Yemen asks Beijing to explain shipments of Chinese missiles to rebels

http://www.geostrategy-direct.com/geostrategy-direct/secure/2013/03_20/1.asp

 

Yemen asks Beijing to explain shipments of Chinese missiles to rebels

CAIRO — Yemen has determined that its Shi'ite insurgency was being supplied with Chinese-origin missiles.

Officials said Iran has sent Chinese surface-to-air missiles to the Shi'ite revolt in northern Yemen. They identified the missiles as the QW-1M, believed assembled at the state-owned China National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp.

Chinese-origin QW-1M Manpads that officials said were seized off the coast of Yemen in January are said to have been seen leaving an Iranian port.   Reuters/Yemeni Defense Ministry

"We have approached China for an explanation," an official said. The Chinese missiles were found in wake of the interception of an Iranian boat off the coast of northern Yemen in January 2013. Officials said Yemeni security forces found 10 QW-1Ms, with markings that indicated that they were manufactured in 2005.

This marked the first reported interception of anti-aircraft missiles for the Believing Youth movement, which conducted an intermittent revolt against Sanaa for much of the last decade. In the last round of fighting, which ended in 2010, Shi'ite rebels faced daily strikes by the Yemen Air Force's MiG-29 and -21 fighter-jets.

Officials said Sanaa believed that the QW-1Ms were supplied by China to Iran, which then diverted shipments to the Shi'ite rebels in northern Yemen. They did not rule out that some of the man-portable air-defense systems might have been destined for neighboring Saudi Arabia, which was also fighting Iranian-sponsored unrest.

Iran is also believed to have supplied Shi'ite militias in Iraq with the QW-1M. In 2008, the United States appealed to China to stop sending such missiles to Teheran.

Officials said the United States was helping secure the Yemeni coast amid what both countries determined was an Iranian effort to bolster the Believing Youth. They said the boat intercepted on Jan. 23 was loaded in an Iranian military port and contained the Russian-origin SA-7 surface-to-air missile.

"The size of the shipment suggests that there are plans to renew the conflict," the official said.