Wonder why the Israelis thought their ship had been hit by a drone last week — when it turned out to be a radar-guided missile instead? Or why the crew of the Hanit corvette didn’t use their countermeasures to protect themselves? Simple: the Sabras knew that Hezbollah had been playing with drones; they had no idea that the terrorist group had such a sophisticated missile in their arsenal. It’s one of a number of ways that the “power and sophistication” of Hezbollah’s arms “has caught the United States and Israel off guard,” the Times reports. “Officials in both countries are just now learning the extent to which the militant group has succeeded in getting weapons from Iran and Syria.”
The missile that hit the Hanit was a C-802, an Iranian-made variant of a stealthy, turbojet-powered, Chinese weapon. It’s “considered along with the US ‘Harpoon’ as among the best anti-ship missiles” in the world, GlobalSecurity.org says.
“Iran began buying dozens of those sophisticated antiship missiles from the Chinese during the 1990’s,” the Times notes. “Until Friday, however, Western intelligence services did not know that Iran had managed to ship C-802 missiles to Hezbollah.”
Now that the Israelis know, it’s influencing their choice of targets to hit. The C-802 was most likely “fired it from a truck-mounted launcher cued by a coastal radar installation,” Situational Awareness says. So “Israel has stepped up its attacks against coastal radar sites, as any sort of surface-search set would be able to provide data for the initial launch.”
After launch, the missile takes care of itself with its own inertial guidance system and onboard radar seeker. Since the launchers are mobile, the trucks carrying them could scoot after firing. And we all know how notoriously difficult it can be to locate mobile units, even when you have lots of reconnaissance assets.
The terrorists’ more traditional weapons, like Katyusha rockets and Fajr-3 missiles, have contained surprises, too. “In the past, we’d see three, four, maybe eight launches at any given time if Hezbollah was feeling feisty,” one unnammed official told the paper. “Now we see them arriving in large clusters, and with a range and even certain accuracy we have not seen in the past.”
70 Katyushas were fired at Israel “within the space of an hour” on Wednesday afternoon, Ha’Aretz writes. Israel is responding by sending small group of ground troops into Lebanon, and by striking targets in Beruit — including ones in the Christian part of town.
The Times says that “while Iranian missile supplies to Hezbollah, either by sea or overland via Syria, were well known, officials said the current conflict also indicated that some of the rockets in Hezbollah’s arsenal — including a 220-millimeter rocket used in a deadly attack on a railway site in Haifa on Sunday — were built in Syria.”
Officials have since confirmed that the warhead on the Syrian rocket was filled with ball bearings — a method of destruction used frequently in suicide bombings but not in warhead technology.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said one Western intelligence official, speaking about the warhead.
Conflicts Forum’s Mark Perry, on the other hand, isn’t as alarmed as most about Hezbollah’s weaponry. {Joe Katzman says that’s because the guy is a terrorist shill.} Perry declares that the militia only has a handful of sophisticated and long-range missiles. Check out his All Things Considered interview here.
UPDATE 1:43 PM: “Israeli military officials have warned that the next Palestinian uprising could be ‘a ballistic intifada,’” the Washington Post reports.
(Big ups: Umansky)
UPDATE 7:13 PM: The Jerusalem Post is reporting that “IAF fighter jets dropped over 20 tons in bombs late Wednesday night on a Hizbullah bunker, possibly the hiding place of the group’s leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, in the Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp in southeast Beirut. It was still unclear who was in the bunker at the time and what their fate was, but IDF sources said the bunker was totally destroyed and that all that was left was a crater.”
Mark Perry would be expected to say that – his organization shills for Hezbollah, and before that he serviced Yasser Arafat whom he describes as his personal friend. He isn’t a reliable source for anything except the Hezbollah line.
See:
http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/008805.php
C-802 missiles are pretty sophisticated for a group like Hezbollah considering their traditional weapons of choice have been unguided rockets.
I’m not completely surprised by the volume of rockets they have managed to light off though. The Soviets used to mount Katyushas on double-sided racks, 8 deep on the backs of trucks. With all the rubble and debris in Southern Lebanon, its has be easy to fire Katyushas in quick order.
