BREAKING NEWS!!
BREAKING NEWS!! BREAKING NEWS!! BREAKING NEWS!!
Early Morning - March 5, 2014 – STAY TUNED FOR
UPDATES THROUGHOUT THE DAY
Israel’s navy and special forces have intercepted
a cargo ship carrying Syrian manufactured missiles heading for the smuggling
tunnels between Egyptian Sinai and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
The Preliminary Highlights (14:15 JST):
- The IDF’s Shayetet 13 naval commando unit, reinforced by elements of other elite commando forces, boarded and took control of the merchant vessel Klos-C which was sailing under a Panamanian flag, at around 05:00 JST.
- Among the hundreds of missiles hidden in shipping containers marked as and carrying sacks of concrete were dozens of M-302 advanced missiles with a range of over 200 kilometers (125 miles).The M-302 is manufactured in Syria based on Chinese technology legally licensed by China.
- This is the largest missile shipment captured since the Karine-A in January 2002.
- There was no resistance from the international crew of 17 and no casualties have been reported on either side.
- The Klos-C was captured just north of Eritrea on the Sudanese-Eritrean border which is over 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) from Eilat Port and Israel’s southernmost coast after the shipment was tracked by intelligence forces for weeks.
- IDF naval commander Gen. (Admiral) Ram Rotenberg personally oversaw the operation from the sea.
IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner:
“The IDF will continue to operate against the Iranian attempts to arm regional terrorist organizations, who intend to continuously ignite our borders. We will continue to employ all the necessary means in order to prevent the armament of terrorist organizations and will combat the Iranian smuggling attempts that threaten the security and sovereignty of the State of Israel.”
