Chopper down, dozens killed

One large flaw in the logic. The SA-7 is a Russian missle, made in Russia, and sold by Russians and their allies. They are not made in the United States.

It could, therefore, not be an American made SA-7 as such a thing does not exist.

 

What is your point?

 

The point is that the claims by the terrorists that the helicopter was shot down using missiles (which don't exist) could not have happened.

Apparently the terrorists decided that they could benefit if they made up a story that would turn this into an Iran/USA incident. I assume that like elsewhere in the world the Iranian press was eager to get juicy story and didn’t bother to check facts. I also think it might be beneficial for the Iranian government in Tehran to let a story like this out because it would paint the terrorists as American stooges, instead of Iranians upset with the government, but I fully admit that this is far more tenuous than the first two suppositions of motive, and the government may have not been involved at all with any part of the story.

The idea that this helicopter was shot down by an American made Soviet SAM is not credible.

 

Similar to we claiming EFPs made by the Iranians?

Unsurprisingly, these terrorists also want war just like us.

But their claim may not be that big a stretch because we are known to finance some terrorists inside Iran.

 

Apples and oranges. We have found munitions that are consistent with those made in Iran and have said that Iran provided them. This article has the IRGC chopper getting shot down with a Russian shoulder launched SAM, and misclassifies it as an American weapon. It would be like the US finding Israeli weapons on the terrorists in Iraq and blaming Iran.

 

Well, it was a claim by Iranian terrorists which might well be our friends. I suppose they are not a state actor. Let's give our friends some slack. They just want to help us to provoke Iran such that we can get the war we want.

 

The PKK or whatever other ethnic/anti-government militias inside Iran are nothing more than a minor annoyance, it's really not too big of a deal.

If violence initiated by these groups gets too out of hand, they will be mercilessly slaughtered and made an example out of (Hama rules); they're fully aware of that fact.

The Iranians are just reminding them who's in charge...the Egyptians and the Syrians routinely use similar tactics with the Brotherhood and -- in the case of Egypt -- the anti-government elements in the Sinai (mostly Bedouin Arabs who're not too happy about the government encroaching on their lives and eliminating whatever level of autonomy they previously enjoyed).

 

Hard to say if the terrorists claimed they shot the helo down with an SA-7, and then the writer claimed that it was a US made weapon, or that the terrorists claimed that they used a US made SA-7, since there were no quote marks in the sentence.
The original quote, to show what I mean:

 

Yes, the SA-7 is not an American-made weapon. It's nothing more than Iranian propaganda...

You're discounting the fact that billions of dollars in weapons are sold on the black market by illegal arms dealers, who in some cases do so on behalf of governments around the world. It's not far-fetched that Iran would acquire Israeli-made or American-made weapons and, through their own agents, turn around and supply the Iraqis with them, or supply their own terrorists with them then turn around and blame the U.S. or the Israelis for undermining their national security; they could also just plant those weapons on some dead terrorists, take a few pictures and call it a day.

Similarly, the U.S. could easily (and I mean very easily) acquire Russian-made weapons on the black market and sell them/provide them to various groups (PKK, Northern Alliance, Chechen rebels, Bosnians, etc). From what I understand, Russian- and Israeli-made weapons (Galils, Uzis, SAMS, AK47s, etc) are plentiful on the black market. It wouldn't be too difficult for these groups to get their hands on similar 'light' weaponry if they know where to go. Entire conflicts have been made possible/fueled by illegal arms dealers selling weapons on the black market (often to both sides of the conflict); Africa has seen its fair share of those.

Here's something basic you can read about black market transfers:

http://www.fas.org/asmp/library/scourge/scourge-ch5.pdf

 

I actually agree generally and thought about this before posting what I did, but I think getting SAMs would be much more difficult than standard small arms or RPG's. SAM's scare the crap out of most countries because they can be used rather spectacularly in terrorist attacks and so I think they keep very tight control. Also because of the high tech targeting and guidance systems they are all very expensive - I just did a search and the closest American equivalent, the Stinger, has a unit cost of $126,000, (compared with a unit cost of under $1,200 for the AT-4, the Army's main anti-tank weapon). The Soviet missile probably costs a fraction but if less than $20,000 I would be amazed, and that is still quite a bit of money, when second hand Soviet RPG’s can be bought for under $100.

I did another web search on SA-7s, and in all of Iraq, SAM's have only been used 4 times by the insurgency, and in raids only a handful of them have been recovered. These were, of course, recovered by the USA and so could have been given to terrorists, but I think the small volume indicates pretty well how scarce these things are relative to RPG's and SMG's.

