Black Watch find cruise missiles in huge arms cache at heliport
IAN BRUCE
SCOTTISH troops from the Black Watch battle group yesterday discovered a huge cache of weapons which could show that Saddam Hussein's regime is in breach of UN sanctions.
Two Al Harith anti-ship cruise missiles supplied last year by Russia and explosive components from a Hampshire firm were discovered at a bunker complex sited at the As Zubayr civilian heliport south of Basra, in southern Iraq.
The soldiers found 24 reinforced underground bunkers and 48 arms storage sheds containing hundreds of thousands of rocket propelled grenades, landmines, machine gun am-munition, fuses, and detonators, as well as the missiles.
Most of the site has been cordoned off until experts arrive to clear booby traps and use detectors to see if anything more sinister is hidden in the depot.
One Al Harith, a long-range sea-skimming missile which could threaten allied warships in the Gulf, was on a stand awaiting the fitting of its rocket motor. Someone had drawn a shark's face on its warhead. Another was still in its crate in another bunker.
Both weapons had Russian Cyrillic characters stencilled on their sides and were dated 2002. A strict UN arms embargo on Iraq has been enforced since 1991.
The British-made explosive components, believed to be fuses for detonators, were in small boxes stamped "Wallop Industries Limited, Middle Wallop, Hampshire" and carried danger signs and a prohibition on the product being carried by air. There were no dates on the cases.
In the bunker containing the exposed Al Harith, there was also a larger missile, between 30 and 40ft long, still in its shipping container. This was being left for bomb disposal teams. It also had Russian lettering.
Lieutenant Angus Watson, from Methil, Fife, who was in charge of the platoon which found the haul of high explosives, said: "There is enough kit here to outfit a brigade. It's an astonishing amount of ammunition. We also found deserted Iraqi tanks and personnel carriers when we moved in, but the garrison put here to defend the depot had legged it. The whole complex was wide open, with the doors of the hardened bunkers unlocked. Local civilians had begun looting."
The heliport perimeter was dotted with hastily-abandoned slit trenches and machine gun positions.
American psychological war-fare leaflets urging Iraqi troops not to resist littered the floors of most of the bunkers.
One leaflet showed Saddam and then a weeping mother with a dead child. Another depicted a chemical plant before and after it had been flattened by bombing.
"From the number of limpet mines and some of the other armaments found so far, it seems to have been a naval storage depot," said Lieutenant Watson. "It makes you wonder what chance a couple of hundred UN inspectors had of finding anything damning in a country this big. On the surface, this was, after all, supposed to be a civilian heliport."
The Herald attempted to contact Wallop Defence Systems yesterday, but there was no reply. According to its internet website, it is a division of FR Countermeasures.
- March 24th
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/24-3-19103-0-47-6.html
============================================
Russia's hand caught in the cookie jar....
IAN BRUCE
SCOTTISH troops from the Black Watch battle group yesterday discovered a huge cache of weapons which could show that Saddam Hussein's regime is in breach of UN sanctions.
Two Al Harith anti-ship cruise missiles supplied last year by Russia and explosive components from a Hampshire firm were discovered at a bunker complex sited at the As Zubayr civilian heliport south of Basra, in southern Iraq.
The soldiers found 24 reinforced underground bunkers and 48 arms storage sheds containing hundreds of thousands of rocket propelled grenades, landmines, machine gun am-munition, fuses, and detonators, as well as the missiles.
Most of the site has been cordoned off until experts arrive to clear booby traps and use detectors to see if anything more sinister is hidden in the depot.
One Al Harith, a long-range sea-skimming missile which could threaten allied warships in the Gulf, was on a stand awaiting the fitting of its rocket motor. Someone had drawn a shark's face on its warhead. Another was still in its crate in another bunker.
Both weapons had Russian Cyrillic characters stencilled on their sides and were dated 2002. A strict UN arms embargo on Iraq has been enforced since 1991.
The British-made explosive components, believed to be fuses for detonators, were in small boxes stamped "Wallop Industries Limited, Middle Wallop, Hampshire" and carried danger signs and a prohibition on the product being carried by air. There were no dates on the cases.
In the bunker containing the exposed Al Harith, there was also a larger missile, between 30 and 40ft long, still in its shipping container. This was being left for bomb disposal teams. It also had Russian lettering.
Lieutenant Angus Watson, from Methil, Fife, who was in charge of the platoon which found the haul of high explosives, said: "There is enough kit here to outfit a brigade. It's an astonishing amount of ammunition. We also found deserted Iraqi tanks and personnel carriers when we moved in, but the garrison put here to defend the depot had legged it. The whole complex was wide open, with the doors of the hardened bunkers unlocked. Local civilians had begun looting."
The heliport perimeter was dotted with hastily-abandoned slit trenches and machine gun positions.
American psychological war-fare leaflets urging Iraqi troops not to resist littered the floors of most of the bunkers.
One leaflet showed Saddam and then a weeping mother with a dead child. Another depicted a chemical plant before and after it had been flattened by bombing.
"From the number of limpet mines and some of the other armaments found so far, it seems to have been a naval storage depot," said Lieutenant Watson. "It makes you wonder what chance a couple of hundred UN inspectors had of finding anything damning in a country this big. On the surface, this was, after all, supposed to be a civilian heliport."
The Herald attempted to contact Wallop Defence Systems yesterday, but there was no reply. According to its internet website, it is a division of FR Countermeasures.
- March 24th
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/24-3-19103-0-47-6.html
============================================
Russia's hand caught in the cookie jar....