Iraq Insurgent ground fire bringing down US Choppers

[earth_as_one]

On Friday, insurgents shot down their fourth American helicopter in two weeks.

US chopper 'shot down' in Iraq
03/02/2007


Washington - Two crew were killed when a United States army helicopter crashed and burnt north of Baghdad on Friday, apparently brought down by enemy fire, said the US department of defence. The US military issued a statement confirming that a military helicopter had gone down northwest of Baghdad.

"Two soldiers were killed when the helicopter went down. Their remains have been recovered and the site secured," read the statement.

The military statement did not identify the type of helicopter or say what had caused the crash, but a US defence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said it was an army AH-64 Apache gunship.

"The initial report is that it was a shoot-down," said the official.

It was the fourth US helicopter to be downed in less than two weeks. Investigators believe a UH-60 Blackhawk was also shot down with an SA-7 shoulder-fired missile, killing 12 soldiers aboard.

"Clearly, there's been more effective ground fire, or ground fire that has been more effective against our helicopters in the last couple of weeks," said US marine general Peter Pace, chairperson of the Pentagon's joint chiefs of staff.

Crash site aflame "(We're) taking a hard look at that. Don't know whether or not this is just statistically what's going to happen over time when you're flying at that level and people are shooting at you, or if there's some kind of new tactics and techniques that we need to adjust to."...

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,9294,2-10-1460_2063962,00.html

Four helicopters in two weeks could be a coincidence or an indication that Iraqi insurgents have better weaponry. Although the US has no evidence directly linking Iran to these incidents, its also no secret that Iran has a presence in Iraq and is suspected of aiding Iraqi insurgents:

US warns Iran to halt aid to Iraqi insurgents

By JoAnne Allen

Washington - Iran is supplying Iraqi insurgents with weapons technology used to kill American troops, a senior US diplomat said on Wednesday, sending another warning to Iran against interfering in Iraq.

"We have picked up individuals who we believe are giving very sophisticated explosive technology to Shi'a insurgent groups who then use that technology to target and kill American soldiers," said Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns.

"It's a very serious situation. And the message from the United States is, Iran should cease and desist."

The United States has been tracking Iranian involvement in in Iraqi insurgent attacks for about two years and has found increasing evidence that Iran has given assistance to Shi'a in Southern Iraq, Burns said in an interview with NPR taped for broadcast on Thursday.

"They have attacked British soldiers near Basra and they've now begun to mount those operations throughout the country - at least in the Baghdad region as well," Burns said.

Washington officials have charged that Iran is providing Shi'as with high-grade explosives capable of tearing through the Armour on military vehicles.

The Bush administration has repeatedly warned Iran against fuelling violence in Iraq and US forces have detained a number of Iranian officials in raids over the past month....

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2813&art_id=qw1170314463921B265&click_id=2813&set_id=1

For about a year, Iran has been manufacturing second generation man portable surface to air missiles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misagh-2

The US isn't claiming that Iranian missiles are bringing down their choppers. But insurgents are using the same type of man portable SAMs (SA-7) possessed by Iran which are being replaced by their newer domestic model (Misagh-2).

Iran launches new surface-to-air missile production

By Alon Ben-David JDW Correspondent
Tel Aviv

Iran launched a mass production line for a new man-portable low- to very-low-altitude surface-to-air missile called the Mithaq-2 on 6 February.

The shoulder-launched Mithaq-2, believed to be a short-range passive infra-red missile developed by the Iranian Defence Ministry's Shahid Kazemi Industrial Complex in Tehran, is an advanced version of the indigenously developed Mithaq-1 air-defence system.

The Iranian army, which operates older Soviet-made SA-7 Strela 2M and SA-14 Strela 3 man-portable air-defence systems, has been seeking to boost its air-defence capabilities as the dispute regarding the nuclear programme escalates. In anticipation of a potential airstrike on its nuclear facilities, the Iranians acquired 29 Russian Tor-M1 (SA-15 Guantlet) self-propelled surface-to-air missile systems in December 2005...

http://www.janes.com/aerospace/military/news/jdw/jdw060213_1_n.shtml

Iran may have taken a page from the American book on how to bog down your enemy in an unwinnable war:

...Beginning in 1985, the CIA supplied mujaheddin rebels with extensive satellite reconnaissance data of Soviet targets on the Afghan battlefield, plans for military operations based on the satellite intelligence, intercepts of Soviet communications, secret communications networks for the rebels, delayed timing devices for tons of C-4 plastic explosives for urban sabotage and sophisticated guerrilla attacks, long-range sniper rifles, a targeting device for mortars that was linked to a U.S. Navy satellite, wire-guided anti-tank missiles, and other equipment.

