The Saudis Show Their DF-3 IRBMs for the First Time

This happened two days ago but the first videos are turning up on YouTube: For the first time Saudi Arabia displayed its Dong Feng 3 (DF-3) missiles in a military parade at the Hafr al-Batin military base following maneuvers named Sayf ‘Abdullah (The Sword of ‘Abdullah).

The Chinese Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs) were first acquired in 1987-88, towards the end of the Iran-Iraq War, but they have never been publicly displayed before; the parade was presumably intended to send a message to Iran. The DF-3s have a range capable of reaching Tehran.


In Chinese service, the DF-3 carries a nuclear warhead, but the ones sold to the Saudis have conventional warheads. There has been speculation that the Chinese are replacing the DF-3s in Saudi service with newer solid-fueled missiles such as the DF-21. The Jane's article cited above notes that a 2013 photo showed the then-Deputy Defense Minister looking at a display case with three models of missiles, one of which appeared to be the more modern DF-25. Only the DF-3s (CSS-2s in NATO parlance) were shown in the parade, but again, that was their first public display despite being delivered some 26 years ago.

Lebanon's Forgotten Rocket Program from the 1960s: Cedar 3

I thought I was pretty conversant with rocketry and missile programs in the Middle East, which at one time I covered, but this one is completely new to me: a BBC report on Lebanon's Forgotten Space Programme, back in the 1960s, long before Hizbullah's rockets. Now I find that there was a lot of coverage of the 50th anniversary of the first launch of the Cedar 3.  And Haigazian University notes its role in the program. These were nominally sounding rockets, but the Lebanese military did help support the program, and the US and Soviet "cultural attaches" attended the launches. A Google search turns up a lot more. (Note: the BBC report refers to "President Chebab." That should, of course, be President Chehab.)

UPDATE: Video trailer for a recent film documentary:

Hat tips to Laurie King for the BBC link and Ted Swedenburg for the trailer link.

Seizure of Air Defense Base Adds to Jitters Over Syria's Arsenals

Amid reports that the US and UK have both deployed some specal operations forces to Syria's neighbors in the event of a need to secure the country's chemical weapons arsenals, there are new jitters about reports that Syrian rebels have taken an Air Defense base alongside the radical Jabhat al-Nusra group, considered a jihadist movement. The base at Taaneh east of Aleppo was taken and photos of the rebels inside were released, though it is not clear that they will be able to hold it.

Free Syrian Army forces have claimed to overrun missile bases before; its chemical weapons stores are another matter entirely, and the regime insists they are secured. Syria has a very robust air defense system with missile facilities ringing its major cities, so occasionally overrunning a missile facility is not in itself that alarming, though of course the presence of radical jihadis is cause for concern.

The videos I've seen so far are old S-75 Dvina SAMs, known in Cold War days under the NATO designation SA-2 Guideline. Folks, this is the missile that shot down Francis Gary Powers' U-2 in 1960: it's half century old technology, big and hard to fire. Loose chemical weapons is a real concern; SA-2's are museum pieces.

Clumsiness or Sabotage?: Iran's String of "Accidents"

November was a crazy month, with MEI's Annual Conference, elections in Morocco and Egypt, and other diversions, so much of the rest of the Middle East has been largely ignored in this blog. Including the curious string of "accidents" plaguing Iran.  As The Washington Post has noted,

At least 17 gas pipeline explosions have been reported since last year, compared with three in 2008 and 2009. At the same time, nearly a dozen major explosions have damaged refineries since 2010, but experts say it is complicated to determine the cause of such incidents. 

And then, on  December 12, at a missile facility on the Shahid Modarres base 30 miles west of Tehran,something blew up. The blast was felt in the capital. After initial reports of 27 dead, the Iranian media revised that to 17, blaming a "misprint."  Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Commander Hassan Tehrani Moqadam, said to be a missile expert for the IRGC, was among the dead. The BBC ran a satellite photo showing the damage:

Go to the BBC link for the "before" version. There's not much left.

Now, there seem to be only a few possible explanations for this string of accidents:

• People in Iran are getting really clumsy, in which case maybe we needn't worry about the nuclear weapons program, though perhaps Iranians should;

• They're telling the truth and they're have a really, really bad string of accidents.

