6.9.09

Arctic Sea: real story? Government or underworld?


The Israeli security service, Mossad, which closely monitors arms supplies to Iran, is said to have tipped off the Russian government that the shipment had been sold by former military officers linked to the underworld. Sources in Moscow suggested Mossad may have played a part in the alleged hijacking by setting up a criminal gang, who were unlikely to have known anything about a secret cargo. “The best way for the Israelis to block the cargo from reaching Iran would have been to create a lot of noise around the ship,” said a former army officer. Russian news agencies cited a top defense official 3/18/2009 as confirming that a contract to sell powerful air-defense missiles to Iran was signed two years ago, but saying no such weapons have yet been delivered. The state-run ITAR-Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies and the independent Interfax 3/18/2009 quoted an unnamed top official in the Federal Military-Technical Cooperation Service as saying the contract was signed two years ago. Service spokesman Andrei Tarabrin told The Associated Press he could not immediately comment. here

— The Israeli president, Shimon Peres,that his Russian counterpart, Dmitri A. Medvedev, had promised to reconsider Russia’s plans to provide advanced surface-to-air missiles to Iran, a deal that Washington has also sought to halt. August 20

S-300 system became operational in 1978. Improvements to the S-300P have resulted in several major subversions for both the internal and the export market. United States has bought an S-300V system for evaluation here Timesonline

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