Tuesday, November 10, 2009
It's far from the first solid evidence that Iran is directly responsible for dead Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, but here is more visual proof of the connection. The arms seized on the Francop (see here and here) match up with those seized by Americans in Iraq in 2007. Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee blogged about that incident at the time, and has since been contacted by the Israeli Foreign Ministry concerning photos he posted. Good on both the blogger and the MFA: Iranian Rockets Captured by Israel Identical to Rockets Fired At U.S. Bases in Iraq
...I was contacted by the Israeli Foreign Ministry about a photo I had blogged about on July 15, 2007, regarding a Shiite rocket attack on U.S. forces in Iraq.
The rockets recovered by the Israeli Navy last week, bound for terrorists in Lebanon, are identical to those Iran provided to Shiite militias targeting American soldiers in Iraq. There are numerous similar reports of Iranian weapons being shipped to the Taliban in Afghanistan, including one cache uncovered just two months ago.
During the summer of 2007, the escalation of violence from Shiite militias peaked in Iraq, and the government of Iran was implicated for supplying late-model weapons directly to these groups. Some of the most damning evidence came in July 2007, when 34 Iranian rockets were recovered by elements of the U.S. Army's 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team on July 12 after an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) discovered 46 launchers. Twelve rockets from that location had been fired at Forward Operating Base Hammer one day before.
I asked for and obtained photos of the rockets and launchers from Multi-National Forces-Iraq (MNF-I) Public Affairs, and subsequently published a post to my personal blog.
Among the photos published on Confederate Yankee was this close-up photo of an Iranian 107mm rocket on a crude launcher, its markings plainly visible...
See the link for more, including the photos.
Update: Bob Owens (Confederate Yankee) discussing the issue with Bill Whittle on PJTV (video).
