China - Iran & the Terrorists

China-Iran Arming, Taliban/Iraq's Terrorists

The Washington Times

New intelligence reveals China is covertly supplying large quantities of small arms and weapons to insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, through Iran. US government appeals to China to check some of the arms shipments in advance were met with stonewalling by Beijing, which insisted it knew nothing about the shipments and asked for additional intelligence on the transfers.

The ploy has been used in the past by China to hide its arms-proliferation activities from the United States, according to US officials with access to the intelligence reports. Some arms were sent by aircraft directly from Chinese factories to Afghanistan and included large-caliber sniper rifles, millions of rounds of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and components for roadside bombs, as well as other small arms.

The Washington Times reported June 5 that Chinese-made HN-5 anti-aircraft missiles were being used by the Taliban. According to the officials, the Iranians, in buying the arms, asked Chinese state-run suppliers to expedite the transfers and to remove serial numbers to prevent tracing their origin.

China, for its part, offered to transport the weapons in order to prevent the weapons from being interdicted. The weapons were described as "late-model" arms that have not been seen in the field before and were not left over from Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq. US Army specialists suspect the weapons were transferred within the past three months.

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