Missing ship may have secret cargo

TWO LAST RADICAL NEWS!

RUSSIA GENERAL ADMITS THAT THE SHIP TRANSPORTED ILLEGAL ARMS TO IRAN, CARRIED OUT BY THE RUSSIAN MAFIA

www.independent.co.uk... orld/europe/arctic-sea-was-carrying-illegal-arms-says-general-1778970.html
A general close to the investigation into the mysterious voyage of the Arctic Sea has told a Russian newspaper that he suspected the ship was carrying a secret cargo of illegal weapons, as many conspiracy theorists have suggested. The general said that he knew far more than he could say openly at this stage.

RUSSIA PRESS ADMITS MOSSAD CONNECTION TO ARCTIC SEA.

feeds.bignewsnetwork.com...
A Russian newspaper claimed Friday that suspected pirates who boarded the freighter Arctic Sea were actually agents of the Israeli secret service trying to stop it smuggling arms to Iran.

[edit on 29-8-2009 by segurelha]

The picture of a stash of arms; specifically missiles without warheads meant to accommodate a biological payload seems to be congealing perfectly.

The part of the supposed hijackers being Mossad conscripts seems less likely based on what information has been released. That part of the story is still as muddy as it ever was. My theory remains that there never were hijackers. There might have been an "inspection" at sea, but no hijacking.

The "arms Mafia" were just probably trying to figure out what to do next once their mission had been leaked/discovered/unearthed.

edit to add: They might have even decided at the last minute to try and ship their stuff to Venezuela once the Iran plan was foiled. That is when as the Russians were about to intercept them; they made a last minute effort to switch again to a closer port - west Africa, but were caught anyway.

We always hear about how powerful the Russian underworld is. This story confirms the rumors.

[edit on 8/29/2009 by wayno]

Fix the link for your first article

www.independent.co.uk...

An unnamed general 'close' to the investigation, how close ? What is being close to an investigation ? He suspects ? Does he know or not ? Because suspecting is what we are doing for weeks now.
Very interesting but how do we know it's not a new cover story ? They even say it matchs what some conspiracy theorists were suspecting. So they fed us with what we want to believe since all their other stories have failed ?

reply to post by segurelha


I'm still having trouble with this story. Those missiles aren't exactly small and I can't believe that they'd risk discovery and load the timber from Finland.
Anyone have any specs on these parts when not assembled? My guess is that they aren't small.
I'd be more inclined to believe if the story would be that there was a single nuclear warhead on board.

[Edit] To add why on earth would they do that if they can ship them directly trough Caspian??? Makes no sense at all.

[edit on 29/8/2009 by PsykoOps]

Somewhere in this stinking heap of disinfo it was suggested more than once that the missiles were to accommodate a chemical payload; not nuclear. I buy that -- don't know why, but I do; maybe because it would be less detectable. Surely enough that kind of weapon would still have the potential to do severe enough damage to be a deterrent to Israel.

That the so-called Russian mafia were the ones behind this (on behalf of criminal government members) would explain perhaps why they didn't just resort to the Caspian. They had to go via some less obvious route to further conceal Russian government involvement -- a route that as it turns out, was not so smart.

Here's a couple more articles on the situation:

Crew of Arctic Sea released after nearly two weeks

The 11 members of the crew of the hijacked ship were flown from Cape Verde to Russia nearly two weeks ago.

The Russian news agency Interfax reports that the men returned to their home town of Archangelsk, where they were met by their families.
On Sunday, Russian authorities gave conflicting accounts of whether or not all of the crew would be released.
The online portal life.ru reported that only nine members of the crew had been released.
Rabbe von Hertzen of the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said that no information had come to Finland during the weekend about the release of the crew.

Sailors Say Ship Went To Bermuda Triangle

Crew members of the Arctic Sea cargo ship joked that they had disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle and been fed ice cream by pirates as they returned home to their families in Arkhangelsk on Sunday.

But the 11 sailors, who were greeted by relatives as they stepped off a train from Moscow, refused to shed any light on what had happened between July 24, when their ship was purportedly seized by hijackers near Sweden, and their rescue off the western coast of Africa by the Navy on Aug. 17.

The sailors also would not discuss their subsequent two weeks in Moscow, where investigators questioned them and only allowed them to contact relatives Thursday.

an interesting snippet from the moscowtimes article:

Meanwhile, the web site of the Sovfracht Maritime Bulletin, run by piracy expert Mikhail Voitenko, crashed Friday afternoon and remained down Sunday. Voitenko believes that the Arctic Sea saga has political overtones, and the issue has been widely discussed on his web site. “The site is down, and the forum too,” Voitenko said in a statement. “At the moment, I have no idea when it will open. I don’t know why it is down either.”