I am surprised by the potential large arsenal they have been able to amass. 100 122mm rockets just don’t grow on trees, which makes you wonder how much the Israelis knew about stockpiles of that size.
Robot, you lead me into a point that’s been on my mind throughout this discussion: folks have reported that everyone was caught off guard by the C-802 incident, and since I don’t know the first thing about anti-ship missiles, that’s perfectly believable. But no one in Israel has been caught off-guard by the volume or the range of rockets that have been launched into Israel, sadly. The Israeli press has been covering reports of Hezbollah acquiring rockets with ranges sufficient to hit the major cities for months if not years now, and has been tossing around numbers in the thousands to tens of thousands for the overall arsenal (though of course the vast majority of that figure is believed to be short-range rockets). And in fact if you follow the Israeli press or talk to Israelis, there’s maybe surprisingly little surprise that all this is happening – it’s seemed for a while like it was inevitable that eventually Hezbollah would use those weapons it was stockpiling. There’s maybe some surprise or disappointment at how little success the military’s had at curtailing the firing – there’s always surprise and disappointment at how little your own military can do against terrorists – but on the whole things are still within people’s margin of patience for Bad Shit Happening. So “surprise” probably isn’t the best term to describe the overall Israeli reaction right now.
And as for sophistication – Iranians or no Iranians, recall that through September 10, 2001, even the US considered Hezbollah the most dangerous and sophisticated terrorist organization in the world. Anyone capable of pulling off the Beirut Marine barracks bombings and the two Buenos Aires bombings – twenty-some-odd years ago and fifteen years ago, respectively – has had some time to learn missileering. This is a very serious foe.
Haninah, your comment reinforces my nagging feeling that this particular conflict has been building for a long time. I’m not at all surprised to hear that Israelis have been expecting some sort of barrage. It does stretch credulity to believe Hezbollah wants this many rockets simply for deterrence (or pride, or some such).
I’m interested, though, in the many other reasons Israel chose now for such a strong response. Israel has faced missile attacks and kidnappings before; if the country has been watching the missile buildup for so long, the pressure to act should have certainly been mounting commensurately. However, the military waited and seems to have taken the kidnappings as an excuse to bombard the entire country. I don’t know a ton about Middle East politics, but, in retrospect, something along these lines seems inevitable since Hezbollah was elected into Lebanon’s government.
Hezbollah’s place in the Lebanese government gives some justification for acting against the entire country–state sovereignty and responsibility and all that–since by electing Hezbollah, the country on some level endorsed their actions. Combine that relatively new situation with a new prime minster (and defense minister, I think?), increasing aggression from Hamas, and jitters over the new Iranian leadership and nuclear program, and the kidnappings provided a perfect opportunity to attempt a reshaping of the status quo–hopefully in Israel’s favor.
Such a strong Israeli military response also jives with what you said about Israelis being disappointed that their military hasn’t done more to prevent missile launchings. While geopolitical foreign policy concerns are almost certainly primary, domestic Israeli politics have to play some role in this as well.
I guess I have a couple questions: First, do you think the status quo was untenable in the short term? Second, would there have been a more advantageous time for Israel to act, given the convergence of all these factors so recently?
Hi Tech, Low Tech, US and Israeli pilots are a bunch of Baby Killers! Who, when they are flying are tough guys but when they are shot down become Homos! Add to the list the Coward Hezbollah Missile and Rocket boys too.
“Took it out with a heat-seeker, Dylan. That’s pretty sophistocated tech for a bunch of half-assed mountain boys.”
“Guess they’re getting better equipped all the time.”
Suprisingly sophistocated technology? Missing soldiers? Very hot summer? Obviously, the Israelis need to watch out for the Predator.
“I don’t know a ton about Middle East politics”
You made this clear by saying:
“Hezbollah was elected into Lebanon’s government.”
Hezbollah was not elected to Lebanon’s govt, and there is no justification for the scale of Israeli attacks on civilian, economic and infastructural targets.
