US caught German ship running arms from Iran to Hezbollah
posted at 8:47 am on October 13, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
The US and its allies patrol the seas, looking to stop proliferation of nuclear technology and to enforce sanctions against rogue nations, especially on arms trafficking. In the case of the latter, one of its allies clearly needs a little more work in preventing trafficking — on their own ships:
US troops boarded a German-owned freighter in early October and found eight containers full of ammunition, allegedly headed to Syria from Iran. The shipment is in violation of a UN weapons embargo and has become a source of chagrin in Berlin.
An “embarrassing affair,” is how one German diplomat described it. The official could also have added: potentially damaging to trans-Atlantic relations.
In an operation reported on by SPIEGEL over the weekend, US soldiers entered the freighter Hansa India in the Gulf of Suez at the beginning of October and discovered seven containers full of 7.62 millimeter ammunition suitable for Kalashnikov rifles. An eighth container was full of cartridges suitable for the manufacture of additional rounds. The incident is particularly awkward for Berlin as the Hansa India is registered to the Hamburg-based shipping company Leonhardt & Blumberg.
Investigators suspect that the arms were part of an Iranian shipment bound for either the Syrian army or for Hezbollah, the militant Islamist group. US officials have pointed out that the delivery is in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747, which prohibits arms shipments either into or out of Iran.
Not only do international sanctions forbid arms trafficking with Iran, Germany is one of the P5+1 nations that are wrangling over putting tougher sanctions on Iran at the moment. As Cuffy Meigs points out, they’re the +1 added as a sop to their status even though the group originally comprised just the permanent members of the UN Security Council:
As Secretary of State Clinton arrives in Moscow to continue trying to get all the P5+1 (US, Russia, China, Britain, France — the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — plus Germany) on board with tougher Iranian sanctions, the “+1″ gets a big, black eye … Nice to have a trusted UN partner like Germany flouting UN sanctions against Iran … in the midst of trying to secure more UN sanctions against Iran. Ausgezeichnet.
Cuffy also points out that the Syrian army is almost certainly not the intended client. They manufacture their own 7.62 mm cartridges and don’t need to import them. That leaves Hezbollah, and probably a very angry Israel, whose soldiers and civilians would be the intended targets of the ammunition.
What else do German ships transport into and out of Iran? What else have we not caught?
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: 1 2 Next »
There we go meddling again.
/
B Man on October 13, 2009 at 8:50 AM
Why is Iran risking discovery by moving ammunition on ships past Israel instead of just transporting them on trucks through Turkey?
BadgerHawk on October 13, 2009 at 8:51 AM
Remember
we’re steal dealing with the remnants of Bush and the image he created for us abroad
/src
blatantblue on October 13, 2009 at 8:52 AM
And with regards to Iran, we don’t need sanctions. A naval blockade to stop refined fuel from entering the country would grind them to a halt in about a week.
BadgerHawk on October 13, 2009 at 8:52 AM
Well, isnt this special. Im starting to wonder who we should trust overseas. Id say none of them.
becki51758 on October 13, 2009 at 8:53 AM
Our commander in peace is not interested in stopping these matters. Let it go, it doesn’t matter.
bluegrass on October 13, 2009 at 8:54 AM
understatement….
cmsinaz on October 13, 2009 at 8:54 AM
With friends like this…….
jimmy2shoes on October 13, 2009 at 8:55 AM
I sure miss our buckaroo, W……
cmsinaz on October 13, 2009 at 8:56 AM
No time for this trivia . . . Obama must hurry and get more free stuff from his nanny government for his parasitic constituents and leftist worshipers. Sad state of affairs.
rplat on October 13, 2009 at 8:58 AM
So German companies are essentially helping Hezbollah kill Jews. Nice. No cultural guilt there for Germany to worry about.
highhopes on October 13, 2009 at 8:59 AM
Keep your enemies close. Keep your friends even closer.
fify :-)
coldwarrior on October 13, 2009 at 9:00 AM
How’s all that peace workin’ out for you now, Peace Prize Boy?
TXUS on October 13, 2009 at 9:00 AM
Bush may have been hated overseas, but none of our allies pulled this crap…and our enemies feared what he would do, so they didnt pull this crap either.
becki51758 on October 13, 2009 at 9:00 AM
Those were exactly my thoughts after reading the first paragraph.
anticucho on October 13, 2009 at 9:00 AM
How does this play on the issue of Germany and the Jews.
I see a lot of political hay being made from somebody on this issue.
conservnut on October 13, 2009 at 9:01 AM
Achtung! Our friend the Germans.
