Saturday, January 14, 2012

Singapore and arm sales to Iran

Two months ago, CNA reports few people were arrested for selling "military technologies" to Iran.

The United States charged four Singaporeans and an Iranian on Tuesday with illegally exporting US-made radio equipment to Iran that ended up in roadside bombs targeting coalition forces in Iraq.

The United States has requested the extradition of the Singaporeans, who were arrested on Monday in Singapore, but the Iranian is still at large and lives in Iran, the Justice Department said.

Three Singapore-based companies and an Iranian company were also charged in the indictment, which accuses Iranian national Hossein Larijani of masterminding the illegal export of 6,000 radio frequency modules from a Minnesota-based company to Iran.

The modules have encryption capabilities and a range that allows them to transmit data wirelessly as far as 40 miles (65 kilometers) when configured with a specialized antenna.

At least 16 were discovered by US forces in Iraq being used in remote detonation systems for IEDs (improvised explosive devices), which, according to the indictment, caused roughly 60 percent of American combat casualties in Iraq between 2001 and 2007.

"Yesterday, authorities in Singapore arrested Wong Yuh Lan (Wong), Lim Yong Nam (Nam), Lim Kow Seng (Seng), and Hia Soo Gan Benson (Hia), all citizens of Singapore, in connection with a US request for extradition," the Justice Department said.

"The remaining individual defendant, Hossein Larijani, is a citizen and resident of Iran who remains at large."
......
Admiral Mike Mullen, then the top US military officer, said in July that Iran was stepping up its support for Shiite militants in Iraq, supplying them with more sophisticated weapons that were being used against American forces.


I see the charges made by US as a moral bankruptcy. First, triggering a remote control bomb certainly does not requires a RF device of 65km range. Which crazy man would trigger a road side bomb at 65 km away, without seeing the target passing by real time. A clear line of sight is needed for such operation. A simple off the shelf Bluetooth which can be boosted to 200 m range is more than enough. A couple of Bluetooth used as repeater could trigger a bomb 2-3 km away. I do not see the rationale a "high class' 65km long range RF module being use in road side bomb.

Regarding IEDs in Iraq, most are planted by Sunni militias who are the enemies of Shiite Iran. The former Iraqi Shiite arm men now form the backbone of Iraqi army and police.

While its true that Iran tries to buy sensitive military technologies, US is at the same time guilty of hyping Iranian threats and make false accusation of terrorism against Iran.

Further Singapore arm sales
The greatest benefiter of our arm sales is not Iran, but ironically Saddam Iraq, when he was a lackey of US fighting the Mullahs of Iran. According to wikipedia, Singapore was the largest Chemical supplier to Saddam, for him to gas the not only the Iranian, but also the kurd in the Halabja poison gas attack.

The Kim Al-Khaleej firm, located in Singapore and affiliated to United Arab Emirates, supplied more than 4,500 tons of VX, sarin, and mustard gas precursors and production equipment to Iraq.

Selling a few RF module brings some small people in trouble. On the other hand, no one goes after the Kim Al-Khaleej. Till now, no one in Singapore is aware what the company Kim Al-Khaleej is about.





1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Buddy, the 40 mile range device can be used at line of sight and I suspect the encryption (frequency hopping?) is resistant to jamming that I am sure is used heavily to protect convoys. So, yes, having these modules leaked to the enemy is bad news for America. He didn't pull the trigger but he sold the weapon.