has focused on missiles and weapons of mass destruction and some “limited growth” in conventional capabilities. Some of the systems Iran is acquiring, such as Russian Kilo submarines and anti-ship cruise missiles, “could complicate operations in and around” the Persian Gulf, he added.
GULF STATES AGREE To BOLSTER CAPABILITIES (JAN 27/JDW) 01/27/95-JANE’s DEFENSE WEEKLY (JAN 21)
Leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council have agreed at their annual meeting to bolster their defense structure, possibly by purchasing three to four airborne warning and control aircraft. The six-nation alliance, comprising Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain, said in Bahrain last month it would develop a “unified strategy” that could “act swiftly and decisively” to counter any threat to any member. That includes bolstering the GCC’s 6,000-man rapid-deployment force, known as Peninsula Shield and based at Hafr all- Batin in northern Saudi Arabia, to 25,000 men. The GCC’s move to bolster defenses came as Iran is reported to be building anti-ship missile sites and other fortifications on three disputed islands in the southern Gulf. Abu Musa, Greater Tumb and Lesser Tumb are being transformed into military arsenals, claims the UAE.
IRAN DEPLOYS HAWK MISSILES To GULF ISLANDS-SHALIKASHVILI 03/08/95
Iran has placed Hawk antiaircraft missiles on islands at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Feb. 28. “We spotted them putting missiles onto launchers, which they haven’t done before,” he told a meeting of reporters, according to wire reports. U.S. reconnaissance has also spotted the Iranians moving artillery into forward positions on its islands in the Strait of Hormuz, he said. “All of that could lead me to lots of conclusions. One of them is that they want to have the capability to interdict the traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.” The U.S. is carefully monitoring the situation, he added. While Iraq is considered the biggest military threat in the Persian Gulf, Iran could become the region’s major power toward the end of the century, Shalikashvili said.
ARMS BUILDUP MAY THREATEN GULF OIL-PERRY (MAR 22/0951 GMT) 03/22/95-ABU DHAB-REUTERS Iran has moved 8,000 troops, chemical weapons and anti-ship missiles to islands at the mouth of the Gulf in a buildup that could threaten oil shipping, U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry said on Wednesday. Perry, on a week-long Gulf trip, hammered home a warning that he has made in moderate states in the region that Iran might one day try to control the flow of half the world’s oil using a recent buildup on islands in the Strait of Hormuz. “This involves almost 8,000 military personnel moved to those islands. It involves anti-ship missiles, air defense missiles, chemical weapons,” Perry told a news conference in Manama, capital of Bahrain. “It can only be regarded as a potential threat to shipping in the area,” he added, charging publicly for the first time that Iran had stationed chemical weapons on the islands, some of which are claimed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Perry did not name the islands but the Pentagon has previously identified one as Abu Musa.
NAVY FACES EXTENDED RANGE OF IRANIAN MiG-29S-NAVY NEWS & UNDERSEA TECHNOLOGY (NVTE)-08/21/95
A major new headache for Central Command and Navy battle groups in the Arabian Sea has emerged with Iran’s development of in-flight refueling probes for its MiG-29s, intelligence community sources confirm. ” … The Iranian air force possesses four tanker versions of the Boeing 707, roughly comparable to the U.S. Air Force KC-135, which was based on the never-built civilian Boeing 717.
-nautical- … The U.S. analysts look to the roughly 2,100-mile distance from Iran to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. With in-flight refueling, Diego Garcia would come within the range of the Iranian MiG-29s …. Thus, the aircraft could be used to disrupt U.S. air supply lines in the event of future conflict in the Persian Gulf. Additionally, although the MiG-29 is heavily geared to air-to-air combat, one analyst said “there is some evidence” that the Iranians are working on adapting the aircraft to carry the air-to-surface version of the French Exocet anti-ship missile. In this case, he noted, the U.S. Maritime Prepositioning Squadron based at Diego Garcia would be at risk. … The possibility of such legal Iranian harassment of U.S. battle groups concerns several analysts, who observe that because of the Vincennes’s (CG 49) shoot-down of an Iranian airliner in 1988, U.S. forces would be reluctant to attack in the face of Iranian provocations. At press time, U.S. Central Command officials had not responded to Navy News’ requests for comment on the MiG-29 development.
