Israel Captures Weapons Transport

Israeli navy commandos seized a cargo ship early Wednesday in the Mediterranean Sea that Israeli officials said was carrying rockets and ammunition bound for militants from Hezbollah.

Israel intercepted the ship, which was sailing under an Antiguan flag, near Cyprus, 100 miles west of the Israeli coast, and took it to the Ashdod harbor in southern Israel.

“As of now, what we know is that this was a smuggling attempt to arm Hezbollah with terrorist means against civilians,” Shaul Mofaz, a member of the Knesset and a former defense minister, told Israel Radio. “The intent was to send arms, mainly missiles and launchers, meant to strike civilian targets.”

News reports quoted the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, and other officials saying the ship had been carrying the arms from Iran to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, but officials released no evidence to back up those claims.

The capture of the arms comes hours before the United Nations General Assembly begins deliberations on the Goldstone report on the fighting in the Gaza Strip in January.

Col. Avital Leibovich of the Israel Defense Forces said the ship had been captured as part of the navy’s routine work to prevent arms smuggling.

Israel Radio reported that the navy had not used force in boarding the ship, the Franco St. Johns. Defense Minister Ehud Barak hailed the capture as “an additional success in the unending struggle against the attempts at arms smuggling and armament whose goal is to strengthen terror elements threatening the security of Israel.”

According to Israel Radio, Mr. Barak told the security cabinet Wednesday morning that the ship had been under surveillance since leaving its home port, which he did not identify. He said that the ship had also tried to evade capture.

The broadcaster said the elite Shayetet 13 naval commandos were the unit responsible for seizing the ship.

In January 2002, Israel captured the Karine A, a cargo ship laden with antitank rockets and light arms, which Israel said had been intended for the Palestinian Authority.

On Tuesday, Israel’s military intelligence chief said that Hamas in Gaza had recently test-fired a rocket that flew 37 miles into the sea. That range would put the Tel Aviv area under missile threat.

Police Seek Portable Pain Weapon

Portable Microwave Pain Inducing Weapon

THE Pentagon’s efforts to develop a beam weapon that can deter an adversary by causing a burning sensation on their skin has taken a step forward with the development of a small, potentially hand-held, version. The weapon, which is claimed to cause no permanent harm, could also end up being used by police to control civilians.

The idea of the weapon is to “create a heating sensation that repels individual adversaries”, according to the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) in Quantico, Virginia, which develops less-lethal weapons for the US military and coastguard.

Tests with a rifle-mounted infrared laser, carried out at a US air force lab near Dayton, Ohio, have determined a combination of laser pulse power and wavelength that causes an alarming, hot sensation on the skin, but which stops short of causing a burn, says JNLWD project engineer Wesley Burgei.

“We have established the minimum irradiance to cause a sensation and have characterised where thermal injury begins,” he says. “But the exact operating irradiance which balances a useful military effect with a conservative margin of safety has not been nailed down yet.”

That’s something that will have to be done before the weapon is deployed, as too powerful a laser beam could permanently blind someone if fired at their eyes. Weapons that do this are banned under the UN Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons.

Burgei says it is possible to create a beam that will affect the skin without damaging the cornea, and do so at a wavelength that does not penetrate to the retina “and would therefore be retina safe”.

The JNLWD says that tests at the Air Force Research Laboratory’s human effectiveness lab have established that the skin heating effect causes no permanent damage – suggesting it may have “military utility”. The tests also highlighted areas in need of improvement before troops can use it, says lab manager Semih Kumru – though what those features are has not been revealed.

The proposed system is rifle mounted, with a sight above it and a visible low-power laser beam that the soldier uses to aim the invisible infrared laser. The solid-state laser system is battery-powered, and could become hand-held “in the near future”, Burgei says.

The weapon, which has been evolving since 2005, is officially known at the Pentagon as the Thermal Laser System. The US National Institute of Justice, which is also funding the weapon’s development in the hope that it may prove useful for the police, refers to it as the IR-Lesslethal device.

The Pentagon already has a large crowd control weapon called the Active Denial System that can heat whole groups of people, causing them to flee. It uses a flat-plate antenna mounted on a truck or aircraft to aim a 2-metre-wide microwave beam at the crowd.