MaiDee on October 13, 2009 at 9:02 AM
uh oh…look who’s hand was caught in the cookie jar…..
shame on you Germans…you know you must be punished for this…go stand in the corner.
hawkman on October 13, 2009 at 9:02 AM
does this mean that the germans are against us in the War On Terror??
hawkman on October 13, 2009 at 9:03 AM
copy that…
cmsinaz on October 13, 2009 at 9:03 AM
They run ammo shipments through the sea, knowing it may be cought in the international waters. The real weapons are coming through air.
Aristotle on October 13, 2009 at 9:04 AM
Because it is harder to catch a ship being naughty than a convoy of trucks.
Squid Shark on October 13, 2009 at 9:06 AM
this doesn’t necessarily mean that the entire German govt wants to transport arms from Iran to Syria. I would bet that there are US ships that carry contraband too.
Iran is the problem. stop trying to shift blame to someone else. Iran is the problem.
kelley in virginia on October 13, 2009 at 9:08 AM
Has the Family Guy mentioned this in his briefings?
becki51758 on October 13, 2009 at 9:08 AM
I know of a few US citizen owned cars carryig dope.
I wouldn’t blame Germany for what won of its citizens carried on the boat. But, now that they are caught, the citizen should be prosecuted by Germany, or at least confiscate the boat.
barnone on October 13, 2009 at 9:08 AM
drop in the bucket
Alden Pyle on October 13, 2009 at 9:08 AM
I doubt if our resident eunuch in the White House will even hear about this. Sad when you trust international news agencies more than you do our own government owned mainstream media..
volsense on October 13, 2009 at 9:09 AM
right. let’s prosecute the German boat owner, move on from that & do something about Iran.
what bambi & the UN have done to let Iran get a good nuclear weapon foothold may be irreverible. i don’t know.
kelley in virginia on October 13, 2009 at 9:10 AM
They’re called torpedoes, USE THEM!
Jeff from WI on October 13, 2009 at 9:10 AM
Are you implying that the Germans aren’t mesmerized by Obama’s speeches? Oh my………they must be racists.
olesparkie on October 13, 2009 at 9:11 AM
Iran – Turkey – Syria. Not really any unfriendly ground along the route. It’s a lot easier to discover stuff in trucks, but I don’t know who would be looking to discover anything.
BadgerHawk on October 13, 2009 at 9:11 AM
Easy, cowboy.
BadgerHawk on October 13, 2009 at 9:12 AM
Say what you will – the Iranians continue to make FOOLS of us and our allies. You have to admire that.
HondaV65 on October 13, 2009 at 9:12 AM
Meh.
Such is the way of the world; arms merchants operate extra-nationally. An embarassment for German customs, yes, but the same thing has happened to us.
Next.
Doorgunner on October 13, 2009 at 9:13 AM
See? That Nobel Peace Prize is already paying dividends.
.
locomotivebreath1901 on October 13, 2009 at 9:13 AM
In other news…the US and Russia have agreed to delay sanctions against Iran….
coldwarrior on October 13, 2009 at 9:14 AM
While Obama negotiates with a wild fire, his firemen are starting new fires behind his back.
Brilliant!
csdeven on October 13, 2009 at 9:14 AM
They call and raise holding a 2 and 7, and we are folding while holding pocket aces.
WashJeff on October 13, 2009 at 9:14 AM
Stop the freighter, after contraband is discovered give the crew half an hour to abandon ship, then put her on the bottom. Problem solved.
Jeff from WI on October 13, 2009 at 9:16 AM
Sure looks like those talks with Iran are working.
I wonder could those arms been somehow destined to the AF/PAC region???
kringeesmom on October 13, 2009 at 9:17 AM
don’t forget the UN OIl for Food Scandal(largest financial scam known in history), Germany opposed Iraq for a reason.
jp on October 13, 2009 at 9:19 AM
Iran isn’t the whole problem. The German government’s response to a German-flagged ship carrying contraband to terrorists will be important.
highhopes on October 13, 2009 at 9:19 AM
This is always what “negotiations” lead to. All talk does is allow your enemy to get some R&R. There will be peace for Israel when they win, not when they’re busy fighting.
Mojave Mark on October 13, 2009 at 9:21 AM
I’m thinking Cheney was right. Maybe we should have gone ahead and bombed the crap out of Iran. They’re the problem, always have been.
bridgetown on October 13, 2009 at 9:21 AM
So, sink millions of dollars worth of shipping and the legitimate cargo onboard and ignore the environmental impact of doing? Wouldn’t fining the heck out of the shippers and/or impounding the ships make more sense?
highhopes on October 13, 2009 at 9:22 AM
Time for a biergarden summit! That’ll do the trick!
rockmom on October 13, 2009 at 9:24 AM
Why is anyone from among our “allies” doing any business with Iran anyway?
