| Submit your comments on this article |
| China-Japan-Koreas |
| North Korea arms plane ‘bound for Hezbollah' |
| 2010-05-12 |
| Weapons on an arms-laden aircraft seized in Bangkok en route from North Korea last year were intended for sale to the militant Islamist organisations Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel's Foreign Minister has claimed. Avigdor Lieberman described North Korea, Syria and Iran as a new “axis of evil' during an official visit to Japan today. He accused them of building and spreading weapons of mass destruction, adding that they posed “the biggest threat to world security'. Mr Lieberman told reporters: “We saw this kind of cooperation only two or maybe three months ago with the North Korean plane in Bangkok with huge numbers of different weapons with the intention to smuggle these weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah.' Mystery has surrounded the destination of the Ilyushin-76 aircraft, which was found to be carrying 35 tonnes of weapons including rockets and grenades when it was seized on landing for a re-fuelling stop at Bangkok on December 12. Its East European crew told Thai officials that their aircraft carried nothing more suspicious than oil-drilling equipment. However a tip-off from foreign intelligence services — believed to be American — led to a search of the aircraft that uncovered the weapons hoard, while flight documents indicated the plane's destination was Iran Analysts have said that while the aircraft may have been heading for Iran, the weapons could have been earmarked for radical Islamist groups such as Hamas and Labanon-based Hezbollah which Iran has bankrolled and supplied with weapons in the past. Mr Lieberman's comments come as the hostile rhetoric between Israel and Iran heats up. Over the last two days the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has accused Iran of trying to provoke war between Syria and Israel while the Minister for Strategic Affairs Moseh Ya'alon reminded Iran that a military option still existed against its nuclear programme. In response, Iran's parliamentary Speaker threatened a “final and decisive war' against Israel. Syria has also been warned over the potential transfer of Scud misiles to Hezbollah, with the United States raising the issue with the Syrian Embassy four times in recent weeks |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #1 Avigdor Lieberman described North Korea, Syria and Iran as a new "axis of evil" during an official visit to Japan today. nothing new here. |
| Posted by: Swanimote 2010-05-12 17:12 |