• It's Israel.

• It's the US.

• It's some internal dissident group.

What I find particularly interesting is that the Iranians keep insisting that this is not sabotage. Since they usually blame the US, Israel, or Britain for everything that goes wrong, one wonders why they're not blaming us here. Perhaps, as the first WP article above suggests, because they don't want to admit how vulnerable they are to sabotage?

The attack on the British Embassy yesterday is presumably unrelated. (Isn't it?)

Iran's Ballistic Missile Program

I'll be blogging later about the Tunisian results as they solidify. Meanwhile, for your reading pleasure, The Arms Control Association's blog discusses the problems of the Iranian space-launcher/ballistic missile prograsm, in the wonderfully-titled "Iranian Ballistic Missile Program: Non-Barking Dog and Dead Monkey."

The Arabist: Could Sinai Bedouin be Behind Rockets?

First, Issandr at The Arabist gets my attention by linking to one of my headlines (yes, I'm vain), but then he offers some intriguing suggestions about the possible source of the Eilat/Aqaba rockets. (He also tosses in a video of William Shatner singing "Rocketman," which may appeal to those who think Shatner can sing, if they exist, though I gather he's not among them.

Anyway, his question is whether this could somehow be connected with the recent dissidence among the Sinai Bedouin. At first it seems unlikely (why would they attack Eilat and not one of the Egyptian resorts?) but then, this is a complex region and the issues have odd overlaps. He admits it's an "outlier" among possible explanations, but we've had more Bedouin dissent in the last few weeks than in recent memory. Could there be a connection?

Weekend Roundup

A few bits and pieces from over the weekend to get the week started (later today: links to the spring issue of MEJ).

• Three anniversaries yesterday. Egypt celebrated Sinai Liberation Day, the anniversary of Israel's 1982 withdrawal from Sinai under the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty; Australia and New Zealand celebrated ANZAC Day, which today marks their dead of all wars, but still is held on the date of the landings at Gallipoli in 1915, so it has a Middle Eastern link; and yesterday also marked (though was largely unmarked) the 30th anniversary of the debacle at Desert One during the Iranian hostage crisis, which occurred over the night of the 24th-25th, and was revealed on the 25th.
• Never mind: That Scuds to Hizbullah crisis? Not so much.
• Mubarak Speaks: Husni Mubarak made his first public address since his surgery, venturing out of Sharm al-Sheikh as far as Ismailia, where he addressed the Second Field Army's commemoration of Sinai Liberation Day (see above). He promised free elections, among other things. Interesting his first venue was military, though.
  

Missile from Nowhere Hits Jordanian Warehouse: Belated Comments

I held off this story yesterday because it wasn't at all clear what actually happened. It's still as muddy, but I guess I shouldn't ignore it forever. Yesterday something — first reports said a mysterious explosion, later ones said a Russian-designed Grad missile — hit a warehouse in the Jordanian port of ‘Aqaba. Israeli reports suggested it was aimed at Israel's port/resort of Eilat, which adjoins ‘Aqaba on the West. Jordan and Egypt promptly denied that it had been fired from their territory. (Some early Israeli reports claimed it was fired from Sinai.)

It's still pretty hard to determine the facts here. Some reports keep repeating that the Jordanians first identified it as a Katyusha but then as a Grad. But the Grad is essentially a Katyusha, a multiple-launched, pretty unguided artillery rocket. They are notoriously inaccurate, so aiming at Eilat but hitting ‘Aqaba is nost in the slightest unlikely. But where was it fired from?

If it's really a Grad, it couldn't reach either Eilat or ‘Aqaba from Gaza or any part of the West Bank, so Sinai and Jordan (or somewhere in the Israeli Negev or northwestern Saudi Arabia, both seemingly unlikely due to heavy security in both countries) are the options. Both Egypt and Jordan denied all before much information was even available. I suspect Israel, given the rocket barrages it has faced from Gaza an southern Lebanon in various conflicts, has a pretty good reverse-tracking artillery system, and knows where it came from.

I do note that a few days ago Israel urged Israeli tourists to leave Sinai because of a claimed plot to kidnap Israelis there. Could they have detected a threat from Sinai but misread its nature? Don't know, but this Jerusalem Post piece notes the same coincidence.