That only greases their power to make nukes.
The Suicide of the West marches on.
profitsbeard on October 13, 2009 at 9:27 AM
How about taking all ammo and using it on country it is coming from. heh
bridgetown on October 13, 2009 at 9:27 AM
Am I naive here; isn’t it probable that “Germany” had nothing to do with this? Just because a ship is registered in a country or owned by someone in a country, doesn’t mean that country or it’s government has anything to do with the day-to-day choices made by the people leasing/operating the ship in terms of cargo, destinations, etc – does it?
I suspect a great number of nefarious things occur on ships of a variety of countries-of-origin, including some that are owned/registered in the United States.
I admit I don’t know a lot about international maritime shipping, but it seems a stretch to link the German government with this kind of thing, doesn’t it?
Midas on October 13, 2009 at 9:29 AM
Not if you want to be taken seriously. Put her on the bottom.
jimmy2shoes on October 13, 2009 at 9:33 AM
Turkey is NATO, has never fought Israel, and its government is definitely not Islamist. Also Turkey has its own shopping list in Brussels and Washington, and a few hundred tons of confiscated Iranian arms would buy Turkey a lot of goodwill.
Apart from those factors that would segregate it from Iran, in 1999 the Turks sent 20,000 troops to their Syrian border to stiffen a demand that Syria stop aiding and abetting the Kurdish-separatist PPK.
Chris_Balsz on October 13, 2009 at 9:34 AM
This would sell out at Wal-Mart before lunch.
exception on October 13, 2009 at 9:36 AM
Guys,
You can’t blame Germany and all Germans for this one rogue owner/captain.
blink on October 13, 2009 at 9:38 AM
Dear Leader’s response:
These aren’t the…ummm….bullets?….errr….ammo?….you’re looking for…
Knott Buyinit on October 13, 2009 at 9:39 AM
I think the first three points are irrelevant to the question at hand, though the fourth is very valid, and something I hadn’t thought about.
BadgerHawk on October 13, 2009 at 9:41 AM
Just divert the shipment to Wal-Mart. We’re still low around here.
TexasDan on October 13, 2009 at 9:45 AM
Next thing you know we’ll have Obama’s military terrorizing German women and children in their homes in the middle of the night. Or something.
Jaibones on October 13, 2009 at 9:45 AM
Sigh. You stole my girlfriend in High School too, didn’t you?
TexasDan on October 13, 2009 at 9:46 AM
Beat me to it. I swear, this must be one of the greatest rhetorical questions evah!
Gang-of-One on October 13, 2009 at 9:48 AM
Eek!
“That leaves Hezbollah, and probably a very angry Israel, whose soldiers and civilians would be the intended targets of the ammunition.”
That little fact is not going to play well with the majority of the German populace. They will freak out at whatever company it was that transported the ammunition, especially if the company KNEW what was there. Germans beat themselves up constantly over the Holocaust, so anything with “Germans” and “Kill Jews” in the same headline will send them into a tizzy fit!
wuesteblitz on October 13, 2009 at 9:51 AM
Look the other way. Obama has a Nobel Peace prize.
Have you ever heard of peace doves?
Schadenfreude on October 13, 2009 at 9:53 AM
Taste just like chicken.
coldwarrior on October 13, 2009 at 9:57 AM
Every country has their low lifes. Throw the book at them and move on.
- The Cat
P.S. It was German owned but was it German crewed and skippered?
P.P.S. Smugglers! Pirates! Feed em to the sharks!
MirCat on October 13, 2009 at 9:58 AM
We shouldn’t blame the German government for this, even though it is an embarrassment for them. There are all sorts of ships that transport illicit cargo under the banners of supposedly peaceful, friendly nations that don’t police ships registered in their countries very well, and even the Bush Administration was thinking of letting a company from the United Arab Emirates manage some American ports.
This is definitely a good catch by the US Navy, and an embarrassment to Germany, and to the company who owns this ship.
It also begs the question of why Iran was sending arms to Syria BY SHIP all the way around the Arabian Peninsula, through the Suez Canal…because the shorter overland route through Iraq is controlled by the Americans, thanks to George W. Bush. Something about strategery.
Steve Z on October 13, 2009 at 10:10 AM
Sink it. It’s easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.
