Scud missiles heading for HORN OF AFRICA intercepted

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

Could have been heading to Somaliland, Puntland, Djibouti, or Southern Somalia. I doubt it was going to Ethiopia or Yemen. If it was truely heading for Somalia, this is a whole new ball game for the Horn.

 

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pentagon officials said Tuesday that U.S. military weapons specialists have found at least a dozen Scud missiles aboard a ship stopped en route from North Korea several hundred miles off the coast southeast of Yemen in the Indian Ocean. (View map)

 

Scuds are the type of ballistic missiles that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein used to attack both Saudi Arabia and Israel during the Persian Gulf War.

 

But U.S. officials said there is no indication the ship was headed to Iraq. They said there was every suggestion it was headed to the Horn of Africa.

 

U.S. intelligence had been monitoring the ship since it left North Korea several days ago headed for the Arabian Sea region, officials said.

 

The ship -- called the So San -- was stopped Monday by the Spanish navy frigate Navarra, which had to fire several warning shots to get it to halt, a senior aide to the Spanish defense minister told CNN.

 

Once the ship stopped, about a dozen armed Spanish naval inspectors flew over by helicopter and boarded it.

 

Although the ship did not have a flag, the aide said its crew was North Korean.

 

When the Spanish crew looked into the cargo hold, they found containers buried in the cement.

 

They opened one container and found what appeared to be missile parts, officials said. The Spanish crew then called for assistance from the United States, and a U.S. explosives ordnance disposal team went on board.

 

As to ownership or nationality of the ship, a senior official told CNN it appeared to be a "stateless vessel" and said there was not much in the way of official paperwork on the ship.

 

News of the ship's interception came amid increased tension between the United States and North Korea. In October, North Korea acknowledged it was developing nuclear weapons despite its 1994 agreement to freeze its nuclear weapons development program.

 

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last week called North Korea the "single biggest proliferator of ballistic missiles" and said the communist nation is "a danger to the world."

 

President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, earlier this year called North Korea a "merchant for ballistic missile technology" and said Pyongyang was willing to sell the weapons "to just about anybody who will buy."

 

"The North Koreans have been known to go around with glossy brochures about their ballistic missiles. They're stocking a lot of the world right now," Rice said.

 

Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh confirmed in August that it bought Scud-C tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs) from North Korea around 1999 and 2000, according to Jane's Defense Weekly.

 

Saleh defended the purchase as a legitimate arms transfer because his country was under no arms ban, Jane's said.

 

According to the weapons research organization, Yemen is reported to have about six Soviet-built Scud-B transporter-erector-launcher vehicles and about 18 Soviet-built 300 kilometer-range Scud-B missiles.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/12/10/ship.boarding/index.html

[StarGazer]

Damn!

[Paragon]

Serious News! Who knows if the US is just amalgamating the whole interception with an intent and excuse to enter the Horn. We just don't know!

[Thinkerman]

I would hazard a guess that that is exactly what their intent is Jamaal, they have been buildling mass troop numbers in the horn in jabuti and confereing with ethopian govt.

And rember this comes just afew days after Minster Melez of ethopia claimed that somalia had links to Al-qaida?

I think things a falling into place all to allarmingly well. A picture, a pretext can be set for entering the horn, or @ the very list establish long term bases of one sort or another.

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

It is in the news that YEMEN owned the scuds from North Korea. America had no choice but to let them go because it was an "unlawful" hijacking of a ship in international waters. YEMEN said it owns the scuds and wants them released a.s.a.p.

 

Somalia and Eritrea better not mess with Yemen. Remember that Island off the Puntland coast called SUQADARA (Siyaad Barre once said we own it and he would attack if Yemen doesn't return it).

[Dhimbil]

So after all the missiles weren't headed for Horn of Africa?...good news.

 

This shows the U.S is eager to blame everything on horn of africa.