 

These SAMs are expensive. But with the deep pocket from their neo-con friends, it is not surprising that the anti-government terrorists in Iran can get a handful of them.

 

I was unclear, I meant it would be like finding Israeli Galils in the hands of Iraqi insurgents and then writing an article saying they were carrying Iranian manufactured Galil rifles. Of course the US could supply the PKK with Russian weapons, or Iran could supply the insurgents with Israeli weapons, or Britain could supply Chechans with American weapons or Country X could supply Group Y with Nationality Z weapons. I was commenting more on the absurdity of the quote.

 

Yes, the article is a joke, that's a given.

 

But what do you expect since it comes from a blog?

Or is there a BBC article that backs this up?

 

Yes, point well taken, I didn't mean to insinuate that they're as common as th RPGs, they're more of a 'luxury' item on the black market.

My point is that they're available on the black market and the more organized elements (e.g. Hezbollah, PKK, drug cartels and other well-financed, well-connected organizations) can probably acquire them with more ease, since cost wouldn't be as big of an obstacle. Add to that the element of state support and backing of some of these organizations and it makes it even more likely that they can get their hands on these weapons.

The fact that a mostly chaotic Iraqi insurgency can get their hands on SAMS and more advanced IEDs gives us an idea of what more sophisticated organizations are capable of.

 

Just came across this article...

US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/25/wiran25.xml

America is secretly funding militant ethnic separatist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear programme.

In a move that reflects Washington's growing concern with the failure of diplomatic initiatives, CIA officials are understood to be helping opposition militias among the numerous ethnic minority groups clustered in Iran's border regions.

The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime.

In the past year there has been a wave of unrest in ethnic minority border areas of Iran, with bombing and assassination campaigns against soldiers and government officials.

Such incidents have been carried out by the Kurds in the west, the Azeris in the north-west, the Ahwazi Arabs in the south-west, and the Baluchis in the south-east. Non-Persians make up nearly 40 per cent of Iran's 69 million population, with around 16 million Azeris, seven million Kurds, five million Ahwazis and one million Baluchis. Most Baluchis live over the border in Pakistan.

Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now "no great secret", according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph.

His claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime."

Although Washington officially denies involvement in such activity, Teheran has long claimed to detect the hand of both America and Britain in attacks by guerrilla groups on its internal security forces. Last Monday, Iran publicly hanged a man, Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi, for his involvement in a bomb attack that killed 11 Revolutionary Guards in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchistan. An unnamed local official told the semi-official Fars news agency that weapons used in the attack were British and US-made.

Yesterday, Iranian forces also claimed to have killed 17 rebels described as "mercenary elements" in clashes near the Turkish border, which is a stronghold of the Pejak, a Kurdish militant party linked to Turkey's outlawed PKK Kurdistan Workers' Party.

John Pike, the head of the influential Global Security think tank in Washington, said: "The activities of the ethnic groups have hotted up over the last two years and it would be a scandal if that was not at least in part the result of CIA activity."

Such a policy is fraught with risk, however. Many of the groups share little common cause with Washington other than their opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose regime they accuse of stepping up repression of minority rights and culture.

The Baluchistan-based Brigade of God group, which last year kidnapped and killed eight Iranian soldiers, is a volatile Sunni organisation that many fear could easily turn against Washington after taking its money.

A row has also broken out in Washington over whether to "unleash" the military wing of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group with a long and bloody history of armed opposition to the Iranian regime.

The group is currently listed by the US state department as terrorist organisation, but Mr Pike said: "A faction in the Defence Department wants to unleash them. They could never overthrow the current Iranian regime but they might cause a lot of damage."

At present, none of the opposition groups are much more than irritants to Teheran, but US analysts believe that they could become emboldened if the regime was attacked by America or Israel. Such a prospect began to look more likely last week, as the UN Security Council deadline passed for Iran to stop its uranium enrichment programme, and a second American aircraft carrier joined the build up of US naval power off Iran's southern coastal waters.

The US has also moved six heavy bombers from a British base on the Pacific island of Diego Garcia to the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which could allow them to carry out strikes on Iran without seeking permission from Downing Street.

While Tony Blair reiterated last week that Britain still wanted a diplomatic solution to the crisis, US Vice-President Dick Cheney yesterday insisted that military force was a real possibility.

"It would be a serious mistake if a nation like Iran were to become a nuclear power," Mr Cheney warned during a visit to Australia. "All options are still on the table."

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will meet in London tomorrow to discuss further punitive measures against Iran. Sanctions barring the transfer of nuclear technology and know-how were imposed in December. Additional penalties might include a travel ban on senior Iranian officials and restrictions on non-nuclear business.