Iranian missile haul intercepted by Royal Navy ‘proves regime is breaking UN resolutions’ | World News
The UK says a fundamental mistake by the Iranian military helped prove it was violating UN Security Council resolutions on drones and missiles.
A missile carrier is intercepted by royal navy in the Persian Gulf last year included a quadcopter drone with a hard drive that revealed the origin of the shipment.
The Iranians went to great lengths to conceal the weapons and missiles they smuggled to allies in the region.
They do so to avoid leaving behind evidence that they are violating UN resolutions, in the hope of reducing the risk of further sanctions.
But they forgot to clear the drone’s memory.
When British officials at the Ministry of Defense in London deciphered the drive, they found records of 22 test flights carried out at the aerospace headquarters of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in Tehran.
Discovery apparently linked the shipment to Iran. It consists of a surface-to-air missile equipped with a warhead and a jet engine for a ground-attack cruise missile, wrapped in bundles of cellophane.
The Royal Navy discovered the shipment when it intercepted a speedboat in the open waters of the Persian Gulf last January.
A Wildcat helicopter was deployed to use the thrust of its propellers to disable the ship by forcing its crew to hide below deck.
A crew of Royal Marines sent to search for the ship then discovered a deadly barrage of missiles.
It is believed that the boat was operated by smugglers and headed for Iran’s allies, the Houthis who are fighting in Yemen.
“Once again the Iranian regime has been unmasked for its reckless weapons proliferation and destabilizing activities in the region,” said the secretary of state for the Middle East, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon.
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Iran is accused of violating several United Nations Security Council resolutions that ban the transfer of drones and missiles to other countries.
Sanctions imposed on Iran will not be lifted while the country continues to violate these resolutions.
Iran has gone to great lengths to cover up its missile and drone export efforts. It removes any trace of the Persian language from the rocket parts, some of them reverse engineered from the Western parts.
But the failure of scientists to erase the quadcopter’s internal memory has presented damning evidence to UN inspectors looking for evidence Iran is continuing to violate control resolutions. the export of his lethal arsenal.
