North Korean weapons shipments bound for Iran intercepted

[American Patriot]

North Korean weapons shipments bound for Iran intercepted

Zachary Lynn

Issue date: 2/12/10 Section: World


In late December, Thai authorities, acting in support of a U.N. resolution, intercepted a North Korean Il-76 transport aircraft. When Thai authorities searched the plane, they found over 35 tons of rocket launchers, ammunition, and other small arms.

According to Business Week, while the official flight plan indicated that the plane's destination was Colombo, Sri Lanka, a report filed this week by Thai authorities to the United Nations Security Council claims that the North Korean plane was actually Iran-bound.

Charged with the trafficking of illegal arms and violating U.N. sanctions against trading with North Korea, all five crewmembers - four Kazakhs and one Belarusian ? were arrested. According to the Bangkok Post, members of the American intelligence community tipped off the Thai authorities about the plane.

Following the stipulations set forth in a 2009 U.N. sanction against the release and refueling of dubious North Korean aircraft, the plane was impounded where it landed in the Thai airport. The sanction, associated with U.N. resolution 1874, came as a response to North Korea's unbidden Taepodong-2 missile launch over the Sea of Japan and nuclear tests last year.

But resolution 1874 is just the latest in a series of U.N. resolutions affecting the armament sales of North Korea. Resolution 1718, passed in June 2006, banned the sale of "Armored combat vehicles, large caliber artillery systems, attack helicopters, missiles, and spare parts".

According to military reporting group globalsecurity.org, this is not the first time that North Korean weapons have been intercepted bound for Iran. In August 2009, the authorities of the United Arab Emirates intercepted a shipment of North Korean arms. Since 2006, Iran has steadily built up an arsenal of several hundred scud-c missiles, many of them purchased from North Korea, or manufactured with North Korean aid.

North Korea earns about $1.5 billion in annual income from missile sales abroad to countries such as Iran and Libya, according to a report published by the United States-based Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis.


Associate Professor of History Zhihong Chen spoke of the reasoning for the partnership between Iran and North Korea.
"The partnership between Iran and North Korea has a lot to do with the axis of evil," she said. "Such a label forced them to take sides. Iran has been backed into a corner by the United States."

"North Korea has been an arms supplier, especially ballistic missiles, to the Middle East and terrorist groups for years," said Associate Professor of Political Science Robert Duncan.
Duncan suggested that these sales would certainly be considered a threat to United States national security, but only if they have been going on for some time.

So far, the United Nations missions of Iran and North Korea have declined to comment on the seizures, and it remains to be seen what further actions will be implemented by the United Nations Security Council.

[American Patriot]

How Iran Obtains U.S. Technology

60 Minutes: Despite Total U.S. Trade Embargo, Country Manages to Obtain U.S. Technology



(CBS) Could crucial parts of the equipment Iran is using in its uranium enrichment facility have come from the U.S.? American law enforcement authorities say sensitive devices and electronics are being smuggled into Iran.

A photo of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran, where Iranian officials say they've begun enriching uranium, seems to show an American component crucial to the enrichment process.

60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl's report on the smuggling of American made technology and electronics into Iran will be broadcast this Sunday, Feb. 14, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

In a photograph of Ahmadinejad taken in March 2007 at the Natanz facility a piece of lab equipment right behind the Iranian president may be American made. The device is called a pressure transducer. "The Iranians are trying to acquire these transducers," says Special Agent Clark Settles of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which investigates these proliferation cases. "It's an integral part of enriching uranium," he tells Stahl.

Despite the U.S. sanctions against trade with Iran, the Iranians are able to siphon technology because much of the equipment can also be bought and used for non-military purposes, in the medical or telecommunications fields for instance.

Middlemen, usually small trading companies, can obtain these materials legally only then to divert them, by transshipping them to third party countries, to Iran. The scope of the problem was realized in 2005, when the U.S. military discovered US-made components in improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in Iraq.

The subsequent investigation revealed that American companies were tricked into sending them to middlemen in Dubai, from there they were diverted to Iran and ended up in Iraq. "They're finding that on a regular basis: that there are U.S. components inside of IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan," says ICE Special Agent Settles.

Iran's aggressive smuggling efforts had gotten so worrisome that in 2007 the government launched a multi-agency initiative spearheaded by the U.S. Justice Department to investigate and stop the illicit trade.

It's led and coordinated by David Kris, head of the National Security Division at the Justice Department. He says smugglers can be found all over the world, including right here in the U.S. "The Iranians will exploit an opportunity if they see one…whether the guy is an international arms dealer, with a mink coat and a private jet, or a guy operating out of a basement," he tells Stahl.

The U.S. has indicted over a hundred smugglers working for Iran in the three years since the initiative was launched.

Currently, the detention of one accused smuggler has triggered an international dispute between Iran, the U.S. and France.

Majid Kakavand from Tehran was arrested on a U.S. warrant while in Paris on vacation. He is accused of tricking several American companies into shipping tens of thousands of electrical components to Iran, via Malaysia. One of his clients in Iran was IEI - Iran Electronic Industries - a company that sells and builds electronics for the Iranian military.

In one example, a Huntsville, Ala., company sold him a spectro-reflectometer, a measuring device with many uses, among them, the U.S. government argues, the ability to enhance the design of long-range missiles. On Feb. 17th a French court is scheduled to rule on whether Kakavand will be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial.

In an exclusive interview Kakavand says, "I'm not a criminal. I haven't done anything. I am innocent... It seems I am a victim of the existing policies between Iran and the United States." His lawyer, Diane Francois, continues, "Nowhere else in the world this is considered a crime….The United States is somehow asking foreign countries to recognize their embargo," she tells Stahl.

But the U.S. says Kakavand was doing business in the U.S., not France and he lied to obtain the goods.