabs tolerate or support them. Nearly all the violence is directed at Shia (especially government officials and the security forces) and Kurds (who, although Sunni, are hostile to Sunni radicals, be they Arab or Kurd.) There continue to be attacks on pro-government Sunni Arabs. Many, if not most, Sunni Arabs back the new democracy and that’s what keeps the government from allowing the Shia militias to resume their terror campaign against Sunni civilians. Up until 2007, these Shia groups used death squads to murder and terrorize the Sunni population. This was a major reason for many Sunni tribal leaders turning against Sunni terror groups. Since then many Sunni Arab leaders have changed their minds and come to back the Sunni terrorists, or backed off from actively opposing them. Many Sunni Arabs believe they will eventually regain control of the country, because that’s the way it is supposed to be. Some Iraqi Sunnis don’t want to wait.

The U.S. now has to deal with the fact that any military equipment they sell to Iraq will be made available for examination by Iranian military officials. The Iraqi security forces are dominated by Shia officers, many of them pro-Iranian (to one degree or another). Then there is the corruption. Iran can always buy cooperation if they can’t get it for free. At the same time Iraq is asking the United States to speed up deliveries of weapons.

October 21, 2012: Over 6,000 Turkish pilgrims were allowed to proceed to Saudi Arabia. The Turks had been held at the border (between Kurdish and Arab Iraq) for three days because Iraq refused to recognize the transit visas issued by the Kurdish government in the north. This was all part of a dispute with Turkey, which refuses to extradite fugitive Iraqi politician Tariq al Hashimi. Last month Iraq halted new Turkish businesses from being established in Iraq in an attempt to get Hashimi. When the Turkish government protested, the Iraqis said it wasn't really about Hashimi, but administrative problems. The Turks know better. On September 9th a court in Baghdad sentenced Sunni Arab vice president Tariq al Hashimi to death for organizing over 100 terror attacks from 2005 to 2011. The Hashimi trial appeared to be more for show than an effort to determine true guilt or innocence. Last December Hashimi was first accused of running a death squad and other terrorist activities. In response Hashimi fled the country while 73 of his employees and followers were arrested. Many confessed that their group committed 150 assassinations and bomb attacks over the last three years. Since then Hashimi has received asylum in Turkey, which is, for the moment, ignoring an Interpol arrest warrant. This has caused anti-Turk demonstrations in Iraq, but not in the Kurdish north, where a lot of the investments in new businesses have come from Turkey. The Turks and their money are welcome in the Kurdish north.

October 16, 2012: In the Yemen capital, two gunmen on a motorcycle killed an Iraqi general, who was acting as an advisor to the Yemeni security forces. The Iraqi general had a lot of experience in fighting al Qaeda.

October 12, 2012: Al Qaeda took responsibility for the September 27 jail break that saw 102 prisoners escape, including 47 condemned to death. This is why Iraq continues to execute lots of Islamic terrorists instead of sentencing them to long prison terms. The prisons are not secure, but graves are.

The air force is buying 28 Czech L-159 jet trainers for a billion dollars. This includes training, maintenance equipment, spare parts and lots of bribes (the L-159 normally sells for less than $20 million each or $30 million if you include training, maintenance equipment, spare parts.)

October 11, 2012: Turkish F-16s bombed several suspected PKK camps in northern (Kurdish) Iraq.

October 10, 2012: The Turkish parliament approved a continuation (for another year) of cross-border raids into Iraq against Kurdish separatists. Iraq protests these air raids and occasional ground troop incursions, but is unable to do anything about it.

October 9, 2012: Iraq agreed to buy $4.2 billion worth of Russian weapons and military equipment. All details were not released, but among the major systems mentioned were 30 Mi-28NE attack helicopters and up to fifty Pantsir-S1 (SA-22) mobile anti-aircraft systems. There has also been mention of MiG-29M2 jet fighters. Although MiG-29s have acquired a reputation for being unreliable and expensive to operate, the new M2 model is supposed to have addressed those problems and it being offered at less than half the price of a comparable (on paper) F-16.

October 8, 2012: Turkish F-16s bombed several suspected PKK camps in northern (Kurdish) Iraq.