Like all supposedly non-lethal weapons that could be used to control civilians, the Pentagon’s new portable weapon is raising concerns. “I’d like to know why they want another advanced pain compliance weapon like this,” says Steve Wright, non-lethal weapons analyst at Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK. “Persuading by pain rather than brain – through conversation – has led to push-button torture in the past. If it leaves no mark on the skin how will anyone prove it’s been abused?”

Airborne Microwave Weapon

THE Pentagon’s enthusiasm for non-lethal crowd-control weapons appears to have stepped up a gear with its decision to develop a microwave pain-infliction system that can be fired from an aircraft.

The device is an extension of its controversial Active Denial System, which uses microwaves to heat the surface of the skin, creating a painful sensation without burning that strongly motivates the target to flee. The ADS was unveiled in 2001, but it has not been deployed owing to legal issues and safety fears.

Nevertheless, the Pentagon’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) in Quantico, Virginia, has now called for it to be upgraded. The US air force, whose radar technology the ADS is based on, is increasing its annual funding of the system from $2 million to $10 million.

The transmitting antenna on the current system is 2 metres across, produces a single beam of similar width and is steered mechanically, making it cumbersome. At the heart of the new weapon will be a compact airborne antenna, which will be steered electronically and be capable of generating multiple beams, each of which can be aimed while on the move.

The ADS has been dogged by controversy. Jürgen Altmann, a physicist at Dortmund University in Germany, showed that the microwave beams can cause serious burns at levels not far above those required to repel people. This was verified when a US airman was hospitalised with second-degree burns during testing in April 2007.

The airborne version will not make it any less contentious. “Independent of the mode of production, with this size of antenna the beam will show variations of intensity with distance – not just a simple decrease – up to about 500 metres,” says Altmann. Shooting it on the move with any accuracy will be difficult, he adds.

Dave Law, head of the technology division of the JNLWD, says the new antenna will operate at the lowest possible effective power level and will have a sophisticated automated target-tracking system.

In a recent cost-benefit analysis, the US Government Accountability Office rated the ADS worst out of eight non-lethal weapons currently in development.

U.S. Navy Intercepts Iranian Weapons Ship

The interception of an Iranian arms ship by the US Navy in the Red Sea last week likely was conducted as a covert operation and is being played down by the US military due to the lack of a clear legal framework for such operations, an American expert on Iran told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday evening.

The ship was initially suspected of being en route to delivering its cargo to smugglers in Sinai who would transfer the ammunition to Hamas in Gaza, but the US Navy became uncertain over the identity of the intended recipient since “Hamas is not known to use artillery,” The Associated Press cited a defense official as saying.

It was then allowed to sail toward the Suez Canal, where Egyptian authorities have been asked to conduct another search of the vessel, according to the report.

In an e-mail to the Post, Lt.-Col. Patrick Ryder of the US Air Force, who is a spokesman for the Defense Department, said the US military was “aware of the media reports and are looking into them, but we have nothing to provide at this time.”

Prof. Raymond Tanter, president of the Washington-based Iran Policy Committee, said, “It is not surprising that the US Navy is reluctant to acknowledge the operation, which may have been covert,” adding that maritime law posed challenges when it came to intercepting ships that fly the flag of a sovereign country.

“The navy generally uses special forces, sometimes including Navy Seals, to conduct interceptions on the high seas,” Tanter said.

Maritime law provides a basis for the interception of suspicious vessels not flying a country’s flag (called “stateless vessels”), such as the North Korean ship carrying Scud missiles intercepted in the Arabian Sea by the American and Spanish navies in 2002. However, in last week’s incident, “it was a Cypriot-flagged, Iranian-owned commercial vessel, and the maritime law is less able to justify stop and search operations against such ships,” Tanter said.

Iranian arms smuggling ships are not subject to the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), launched by the US in 2003 to “stop trafficking of weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, and related materials to and from states and non-state actors of proliferation concern,” he noted.

“Indeed, there is a need for international institutions like the PSI to interdict rockets from Iran to Hamas, but it is unlikely for such a multilateral regime will be established in the near-term,” he said. “Without such international legitimacy, the United States has to act publicly alone to interdict suspected January Iranian shipments to Hamas.”