Static on October 13, 2009 at 10:23 AM
Obama:
“Let me be clear. We apologize for meddling in other countries’ affairs. This practice of boarding and inspecting ships was obviously set up by my predecessor, and we will look into ending this inflammatory action going forward.”
revolutionismyname on October 13, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Chris_Balsz, Turkey is very Islamist so drop that mindset now. They are NATO but refused to allow Port Entry to the US for the Northern Route invasion of Iraq during OIF.
Do some homework Bud.
old trooper2 on October 13, 2009 at 10:36 AM
There are alot of ships on the ocean, more than most realize, and finding one, even with the COMPLETE dominance we nejoy over hte oceans is a trial and a half.
Squid Shark on October 13, 2009 at 10:40 AM
So who would be to “blame” for this?
Are we saying that the German government knew about these shipments? Or would it be the company that owns the vessel? Or it’s captain?
29Victor on October 13, 2009 at 10:41 AM
Turkey is full of Islamist wackos but their Military is full of professional, pro-western secularists. Their government generally lives in fear of the military because of their consitutional mandate to keep the fanatics from taking control, which is why there have been so many coups over there.
Turkey is our ally, their stance on the Iraq war was far more tied to a desire to keep the Kurds from getting frisky than from religious conviction.
Squid Shark on October 13, 2009 at 10:43 AM
That would be a profound violation of the laws of the sea, we dont break those, we enforce them
Squid Shark on October 13, 2009 at 10:44 AM
Squid Shark on October 13, 2009 at 10:46 AM
“Stop the freighter, after contraband is discovered give the crew half an hour to abandon ship, then put her on the bottom. Problem solved.”
I don’t know that it would solve the problem, but it would certainly send the right message.
GFW on October 13, 2009 at 10:50 AM
That the U.S. Navy can seize any ship it wants and sink it? That is not even remotely going to send the right message, unless you want to send the message that the US, who is generally on the hook to enforce the laws of the sea is going around breaking them.
Squid Shark on October 13, 2009 at 10:54 AM
Take the ship, take the cargo, designate both for US military purposes if feasible or sell what can’t be used.
As for the crew – ship them back to Germany third-class after a thorough background check.
Dark-Star on October 13, 2009 at 10:55 AM
Many Americans and especially niave liberals don’t seem to understand… every country on this planet has elements that are against the existence of and the well being of these Unites States of America. Some are more powerful than the government of their respective host states. Some considerably.
Griz on October 13, 2009 at 11:02 AM
They probably have corrosive primers.
PKO Strany on October 13, 2009 at 11:11 AM
A little more dialogue should solve the problem. Perhaps the Clinton solution-we will hunt down and bring to justice those responsible.
rjoco1 on October 13, 2009 at 11:19 AM
When you deny Holocaust I as some Germans do, you can take part in Holocaust II.
Christian Conservative on October 13, 2009 at 11:20 AM
Were they transporting plans for another German concentration camp?
Send a REAL message.
dthorny on October 13, 2009 at 11:30 AM
Or blame Rush Limbaugh or Fox News, those evil mongers, stirring up violence against the Nobel Appeaser.
dthorny on October 13, 2009 at 11:32 AM
Once again, a hypocritical violaton of the laws of the sea. If we were in a declared state of war with Germany or Iran it would be different.
Squid Shark on October 13, 2009 at 11:35 AM
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell!
BigMike252 on October 13, 2009 at 11:48 AM
I seriously doubt that this is official German policy as Ed seems to imply here or even that they were aware of these activities and did nothing to stop it. If there is a profit to be made in these types of arms shipments, and I’m sure it is a substantial one, then it is going to attract all kinds of unsavory elements who are willing to take the risk of doing something illegal for the big payday. There is just no evidence that the German government is somehow implicit in this arms smuggling.
tballard on October 13, 2009 at 12:13 PM
Well, let’s get this in perspective. There are more facts. Hansa India was under long-term charter to IRISL, the Iranian state shipping line.
That in itself is not prohibited by the UN sanctions. It’s the transport of weapons out of (or into) Iran that’s proscribed. Hansa India has undoubtedly transported legitimate cargo to and from Iran on a near-continuous basis.
The crew of Hansa India is almost certainly a mix of Middle Easterners and Asians, perhaps with a few Europeans as well, although as we’ll see, that’s could be unlikely. The ship is Liberian-flagged — a “flag of convenience” that many shipping companies use because it’s cheap and not well monitored. Flags of convenience are extremely common in the shipping world; they don’t inherently mean anything nefarious about the shipping company.
