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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| India detains Iran-bound N Korea ship |
| 2006-11-10 |
| India has detained an empty North Korean cargo ship bound for Iran after it strayed into Indian waters, baffling coast guard officials and police about the purpose of its voyage. “MV Omrani-II” developed a snag and entered Indian waters on Oct 29 and was towed to the Mumbai Port where the crew was being questioned by Indian intelligence and customs officials. “The crew has not been able to explain why they were sailing an empty vessel to Iran,” a senior coast guard official told Reuters on condition of anonymity on Thursday. However a senior official at the DG Shipping said: “They have told us that because it is a new ship they were testing it. But it is strange that they should need to sail as far as Iran.” Officials said documents for the new 45-metre vessel were in order, although life-saving equipment was found to be deficient. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 Test run comes to mind!!!! |
| Posted by: Cheregum Crelet7867 2006-11-10 12:33 |
| #4 Indian IB has a long memory. They'll search that thing top to bottom... NEW DELHI -- Tae Min Hun, the dour captain of the North Korean freighter Kuwolsan, glared icily from the bridge as tempers around him soared in the midday heat. On June 30, 1999, as customs agents in India's northwestern port city of Kandla waited impatiently to board the vessel, Tae received urgent instructions from Pyongyang: At all cost, let no one open the cargo boxes. The Indians tried to look anyway, and a melee erupted. Tae and his crew rained blows on inspectors and barricaded the doors with their bodies, according to witness accounts and video footage of the encounter. A few agents who managed to slip into the cargo bay were horrified to find North Koreans sealing the hatches, trapping them inside. When the ship's doors were finally reopened at gunpoint, the reason for the extreme secrecy became clear. Hidden inside wooden crates marked "water refinement equipment" was an assembly line for ballistic missiles: tips of nose cones, sheet metal for rocket frames, machine tools, guidance systems and, in smaller crates, ream upon ream of engineers' drawings labeled "Scud B" and "Scud C." The intended recipient of the cargo, according to U.S. intelligence officials, was Libya. "In the past we had seen missiles or engine parts, but here was an entire assembly line for missiles offered for sale," said an Indian government official familiar with the discovery. "This was a complete technology transfer." Today, the evidence from the Kuwolsan remains locked in a military warehouse in the Indian capital, where it has been scrutinized since being seized four years ago. The results of India's investigation, shared among a small circle of intelligence and defense analysts, offer an extraordinary glimpse into the shadowy world of weapons proliferation, in which missile parts and bomb materials circle the globe undetected, secreted away in cargo containers and suitcases, concealed by phony ship manifests and fictitious company names, eluding customs agents and defying international treaties. |
| Posted by: john 2006-11-10 11:38 |
| #3 Check the interior between the double hulls, go knocking on bulkheads, bring in the geiger counters. Think like a smuggler, for god's sake. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2006-11-10 10:11 |
| #2 India detains Iran-bound N Korea ship ¿ Our SEALS fouled the prop forcing the ship to seek port? ¿ [“MV Omrani-II”] The ship's crew wished to defect? ¿ a not to subtle threat? [next time it could be "loaded"] "Nork Motivations" I'll have to stop right here and leave the serious analysis up to the experts here at Rantburg who can fathom the Maximum crazy wack motivations of the Norks. |
| Posted by: RD 2006-11-10 02:20 |
| #1 although life-saving equipment was found to be deficient Not as deficient as the excuses, I'll bet. |
| Posted by: gorb 2006-11-10 00:33 |