You may be thinking about Hamas’ political wing getting elected to head the Palestinian authority which is entirely separate and in no way justifies the ongoing slaughter in Lebanon.
For up to date information untainted by propaganda please see http://www.gnn.tv.
Pearse: Hezbollah has two ministers in the lebanese
government … where do you get off posting propaganda references?
–gh
From the next article (“DOOD KATYUSHAZ R COMIN 2 U”):
>FEMA is working on a similar system here in the U.S., with a twist. FEMA’s text messages
>will “tell you to get to a television or radio because something unfortunate has happened that
>you need to know about.” Sounds like Cellact’s straightforward alerts make a little more sense.
What the… Why does US gets slammed when Israel is given a standing ovation for similar techniques and technology? I can’t believe FEMA’s text message system only gives limited information, but I believe FEMA has something SUPERIOR than Israel. FEMA also plans to use the Internet to access and cut into (in other terms, hack) PCs giving emergency stress calls. I would guess there would be people slamming FEMA for cutting into everyone’s PC that looks like hacking, but would give a standing ovation if it was Israel doing the same. There is something wrong here.
Pearce, not only are there two Hezbollah ministers in the Lebanese government, there are also 23 Hezbollah MPs.
Geez, lets do this one by the numbers.
It is obvious that the anti-ship missile that struck the sa’ar 5 corvette Hanit was not a parafin fueled turbojet powered c-802 with a 165 kilogram HE warhead. The c-802 is an oth missile that requires more infrastructure to fire and target successfully than the Hizb-e-allah armed wing have at their disposal. Furthermore the warhead of the c-802 is capable of sinking a vessel of 10 kilotons, the sa’ar 5 masses only ~1.3 kilotons and though critically damaged was not sunk.
From the distance of the Hanit from the lebanese shore and the level of damage suffered by the Hanit it is more likely that the antiship missile that crippled the israeli corvette was an iranian kosar missile. This missile is a modified c-701, the range is enhanced slightly the warhead remains the same but the electro-opitical tracker is replaced with a millimeter search radar. The kosar can be launched off the back of an toyota truck at a target within visible range. The kosar comes in a sealed airtight container and can be stored for long periods of time until needed. The damage suffered by the Hanit most closely matches the size of the warhead fielded by the kosar.
Also i’ve read various odd reports about a high-low attack against the hanit by multiple missiles and that the hanit’s defense systems were turned off to prevent fratricide; both are false.
Firing a missile into a high arc above a vessel will not in anyway degrade the ability of the passive ecm package from doing it’s job against sea-skimmers. Likewise the anti-missile defense systems will not in anyway splash friendly aircraft, the range of the phalanx gun coupled with the operating altitude of jets armed with pgms makes this an impossibility as evidenced by the fact that a nearby idf vessel had it’s ecm pakage and anti-missile phalanx gun operational. The cambodian vessel that was destroyed was too far at sea for a lucky lock on by an errant shore launched missile, it was most likely destroyed by accident by the idf who may have mistaken it for a threat source, a la the uss liberty
At the end of the day, it looks as if the iranians have modified the c-701 enough to be able to defeat the anti-missile systems of the the idf, which are heavily reliant on begged, borrowed and stolen u.s. technology; i, and every u.s. ship captain who’ll have to transit the straits of hormuz or even come close to the persian gulf, wonder to what degreee the iranians have modified other weapons in their arsenal, namely the c-802.
Pearse says “Hezbollah was not elected to Lebanon’s govt” And then offers as his impeccable authority something called the Guerrilla News Network.
That’s odd. The rest of the world remembers very clearly that Hezbollah has members elected into the current Lebanese government. Here’s the Council on Foreign Relations report, for instance:
http://www.cfr.org/publication/8195/lebanon.html
peace i just want to say that hezbollah is the protector of LEBANON from the israeli’s invasion and they love this country more than any one and we support them because they protected us and care for us and discraced israeli troops and i wish them victory and triumpy peace be on yuo all