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RonZeplin
07-27-2018, 05:21 PM
I traced missile casings in Syria back to their original sellers, so it’s time for the west to reveal who they sell arms to (http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2018/july/27/i-traced-missile-casings-in-syria-back-to-their-original-sellers-so-it-s-time-for-the-west-to-reveal-who-they-sell-arms-to/)

Written by Robert Fisk (http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/?author=Robert+Fisk)
Friday July 27, 2018

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/media/121833/screenshot_1-10.jpg?width=451px&height=250px

Readers, a small detective story. Note down this number: MFG BGM-71E-1B. And this number: STOCK NO 1410-01-300-0254. And this code: DAA A01 C-0292. I found all these numerals printed on the side of a spent missile casing lying in the basement of a bombed-out Islamist base in eastern Aleppo (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/aleppo) last year. At the top were the words “Hughes Aircraft Co”, founded in California back in the 1930s by the infamous Howard Hughes and sold in 1997 to Raytheon, the massive US defence contractor whose profits last year came to $23.35bn (£18bn). Shareholders include the Bank of America and Deutsche Bank. Raytheon’s Middle East offices can be found in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Egypt, Turkey and Kuwait.

There were dozens of other used-up identical missile casings in the same underground room in the ruins of eastern Aleppo, with sequential codings; in other words, these anti-armour missiles – known in the trade as Tows, “Tube-launched, optically tracked and wire-guided missiles” – were not individual items smuggled into Syria through the old and much reported CIA smugglers’ trail from Libya. These were shipments, whole batches of weapons that left their point of origin on military aircraft pallets.

Some time ago, in the United States, I met an old Hughes Aircraft executive who laughed when I told him my story of finding his missiles in eastern Aleppo. When the company was sold, Hughes had been split up into eight components, he said. But assuredly, this batch of rockets had left from a US government base. Amateur sleuths may have already tracked down the first set of numbers above. The “01” in the stock number is a Nato coding for the US, and the BGM-71E is a Raytheon Systems Company product. There are videos of Islamist fighters using the BGM-71E-1B variety in Idlib province two years before I found the casings of other anti-tank missiles in neighbouring Aleppo. As for the code: DAA A01 C-0292, I am still trying to trace this number.

Even if I can find it, however, I can promise readers one certain conclusion. This missile will have been manufactured and sold by Hughes/Raytheon absolutely legally to a Nato, pro-Nato or “friendly” (i.e. pro-American) power (government, defence ministry, you name it), and there will exist for it an End User Certificate (EUC), a document of impeccable provenance which will be signed by the buyers – in this case by the chaps who purchased the Tow missiles in very large numbers – stating that they are the final recipients of the weapons.

There is no guarantee this promise will be kept, but – as the arms manufacturers I’ve been talking to in the Balkans over the past weeks yet again confirm – there is neither an obligation nor an investigative mechanism on the part of the arms manufacturers to ensure that their infinitely expensive products are not handed over by “the buyers” to Isis, al-Nusra/al-Qaeda – which was clearly the case in Aleppo – or some other anti-Assad Islamist group in Syria branded by the US State Department itself as a “terrorist organisation”.

Fair use excerpt. Read the rest here (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-missile-arms-deals-west-us-uk-saudi-arabia-a8459731.html).

https://www.armytimes.com/resizer/pIMujqHny29a1_1BMesLszG2AYY=/1200x0/filters:quality(100)/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-mco.s3.amazonaws.com/public/LI5ZIOICWNAFBPUURGBRK2YXJE.jpg
Celebrating arms sales at the White House :money:

pcosmar
07-27-2018, 06:38 PM
The TOW was still a classified system when I qualified with it.

We were not allowed to photograph it and it was under cover when not in use..

Standing orders to Blow if abandoned..

Now they are everywhere.

timosman
07-27-2018, 07:25 PM
The TOW as still a classified system when I qualified with it.

We were not allowed to photograph it and it was under cover when not in use..

Standing orders to Blow if abandoned..

Now they are everywhere.

Don't you like the new policy better? :cool:

pcosmar
07-27-2018, 07:27 PM
Don't you like the new policy better? :cool:

Nope,, I'm still prohibited.. and one of few qualified.

oyarde
07-27-2018, 07:36 PM
Seriously , where did this guy think a Tow came from ?

Swordsmyth
07-27-2018, 07:39 PM
Seriously , where did this guy think a Tow came from ?

A foot?

Zippyjuan
07-27-2018, 07:51 PM
Seriously , where did this guy think a Tow came from ?

http://www.duncanins.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Tow-Truck-Transparent.png


Iran has Tow knockoffs. https://warisboring.com/iranian-tow-missile-knockoffs-spread-to-war-zones/


Iranian TOW Missile Knockoffs Spread to War Zones


The CIA program to supply Arab rebels in Syria has made TOW anti-tank guided missiles a nearly ubiquitous sight in media coming from the conflict. But the United States might not be the only country waging a covert war with TOW (or TOW-like) missiles in the Middle East.