The move to upgrade aid to the mujaheddin roughly coincided with the well-known decision in 1986 to provide the mujaheddin with sophisticated, U.S.-made Stinger antiaircraft missiles....
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/MiddleEast/TerrorInUSA/Anatomy.asp

The Israeli DebkaFile made this statement almost a year ago:

A Fresh Supply of Iranian Weapons for New Batch of Iraqi Shiite Terrorists
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
May 15, 2006

In the past two weeks, Iran has been pumping into Iraq two types of extra-lethal weapons in very large quantities. They have already taken their toll in the shooting down of two military helicopters - one American and one British – and an estimated 19 deaths of US military personnel.

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources estimate the delivery to Iraqi insurgents as consisting of around 1,000 SA-7 Strela ground-air missiles made in Iran, and a very large quantity of a newly-developed roadside bomb, loaded with compressed gas instead of ball bearings and cartridges, to magnify their blast and explosive power.

The supplies have been distributed across Iraq - Basra and Amara in the south, Baghdad and its environs, Haditha in the west, and Mosul in the north.

The new bombs, developed jointly by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the Lebanese Hizballah, have already gone into service with the Shiite terrorists on the Lebanese border with Israel. Israeli military sources say it is only a matter of time before the deadly roadside bombs, already used in Iraq, will also reach Palestinian areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip...

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1165

But its possible that Iran isn't directly supplying Iraqi insurgents, but selling off their older surplus munitions and somehow, some of these munitions have found their way into the hands of Iraqi insurgents.

Another possibility is that Iran has nothing to do with Iraqi insurgent's recent increased ability to shoot down American helicopters.

 

[earth_as_one]

Jordan's albawaba

US copter crashes as at least 15 dead

...Witnesses said the helicopter had been shot down in a field in the Sheik Amir area northwest of Baghdad. The reports came five days after a U.S. Army helicopter crashed in a hail of gunfire north of Baghdad, police and witnesses said....

http://www.albawaba.com/en/news/209364

That's five in less than five weeks.

I'm not sure I'd want to land at Baghdad international.

FAS Strategic Security Project Blog, DC - 6 Feb 2007

...It is difficult to overstate the importance of this Initiative, particularly to the US-led global campaign to eliminate the terrorist threat from shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles. Since the 1970s, terrorists and insurgents have used these missiles, often referred to as man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), to shoot down at least 40 commercial aircraft and scores of military aircraft, including several US helicopters in Iraq. The Small Arms/Light Weapons Destruction Initiative has reduced the pool of missiles used in such attacks by 21,000** - the equivalent of about half the estimated global inventory of loosely secured and insecure MANPADS...

http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2007/02/bush_gets_it_right_on_small_ar.php

 

[RomSpaceKnight]

Iran has to do something with excess old inventories. Walmart gets rid of excess inventory to highest bidder all the time. So a couple of ManPads go astray. Yanks sell ManPADS to Afghans to fight Soviets, Yanks sell arms to Iran for hostages, Iran sells arms to Sunni insurgents, Russia sells arms to Eygpt, Isreal and SA cooperate on artillery technology, America sells arms to Pakistan, China sells arms to India, N. Korea sells arms to Saddam, Libya sells arms to Palestinians.....and so on and so on and so on.

 

[tamarin]

Yes, it is five. Not good news for an America primed for the 'surge.' It does look like Iran is involved and Russian weaponry. It has all the makings of a helluva political headache.

 

[RomSpaceKnight]

It's not a political headache already? Is a political headache an upgrade from a collossal f@#$ up?

 

[gopher]

Reports are that several billion USA dollars are unaccounted for. Could some of these funds have found their way into the insurgents's till and that this is how they have bought those armaments (that is, if those reports are accurate)?

As someone who read the Pentagon Papers many years ago, I would say that ANYTHING is possible.

 

[tamarin]

What lies ahead will indeed be a master headache for the US. This is its last chance to grab credibility from the jaws of international embarrassment.

 

[tamarin]

Gopher, with the stakes so high and the rewards so great for some interlopers I don't think C.O.D. is a major consideration for some of the weapons dealers.

 

[gopher]

Gopher, with the stakes so high and the rewards so great for some interlopers I don't think C.O.D. is a major consideration for some of the weapons dealers.

And the longer the war goes on, the higher the profits for Halliburton. Choppers are shot down, and Cheney celebrates.

That's America for you.