Cheat Seeking Missiles

Posted by: Laer at 01:06 pm

es, the whole story of the Faina, its hull full of Russian weapons for American allies in Africa, hijacked by pirates off the Somali coast is major good stuff, matey. Rrrrr. But there’s a better one, this time with the Iranians. And chemical weapons.

This from The Times (of South Africa this time):

A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates.

Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died.

Andrew Mwangura, the director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, told the Sunday Times: “We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship.”

The vessel’s declared cargo consists of “minerals” and “industrial products”. But officials involved in negotiations over the ship are convinced that it was sailing for Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist rebels.

Chemical weapons? Is anyone really surprised that the Tehraniacs would provide chemical weapons to an Islamist insurgency in Somalia? Will anyone really be surprised if/when the same Tehraniacs provide a nuclear device to Islamist insurgents to set of in Israel, Europe or America?

More on the story:

The ship is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, or IRISL, a state-owned company run by the Iranian military.

According to the US Treasury Department, the IRISL regularly falsifies shipping documents to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments and operates under various covers to circumvent United Nations sanctions.

The ship set sail from Nanjing, China, at the end of July. According to its manifest, it was heading for Rotterdam where it would unload 42500 tons of iron ore and “industrial products” purchased by a German client.

The ship set sail from China? Now if I was a crazed Mullah and I wanted to deliver some chemical weapons I happened to have on hand just down the pike to Somalia, I don’t think I’d do it by way of China. It’s much more likely that the Tehraniacs contracted with China to purchase the chemical weapons.

Is anyone surprised that China would sell chemical weapons to anyone with the cash to buy them? After all, they put melamine in their own babies’ milk just to make an extra buck.

There’s good guys and bad guys in the world, and thanks to some sick and dying bad guys in Somalia, we’ve been given a window into where the real evil resides.

Hat-tip: Jim

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