Iranian reverse-engineered TOW anti-tank guided missiles, dubbed “Toophan,” have been been sighted headed toward Yemen with additional suspected appearances in Iraq and Syria — all in the hands of Tehran’s allies and proxy groups.

Iran’s production of reverse-engineered TOW missiles is no great secret. In official news outlets, documentaries and on Iran’s official arms export website, the Islamic Republic has touted its production of a series of different Toophan missiles derived from TOW variants.

It has produced at least a handful of different Toophan models, including the Toophan 1 through 3. According to Armament Research Services, the three systems appear to copy the TOW BGM-71A, BGM-71C and BGM-71F missiles. Iran makes two other variants, dubbed the Toophan-5 and Qaem.

In addition to the basic infantry launch platform, Iran has equipped some of its vehicles to fire the missiles. The basic Safir 4×4 tactical vehicle often appears in military parades equipped with a Toophan launcher.

Iran’s unhelpfully-named Toufan-2 helicopter, based on the Bell Sea Cobra, also appears able to fire Toophan anti-tank missiles.

Until recently, however, Toophans tended to appear only in Iran at official rollouts and in news articles, with some brief reported use by Hezbollah in the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese terrorist group.

Now, however, sightings of the missiles — both claimed and confirmed — are popping up in conflicts across the Middle East.

The most detailed sighting of a Toophan missiles in the wild thus far comes from the seizure of a small dhow off the coast of Oman. In September 2015, U.S. and Australian warships stopped and searched a dhow, laden with anti-tank missiles allegedly sent from Iran for use by Houthi fighters in Yemen.

Since the fight for Tikrit, a number of other videos and images purporting to show Toophans in Syria and Iraq have appeared, often in the hands of Iranian-backed Shia militias or Assad regime forces. One prominent pro-Assad Twitter account claims that the first Toophan spotted in Syria appeared in the hands of a Shia militiaman fighting on behalf of the Assad regime in October 2015.

Subsequent photos show alleged instances of the Iranian knockoff missiles in the hands of both Shia militiamen and a Syrian Arab Army soldier.


More at link.

RonZeplin
07-27-2018, 08:00 PM
Seriously , where did this guy think a Tow came from ?

The CIA black budget & defense funding that Republican & Democrat presidents keep signing, most likely. :collision:

pcosmar
07-27-2018, 08:00 PM
Iran has Tow knockoffs.


Iran has produced a superior version of every weapon system that they have ever bought.
bunch of chronic tinkers.

pcosmar
07-27-2018, 08:14 PM
Seriously , where did this guy think a Tow came from ?

Seriously,, what made anyone think this was news.
2014
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-big-weapons-that-the-us-may-be-secretly-supplying-to-the-syrian-rebels


Wednesday, NPR reported that the CIA plans to send more arms and training to Syrian rebels and that 50 TOW missile systems had been sent to Harakat Hazam as a part of a “test” or pilot program. Yet, when asked specifically about the deal, National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan kept her response vague. “As we have consistently said, we are not going to detail every single type of our assistance,” Meehan said.
2015
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-arms/syrian-army-source-rebels-make-heavy-use-of-tow-missiles-idUSKBN0TE1KJ20151125

heavenlyboy34
07-27-2018, 09:11 PM
Is "casing" really the proper word for a spent missle? MSM uses incorrect terminology WRT weapons all the time and IDK shit about missles, so I'm curious...

oyarde
07-27-2018, 09:21 PM
Is "casing" really the proper word for a spent missle? MSM uses incorrect terminology WRT weapons all the time and IDK shit about missles, so I'm curious...

The Aft and Forward warheads are just behind the blunt nose cone sensor thingie , behind that is the wing , motor ,electronics , wire dispenser , and beacons . I dunno what it is called . It is really just a more advanced version of the old bazooka and then the LAW which I would call a tube ( same as a mortar ). The Persians call it a Toophan .

oyarde
07-27-2018, 10:09 PM
Since we cannot rate threads anymore I cannot give this one star.

pcosmar
07-27-2018, 10:12 PM
Is "casing" really the proper word for a spent missle? MSM uses incorrect terminology WRT weapons all the time and IDK $#@! about missles, so I'm curious...

Would be accurate.. Missiles come in a Tube that is discarded after use.

Tube Launched-Optically tracked Wire command link guided missile.

4.5 lbs of C-4 in a Shape charge,(blows through 20 inches of Homogeneous Steel), range 3000 meters.

Takes 17 seconds of being a target,, to track to target.