Originally posted by: bauerbrazil
Russian weapons? Hum, how about
this?
British manufacturer's weapons linked to hidden cache of missiles
GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN ON THE ROAD TO BASRA AND DAN MCDOUGALL
BRITISH troops mopping up Iraqi opposition outside Basra have discovered a large cache of weapons, including Russian-made cruise missiles and warheads, hidden inside fortified bunkers at a massive arsenal abandoned by Saddam Hussein?s disintegrating southern army.
It also emerged last night that a number of cargo crates amid the lethal arms depot bore the stamp and address of one of Britain?s most respected arms firms, Wallop Defence Systems, which supplies guided missiles technology to the British and United States army. Wallop, a subsidiary of Cobham plc, a British aviation conglomerate, is based in Middle Wallop, Hampshire, and specialises in high-reliability Missile Tracking Flares for tail-tracked guided missiles and electrically-initiated Rocket Motor Igniters.
The weapons cache was discovered as forward units from the Black Watch regiment came across the abandoned Az Zubayr heliport base on the outskirts of Basra and penetrated a network of bunkers beneath the complex.
As the Black Watch unit explored the bunkers, they were given an alarming insight into Iraq?s weapons capability as they discovered cases of rockets, giant anti-shipping mines and other ammunition piled from floor to ceiling in dozens of individual storage bunkers.
The vast military complex, to the south-west of Basra, is defended by a network of earth works, with tanks and other armoured vehicles dug in to the surrounding area .
Outside the complex, Black Watch units searched around 40 bunkers packed with a mixture of RPGs and other ammunition. Inside the perimeter, 22 larger fortified bunkers containing larger weaponry, including the al-Harith missiles, were discovered.
The missiles, with al-Harith 2002 stencilled in red paint on the side and covered with Cyrillic writing, were housed in 60ft long concrete bunkers, 25ft high, buried under earth and protected by sliding steel double doors one foot thick.
Painted grey, they had two wings, each about 2ft in span, and three tail fins on a similar size. There was no indication of the nature of the warheads fitted and experts have been called in to examine the find.
Also housed inside the reinforced bunkers were what appeared to be large anti-shipping mines, 3ft in diameter, and a host of other munitions. On one box, written in English, were the words: "Contract AS Navy. 5/1980 Iran".
According to one senior Black Watch officer, a number of the boxes were clearly marked with the names of British manufacturers and one pile of crates in a store housing rocket-propelled grenades bore the name of Wallop .
It is not known how the weapons were sourced or indeed how they ended up in Iraqi hands but sources from the Ministry of Defence claimed that the find highlighted the threat from the burgeoning black market arms trade across the Middle East.
In a related development, the US said it had protested to Moscow about reports Russian firms have sold Iraq anti-tank missiles, night vision goggles and jamming gear. A spokeswoman for the State Department said Moscow?s response had not been satisfactory.
In 1991, Wallop industries denied links to Iraq after secret documents found by Kurdish protesters in the Iraqi embassy showed Iraqi diplomats in London were at the hub of a widespread arms and ammunition procurement network going back at least ten years.
The documents seized by the Kurds allegedly showed that during the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqis tried to buy British rocket launchers to deflect missiles from armoured cars and helicopters. One document showed that Lt-Col S M Salman, an Iraqi military attaché, had approached Wallop Industry Ltd in April 1984, for samples of 57mm rocket launchers which "could be installed on armoured cars and helicopters". The Iraqis wanted infra-red and chaff rockets to deflect heat-seeking missiles and fool radar systems.
The approach was rejected, according to Clive Rushton, the company?s finance director, who said at the time: "We made no supplies to Iraq at all. We receive many such inquiries, including from unfriendly countries, but our records show that we never supplied such goods to that country."
After the find, 28 Kurds were found guilty of conspiring to cause criminal damage following their illegal occupation of the embassy.
Several Black Watch units yesterday were involved in skirmishes with pockets of Iraqi troops and with civilians close to the heliport who had seized abandoned weaponry.
One unit came under attack from rocket-propelled grenades four times, but each attack failed to find its target and there were no casualties.