No one was hurt, but barring something really weird, somebody managed to penetrate either Egyptian or Jordanian territory.

Sharm Summit on Scuds?

Supposedly there will be an Egyptian-Syrian-Saudi summit today at Sharm al-Sheikh (Egypt's apparent new capital since Mubarak remains ensconced there) over the story of Syria transferring Scuds to Hizbullah. No confirmation I've seen yet, and it's getting late in the day in Egypt, but the story was in a number of papers.

This Scud story has taken on legs though the US has not, officially, said they can confirm it, and not only does Syria deny it, but so does Lebanese PM Sa‘d Hariri (who is hardly pro-Syrian and is pretty much Saudi Arabia's man — or more precisely, he knows Saudi Arabia better than the country of which he is Prime Minister.)

Yesterday, Mubarak met with Mu‘ammar Qadhafi, continuing his speed-dating round of Arab summitry even though he's too ill to meet Nicolas Sarkozy. Both men, of course, have preternaturally black hair for their ages.

I'm still reserving judgment here. If it's true it's extremely provocative, but I'd like to know what the evidence is.

The Scuds to Hizbullah Story

I haven't said anything about the allegations that Syria has provided Hizbullah in Lebanon with Scud missiles because, so far, the allegations from Israeli leaders, echoed by some in the US, haven't been backed up with satellite photography or other evidence.

Before adding some comments of my own, a few other takes on the matter. Andrew Tabler of WINEP, posting at Foreign Policy, has a moderately hawkish take; Josh Landis of Syria Comment, also writing at Foreign Policy's Middle East channel, offers a more cautious, skeptical take. The Arabist understands why Hizbullah might want them, and Qifa Nabki satirizes the whole story. Syria has vehemently denied the story, and Hizbullah says it's none of Israel's business.

The whole thing has cast a shadow over US efforts to open dialogue with Syria, and could delay Robert Ford's Senate confirmation as the first US Ambassador in Damascus since the Hariri assassination. (The Foreign Relations Committee cleared the nomination earlier this week; it goes to the full Senate.)

I have no direct knowledge of what evidence may exist; US sources are quoted as not being sure the missiles have entered Lebanon. There were earlier reports that Syria had transferred Igla-S shoulder-launched SAMs to Hizbullah, but that's clearly a defense weapon against low-flying aircraft, not a long-range surface-to-surface missile.

Even the SCUD-D, supposedly involved here, is not very up-to-date technology, but their transfer to a non-state actor would be provocative at a time when Israel seems to be itching for an excuse to go another round with Hizbullah. I'm therefore skeptical and would like to see some evidence. When you're talking about a game-changing move, as Israel is seeking to portray this, you need pretty convincing evidence. I know SCUD launchers are easy to hide. But if Israel has photos (satellite, RPV, or otherwise) they should release them. Think Adlai Stevenson putting up the U-2 photos at the UN during the Cuban Missile Crisis while the Russians floundered about their denials.

With that, I'm off for the weekend.

Did the US Test a Trident in Saudi Waters?

This story has been picked up around the Middle East though I'm a bit late to it: The Associated Press reported last week that the US had launched a Trident missile — yes, the submarine-launched ballistic missile that is the basis of the submarine-launched nuclear deterrent — in an exercise with Saudi Arabia.

The original AP story is here, sourced to an unnamed "Western military official" in Saudi Arabia and allegedly confirmed by an unnamed "defense official" in Washington.

The Pentagon just flat-out denied the story and it never seems to have gotten legs in the US. As this US Naval Institute blog post notes, there's something funny here, since the Trident is a pretty potent thing to be testing in Gulf waters or nearby. The story sounds rather fishy to me too; I know we're trying to reassure the Saudis about Iran, but launching a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile in Middle Eastern waters would be provocative to say the least. The denial seems more credible than the story at this point, which is probably why the story has sort of sunk from sight. It originally ran the middle of last week.

On the other hand, I imagine the story has been noticed in Tehran, which may have been the point all along.

