http://www.timesofisrael.com/iranian-arms-cache-may-not-have-been-meant-for-gaza-us-official-says/
'Iran arms ship may have been bound for Sinai, not Gaza'Sinai was likely
the destination, and the misleading conclusion was an Israeli attempt to
protect Cairo, US official says
By Marissa Newman March 25, 2014, 8:16 pm
The Klos-C arms shipment seized by Israeli forces on March 5 may have been
bound for Sinai rather than the Gaza Strip, a US official and two Middle
East analysts told Reuters on Tuesday.
The report cast doubt on Israel's assertion that the Iranian cargo was
bound for the Palestinian enclave to serve terror cells there, and said
that Israel may have obfuscated its real destination in order to spare
Egypt the humiliation of conceding the security unrest in the peninsula.
"Were the Israelis to say the rockets were going to Sinai, then they would
also have had to say who in Sinai was going to receive the rockets," one
unnamed source said. The report stressed that the Middle East sources were
not Israeli.
The US official was quoted as saying that while the arsenal would
ultimately serve terrorists in targeting Israel, the bulky M302 rockets
would not have been able to avoid detection during their transfer to Gaza,
and that it was therefore far more likely that Sinai was the intended
destination.
"You look at those things and it's obvious they couldn't have been slipped
into Gaza," the official said.
Furthermore, the long range of the M302s, at 160 kilometers (100 miles),
would allow for rocket strikes of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv even from the
Sinai.
Regarding the mortars found on board the ship: The official said those were
probably meant for Gaza, since "you can fit each of those in a backpack."
The 400,000 bullets may have been shipped for another unknown African
buyer, the official said.
Naval commandos intercepted 40 M-302 missiles,181 122-mm mortars, and
400,000 7.62 caliber bullet in the arms cache on the Panamanian flagged
ship in the Red Sea, off the coasts of Eritrea and Sudan.
Israel hailed the discovery of the shipment as exposing Iranian efforts to
support global terrorism, and repeatedly stressed that the arms cache was
meant for Gaza.
Egyptian Army soldiers patrol in an armored vehicle backed by a helicopter
gunship during a sweep through villages in in Sheikh Zuweyid, northern
Sinai, Egypt, May 12, 2013 (photo credit: AP)
"This operation thwarted a significant threat to Israeli citizens," Defense
Minister Moshe Ya'alon said. "Those missiles that have been uncovered would
certainly have threatened millions of Israelis had they reached the Gaza
Strip."
"We prevented the transfer of weapons to Gaza and simultaneously exposed
the truth about Iran," IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz said.
While Israeli leaders point to the Gaza Strip as an obvious staging ground
for terror, al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has been
active in Sinai in past months, taking responsibility for a bus bombing in
the Egyptian town of Taba that left four dead and 13 injured on February
17, for several Grad rockets launched at Eilat, and for blowing up a gas
pipeline.
Some of the 40 rockets put on display by the IDF along the docks of the
southern port of Eilat, Monday, March 10, 2014 (photo credit: AFP/Jack Guez)
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis is reportedly holed up in the mountainous center of
the arid peninsula, an area that the Egyptian military since the toppling
of President Mohammed Morsi has been loath to approach in its ongoing
battle with terror groups in the increasingly turbulent territory.
The White House issued a condemnation of the Islamic Republic's support for
terror five days after the find, a delay denounced by Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.
Iran has denied any connection with the terror shipment.
Netanyahu organized a large-scale exhibit of the findings and press
conference in Eilat a few days after the operation, but the media blitz
largely failed to impress the foreign journalists present at the event.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Received on Tue Mar 25 2014 - 15:10:47 EDT