B-2 BOMBER FIGHT BREWING ON CAPITOL HILL, PHILLIPS BUSINESS INFORMATION 01/19/95 By KERRY GILDEAS Rep. Ron Dellums (D-Calif), ranking member on the House National Security Committee who has staunchly opposed additional B-2s, attended a closed National Security Committee briefing on military intelligence operations yesterday, said he learned of no changes in the world threat situation that would demand additional weapons systems or increased defense spending. “I absolutely do not think there is anything we see presently in the world that would justify 20 more B-2s, ” Dellums remarked. “Where are you going to fly them? Where is the threat?”
OVER THE PERSIAN GULF NEAR ABU MUSA ISLAND, IRAN 12 FEBRUARY 1997, 0314 LOCAL TIME The attackers were first spotted on radar only twenty miles from Abu Musa Island; by the time the chief of the air defense radar unit issued the air defense alert notification, they were seventeen miles out. Because this was the morning of Revolution Day in Iran, only a skeleton crew was on duty at the Islamic Republic Pasdaran-Engelab Revolutionary Guards air squadron base, and the pre-Revolution Day celebrations had ended only a few hours earlier—response time, therefore, was very slow, and the attackers were within missile range long before the Islamic Republic Air Force F-5E Tiger II fighter crews could reach their planes. The order to commit the Pasdaran’s British-built Rapier antiaircraft missiles and ZSU-23/4 antiaircraft artillery units was issued far too late.
Four three-ship flights of British Aerospace Hawk light attack jets streaked in at treetop level, launched laser-guided Hellfire missiles on the six known Iranian air defense sites, then dropped laser-guided incendiary bombs and cluster munitions on the island’s small airfield. One unknown Rapier site launched a missile and destroyed one Hawk, but two trailing Hawks flying in the “cleanup” spot scoured the area with cluster bombs where they saw the Rapier lift off, receiving a very satisfying secondary explosion as one of the unlaunched missiles exploded in its launcher. The cluster bombs also hit the U.S.-built F-5E fighters on the ramp, destroying both and damaging two hangars where another F-5E was parked, the control tower, and some sections of taxiways. One adjacent empty hangar was left untouched.
The second punch arrived just a few moments later. Four flights of four SA-342 Gazelle and SA-332 Super Puma attack helicopters swooped over the island, firing laser-guided Hellfire missiles and AS-12 wire-guided missiles from as far away as two miles—well out of range of the few Pasdaran soldiers who were firing blindly into the sky with handguns and rifles at any aircraft noise they heard.
Each attack was quick—launch on the move, no hovering in one place. The next two flights did the same, swooping in and destroying targets; then the first two waves came in again to kill any targets they’d missed on their first pass, followed by the second two flights making a second pass.
The attacks were fast and chillingly accurate. In just a few minutes, the attackers had claimed the prizes for which they had come looking: six Iranian HY-2 Silkworm and four SS-22 Sunburn antiship cruise-missile launch sites, several Rapier antiaircraft missile batteries, and a handful of antiaircraft artillery sites, plus their associated munitions storage and command-control buildings. All were either destroyed or severely damaged. The Silkworm and Sunburn missiles had been devastating long-range weapons, capable of destroying the largest supertankers or cargo vessels passing through the Persian Gulf—their presence on Abu Musa Island, close to the heavily traveled international sea lanes, had been protested by many nations for several years.
Other missile attacks had claimed a large portion of the island’s small port facilities, including the heavy-lift cranes, long-boat docks, and distillation and petroleum-handling facilities.
But the big prize, the real target, had also been destroyed: two Rodong surface-to-surface missile emplacements. The Rodong was a long-range missile that had been jointly developed by North Korea, China, and Iran, and could carry a high-explosive, chemical, biological, or even nuclear warhead. From Abu Musa Island, the missile had had sufficient range to strike and attack targets in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and most of the oil fields in eastern Saudi Arabia—about two-thirds of the oil fields in the Persian Gulf region.
The Hawk, Gazelle, and Super Puma crews were incredibly accurate, almost present. A building that supplied power to the communications and military base facilities was destroyed by two missiles, but a virtually identical building just a few yards away that supplied power to the housing units was left untouched. A semi-underground Silkworm missile bunker with a fully operational Silkworm inside got a Hellfire through its front door, yet an adjacent empty bunker undergoing refurbishment but identical in every other respect was left undamaged. Although nearly half a billion dollars of weapons, equipment, buildings, and other infrastructure were damaged or destroyed, out of