The picture should be coming through that German nationals probably had nothing to do with letting the arms shipment happen. That doesn’t mean the German shipper isn’t at fault, but it does mean this was not necessarily a deliberate action by Germans. (My assessment would be that it wasn’t.)
Leonhardt-Blumberg has been the target of a long-running campaign by the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF, a union) to get its convenience-flagged ship crews signed to ITF union contracts. (The crews of L-B’s EU-flagged ships are already in ITF contracts.) An online search doesn’t reveal whether Hansa India is one of the ships whose crews are still unsigned. If it’s not an “ITF” ship, there would have been no mariners onboard from nations where ocean-going seamen are all in unions. That covers all EU members, including Germany. Even if Hansa India has been signed to an ITF contract, its area of typical operations means that Europeans on the crew would be very few, and much more likely to be from Ukraine, Romania, Greece, etc than from Germany.
What all this means is that the shipping world is one in which it’s not all that hard to get under the radar, pay off a few people, and ship arms without the cognizant shipping company knowing it was happening. Issues like conflict over unionization can and will influence the loyalty and integrity of crewmembers.
So L-B should be embarrassed that this happened. But it’s going too far to consider this particular event evidence that Germans were colluding in arms shipments to Hezbollah. I did just see that the UK has told its shipping companies they won’t be allowed to charter ships to IRISL, and I hope Germany will follow suit.
J.E. Dyer on October 13, 2009 at 12:19 PM
Grrrr…. thats not a “delay”… thats a not even considering it…
Romeo13 on October 13, 2009 at 12:59 PM
I’m assuming this ammo is actually 7.62×39, NATO nomenclature for the ammunition used in the ubiquitous Kalashnikov AK-47 and other weapons associated with the former Soviet-bloc countries. This ammunition is probably the most commonly used small arms ammunition on the planet.
Undoubtedly these are actually the brass cases. (Cartridges or rounds are the completed assembly of case-primer-charge-projectile.) The brass case is the most difficult of the components to manufacture. Components are easily assembled into cartridges by relatively simple hand tools or machinery, usually at significant reduction in cost per round. From a smuggling standpoint, while the cases are the bulkiest component of the cartridge, empty cases would not alert a gunpowder sniffing dog.
These facts would increase the probability that Hezbollah was the intended ultimate recipient.
novaculus on October 13, 2009 at 1:26 PM
Who wants to bet that their response was: “Scheiße! Die Vereinigenstaaten Marine!”?
Krauts better not be messin’ with the U.S. Navy, else they’ll end up like wienerschnitzel. :-)
Rightwingguy on October 13, 2009 at 1:35 PM
Sauerkraut? Schokolade? What?
Rightwingguy on October 13, 2009 at 1:37 PM
Well I think they can’t sink a ship unless it’s a pirate vessel. As far as search and seizure of illegal cargo, I’m pretty sure it’s fine for any U.S. warship to do that. The Navy’s doing it primarily because it is the only navy that can do that.
Rightwingguy on October 13, 2009 at 1:38 PM
Stop the freighter, after contraband is discovered give the crew half an hour to abandon ship, then put her on the bottom. Problem solved.
Jeff from WI on October 13, 2009 at 9:16 AM
So, sink millions of dollars worth of shipping and the legitimate cargo onboard and ignore the environmental impact of doing? Wouldn’t fining the heck out of the shippers and/or impounding the ships make more sense?
highhopes on October 13, 2009 at 9:22 AM
Create a charity for Victims of Terrorism, auction off the ship on the world market and donate the funds to the charity. Take the arms and ammo on board to give to allies that use those munitions, Iraq & Afgahnistan.
Wallah! Win, win, win! Lesson taught to idiots, money goes to good cause, we save funds we’d have otherwise provided to allie. Could it get any better than that?
Archimedes on October 13, 2009 at 1:56 PM
We’re not supposed to know. Watch for Obama to put a kibosh on our checking any ships. Can’t think of a better way for him to stand by his muslim brothers.
capejasmine on October 13, 2009 at 3:39 PM
Nope…fire for effect. Grab the ship and cargo, and fine the owners, is nothing more than legal, perhaps, piracy.
Put a ship on the ocean floor sends a message in war time loud and clear.
Jeff from WI on October 13, 2009 at 3:49 PM
If it were a small boat with 3 or 4 teenagers our brave commander in peace would have them shot, but not anything to do with the Muslim cause.
bluegrass on October 13, 2009 at 4:53 PM
Comment pages: 1 2 Next »