I’ll stick with a sensitive cargo, which could have been anything. The S-300 missile system is designed to be transported on Ro/Ro’s , so even if the ship was modified somehow, that does not mean it was for the sams.
I doubt it was nuclear, as I cant see any country shipping material without a platoon of marines.
Who knows, I am putting money on Metal Gear Solid
The article says that the ship is heading back to Russia , with a replacement crew, so what ever was on the manifest is probably still there, with a platoon of marines, lol.
There’s an investigation going on here and I admit that there are suspicious things that haven’t yet been answered. Contrast that with the organ case where it’s all “blood libel!” and no investigation whatsoever. I do not dismiss the idea as impossible (though nearly so for nukes).
Yulia’s ideas seemed to be based on pure speculation, while the Israeli paper’s investigation of this event might have some sources with real info, which you can see I am open for and haven’t dismissed. The same speculative ideas as Yulia is spouting were put out on day one of the hijacking when there was zero information available, and that’s why they shouldn’t be taken very seriously yet.
The article linked above by Alessan is a slightly better analogue with the organ harvesting one, as they might have something to support their argument with, though I’d like to hear more about where they got the information from. Note that their mentioned X-500 missiles seem to be fictional as I haven’t found any other reference of their existence online. It also claims that the cargo was taken back to Russia by 8 cargo planes, while I haven’t found any reference that the Arctic Sea was taken to port anywhere to unload the cargo (or does anybody have a cite?). The hijackers were taken by cargo plane though, but I believe the number of planes brought were two or three.
If you read the organ thread again, I believe you’ll find that I never really took those allegations seriously, but criticized the response of Israel. I did however not dismiss the allegations as impossible (which is the same stance as I have here), and raised some questions regarding journalistic standards of what’s enough “proof”.
If they are S-300 missilesthey are 25 feet long and appear to be approx 2 feet in diameter. It doesn’t seem like you’d have to slice open the bulkheads and retrofit a cargo ship to load these things. They would easily fit into a standard flatbed shipping container.
As far as I know the missiles used by S-300 are sealed in the launch tubes, and would require some massive logs to hide in. Furthermore, the missiles by themselves are of no use as they also need the radar and command vehicles, as well as training to use them effectively. Getting a limited number of missiles would probably do them no good against an Israeli attack in the not so distant future.
And another article (using some of the same sources I imagine).
Re. the S-300s “Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, told CNN last Sunday that he didn’t have a problem with flogging weapons to Iran, so long as they were for defensive purposes. Russia has a contract to supply Tehran with S-300s, but so far has not delivered them.”
Which is interesting because I read over a year ago that they would be on-line in November of 2008. Remember the tactical war games that Israel went through last summer with the overflight permission of Turkey?
Command systems may well have been part of the package, or obtained seperately. A limited number of missiles would be of some utility also for a country like Iran capable of back-engineering such systems (although that is without doubt not a preferred option for complex systems, necessity is the mother of…).
There seem to have been some issues with the handover of the Arctic Sea to Malta. The Maltese authorities seem to have refused to take part in the handover, and I don’t know why:
That article is a couple of weeks old, and I don’t know what has happened since then.
Regarding the sale of S-300 to Iran, Saudi Arabia seems to be offering a 2-7 billion $ arms deal with Russia with the condition that the S-300 is not sold to Iran:
It’s very recent and I haven’t found it reported at any anglophone news outlet yet, but it so happens that the M/S Arctic Sky, sister ship of the Arctic Sea, has run aground outside of Sweden after performing some strange turns last night. It is also carrying timber, to the same destination as the Arctic Sea was supposed to.
That shipping company seems to be having some bad luck… Maybe this time it’s just a drunk crew.
The buyer of the timber is apparently the same as for the Arctic Sea shipment, so it seems like they’ll have to wait again.