Legalities aside, however, the US interception was likely helped by “intelligence provided by friendly states, such as Egypt,” Tanter added. “Because of fear in intelligence circles that a ‘dirty bomb’ might make it into Gaza, there is some thought to apply the PSI to interdict ships en route to Hamas,” he added.

For the time being, the interceptions and searches are being carried out on the basis of the memorandum of understanding signed between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on January 16, which is “aimed at halting arms smuggling into Gaza as part of efforts to clinch the cease-fire,” Tanter said.

“I suspect that the 19-20 January interception stemmed from that deal. Moreover, having the US Navy intercept the suspect ship would have significantly better prospects for unopposed boarding than if Israeli commandos took it down. Were this ship to be operated by Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guards Corps or Quds force, and Israelis came aboard, it would not be a pretty scene, to say the least,” he said.

Emily Landau, director of the Arms Control and Regional Security Program at the Institute of National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said Tehran would do its utmost to replenish Hamas weapons stocks in the coming months.

“Iran has a very strong interest in terms of its regional hegemonic designs to continue to support its two proxies in our part of the Middle East,” Landau said. “I think the result of the war and the obvious poor performance of Hamas will also have implications on Iran’s regional standing. Iran hoped Hamas could have declared victory – this would give Iran more bargaining chips when it came to nuclear negotiations with the US,” she said.

At the same time, “Iran is not looking for an armed confrontation [with the US Navy] at this point,” Landau said. “An armed confrontation would start a whole different set of dynamics that could have implications for what Iran could achieve.”

Iran’s arms-smuggling and nuclear program “all tie in to the same agenda. Iran wants to be the leading power in the Middle East and to call the shots,” she said.

Huge Weapons Delivery to Israel

The Pentagon plans to make a large arms delivery to Israel, rising fears that the military campaign in Gaza will go on for a long time.

The US is trying to hire a merchant ship that can carry hundreds of tons of weapons from Greece to Israel later this month; Reuters reported citing tender documents it had obtained.

According to the US Navy’s Military Sealift Command (MSC), the ship will transport 325 standard 20-foot containers of what has been called ‘ammunition’ from the Greek port of Astakos to the Israeli port of Ashdod on two separate trips in the second half of January.

A description on the manifest says the containers will be loaded with ‘hazardous material’, such as explosive substances and detonators, without giving any more details.

The Pentagon announced the tender for the ship in the last hours of 2008. The two deadlines set for the deliveries are January 25 and the last day of the month.

Meanwhile, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed the planned arms shipment to Israel, but denied that the delivery was linked to the Israel’s deadly offensive in Gaza.

“This previously scheduled shipment is routine and not in support of the current situation in Gaza,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder.

However, a senior military analyst in London, who wished to remain unnamed, said the timing of the shipments shows that they may be ‘irregular’ and linked to the military operation in Gaza.

The tender for the ship followed a December US arms delivery to Israel, which was also carried out by a merchant ship.

This is while shipping brokers in London who have carried out weapon deliveries for the British and US military in the past say that shipment of such a large cargo of weapons to Israel is rare.

“Shipping 3,000-odd tons of ammunition in one go is a lot… this is pretty rare and we haven’t seen much of it quoted in the market over the years,” one broker said, on condition of anonymity.

Tender documents indicate that the German ship hired by the US in early December also carried a massive cargo of weapons that weighed over 2.6 million kg and filled up to 989 standard 20-foot containers to Ashdod from North Carolina.

In September, the US Congress approved a plan to sell Israel 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, of the Guided Bomb Unit-39 (GBU-39), that use GPS to find their way and are able to penetrate deep fortified constructions, such as Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Last week, The Jerusalem Post, reported that the first shipment of the missiles arrived in early December, adding that the bombs had been used in the military onslaught in Gaza.

So far, Israel’s 15-day offensive in the besieged Palestinian enclave has claimed the lives of more than 800 Palestinians and wounded almost 3500.

Hamas on the other hand says Palestinian fighters have so far killed at least 30 Israeli soldiers and wounded more than 80 others.