Iran's Sijil-2 Missile Launch: The Videos

I'm sure you all know by now that Iran launched an upgraded version of the Sijil-2 missile on Wednesday. Here's a FARS video (sorry, don't know Farsi, so can't help with the narrative):




The Ha'aretz video has multiple replays of the launch from differing perspectives, perhaps to make it look even more threatening:

Iran: Not Exactly Subtle Diplomacy

Iran is not, shall we say, playing well with others. Even as the West has upped the ante a bit by revealing a new enrichment plant in Iran, Ahmadinejad has returned to his homeland to see the launch of a couple of short-range missiles and the announced intention of launching a long-range missile today, Monday.

Today is Yom Kippur.

Class act, Mahmud. You really like to stick it in everybody's eye, don't you? You know, I think Israel would be foolish to attack Iran unilaterally, and it would be a disaster for world peace, but by gosh, if you keep poking that tiger with a sharp stick, you might find out I'm not the guy who makes the decision. And Netanyahu is not me.

Now the pictures bother me not at all even if they're not photoshopped like an earlier Iranian picture. . It looks like short-range artillery rockets or perhaps early SAMs of the SA-2 or SA-3 class, though it could be something more potent. But launching a longer range missile on Yom Kippur will be a challenge to Israel, and you know, that might not be smart.

Iran Tests Sejil 2 Missile

Iran has tested, reportedly successfully, a version of the Sejil 2 (or Sijil, Sijjil) intermediate range imssile. Speaking in Semnan Province on his re-election campaign, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad noted that the launch, like Iran's earlier satellite launch, had taken place from Iran's launch site in Semnan.

As the NYT article notes, the real significance of this test is that the Sejil 2 is a solid-fueled two-stage missile with a range of some 1,200 miles. Probably 80% of the posts so far on the Internet refer to that as having sufficient range to hit Israel, but of course it also has the range to hit US forces in the Gulf region.

What's really worth noting, though, is that it is solid-fueled. It's in the same intermediate range as Iran's Shahab 3, which is generally considered to be a clone of North Korea's Nodong. But the Shahab-3 is liquid fueled, requiring considerable lead time for fuelling before launch, and the fueling process can easily be detected by satellite. (Think of all those satellite photos of North Korea's recent test while it was still on the pad being readied.) A solid fueled missile can be launched more quickly and stelthily, and can be adapted for a mobile launcher, allowing it to be moved around. It is thus harder for an adversary to take out before launch.

The timing of the launch probably has more to do with the Presidential election in Iran than with anything else, but it will surely raise new alarms among those who are seeking to end Iran's nuclear ambitions militarily.

Iran's Satellite Launch

Here's a link to IRNA's pictures of the launch of Iran's first satellite. [IRNA moved the pix from the site originally linked. This link works Tuesday afternoon, but may move again.] The Omid is said to be a "data-processing satellite," launched by a Safir-2 rocket last night, and its launch was intended to mark the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. (Were they trying to upstage the MEI collection I just posted about?) (UPDATED: Fars has a bit more than IRNA on the details.)

Now I'm no rocket scientist and therefore not the best analyst of this, but have worked on some missile and defense issues in the past, and my wife, an Editor with Air Force Magazine, does their annual Space Almanac, so I'll venture a few comments.

There is really nothing surprising about the launch -- Iran had tested the launcher last year, said it was a satellite launch vehicle, and talked about its plans to launch its own satellite for years. It also claimed a launch last year had put a "dummy satellite" into orbit, but Western reports did not confirm that anything achieved orbit then. (An Iranian satellite was previously launched by a Russian launch vehicle.)

Since not much is known yet about the satellite, and we've come a long way since Sputnik 1 back in 1957, the achievement is real but not particularly alarming. A satellite capability means that a country has reached a certain stage in lift capability and precision guidance, but Iran's well-known ballistic missile program is already evidence of that. But since the satellite launch shows a reasonable level of guidance capability, there will probably be a lot of rhetoric about Iran's missile program as a result of the launch. I'm not sure that the achievement really moves the issue forward, though: the Safir is supposedly derived from the Shahab-3 ballistic missile, which is basically a development of the North Korean Nodong-1, is a known quantity tested a number of times in recent years.

As of this writing there doesn't seem to be a lot of fuss about the satellite on the news, and that's probably a sign that this isn't being blown out of proportion. Basically, we knew they could do it, were planning to do it, and might do it soon. They picked the 30th anniversary of the revolution, also hardly surprising.