Crew's not talking, stories still vague and incomplete, critical websites shut down... This story stunk from day one and the smell is getting worse everyday. Guess what? no MSM coverage that I could see, surprise surprise.....

how many AS-15 / GH-15 missiles does iran need ?

according to far more reliable sources than the ones making dire claims about the cargo of the arctic sea

iran already has at least 15 AS-15 missiles - sold to them by / through the Ukraine via fake end user certificates

and to restate the obvious - shipping ANYTHING from kalingrad [ NOT part of russia ] via finland , then algeria with a final destination of iran is fooking over complcated beyond belief - at every stage you have to risk discovery or induct a nother layer into the consiracy

madness

when you COULD ship the alleged carfo direct from moscow to terhan by air - with no one except the deliverer / decipient knowing what it was

reply to post by ignorant_ape


What you say makes a lot of sense.

So if it wasn't missiles, then what do you think was going on with the Arctic Sea? Why was Russia so concerned that it used its war ships? Why all the double-talk? Why all the secrecy and confusion?

I could go on all day with all the questions begging to be answered. Have you any speculations that might be more realistic?

Originally posted by wayno
Why was Russia so concerned that it used its war ships?

What other ships could they use? They could look for it or not look for it, but to look for it I don't see any other possibility than using war ships.

reply to post by ArMaP


Your comment is well taken, however, they were not looking for a rowboat, therefore an air search utilizing their long range aircraft with which they fly their spy missions would be much more practical and effective. Certainly these may have been utilized without advertising the matter and they may in fact have been the means by which the ship was ultimately found.
To locate it is one thing but to capture it and retrieve the men and cargo was obviously the reason for the massive naval effort.
Once the vessel was located they could have (but obviously didn't) sent out a call for assistance to all shipping in the area. The secrecy involved in the search, and the failure to involve all possible assets of other nations just makes the whole situation that much more suspicious.

reply to post by Old Farmer

Considering that searching for a ship is a time consuming operation, I don't know if the use of aeroplanes, even long range, would be a good idea, knowing that the closest air bases are thousands of kilometres away from the ocean.

As to involving other nations, the Russian representative to NATO said that the NATO maritime monitoring system was used to find the ship, so it looks like this was not an exclusively Russian operation, but apparently that has been ignored and Russia is presented as the only participant in the operation.

I've seen absolutely nothing, over the last couple of weeks, that changes anything major, in relation to this story. We are currently going through the post-operation, dis-info phase, and to be honest, you cannot believe a word that now comes from any of those powers that were involved in this whole affair.
The only thing you can reasonably rely on, are the verifyable facts.

The Arctic sea was in Kaliningrad, and some major "repairs" were carried out there, including removing and replacing a bulkhead? while the crew were absent (on holiday).
The vessel then went to Pietarsaari, Finland, and was loaded with Timber.
The Finnish authorities say that there was no need to check the vessel, for radiation etc since the vessel was a regular visitor there, and had NO SIGNS of being adapted, or repainted etc?? (Even after Major repairs???)
They later said that they HAD checked it for radiation?
Something (a boarding) allegedly happened on 24th July.
The vessels course for the corresponding time on 24th July can be seen to be erratic on AIS tracking sites (BUT at least TWO of these sites went down or have missing data for that day?)
The "boarding" wasn't reported for Four Days, despite serious assaults and injuries to crew?
Helicopters were seen in the area the day after the boarding was reported.
The AIS transponder was then switched off.
The vessel went missing for the next two weeks.
The Russians, rush through emergency legislation, allowing them to send the fleet to the Atlantic in pursuit.
The Russians eventually find the Arctic Sea after many days of conflicting stories, lies, mis-information, deceit etc
The Maltese vessel, with Finnish Cargo, heading for an Algerian port, now MINUS it's russian/latvian/estonian crew, is taken to a Russian Naval Base (with brand new weapons storage facility)????
The innocent crew are locked up in Jail cells?
Hijackers were not on board when the vessel was "found".... then they were in custody?

Come to think of it.... how many actual "facts" are there???
I give up!

G

Originally posted by Gordi The Drummer
The Arctic sea was in Kaliningrad, and some major "repairs" were carried out there, including removing and replacing a bulkhead? while the crew were absent (on holiday).

I saw somewhere that those repairs lasted only two weeks, so I doubt they were major repairs.
(Although I do not know a thing about it, the biggest shipyard (for repairs) in Portugal was on the town where I live, and I remember seeing ships there for several months, with the special cases of huge tankers that we cut in half to add a middle section, those repairs sometimes lasted more than a year)

The Finnish authorities say that there was no need to check the vessel, for radiation etc since the vessel was a regular visitor there, and had NO SIGNS of being adapted, or repainted etc?? (Even after Major repairs???)
They later said that they HAD checked it for radiation?

The only problem with that is that both versions (there was no need to look for radiation/there was a radiation check) were only know after, so it's even harder to know which of those (or both) happened.

The "boarding" wasn't reported for Four Days, despite serious assaults and injuries to crew?

You forgot to mention who received the hijacking report and failed to pass it for four days, it was Sweden, right?

The AIS transponder was then switched off.

I only object to the use of the "then", it looks like it was switched because of the helicopters, but that is just me nitpicking.

The Russians, rush through emergency legislation, allowing them to send the fleet to the Atlantic in pursuit.

I have seen several people saying that but I haven't seen any reference to that legislation change, could you point me to it? Thanks.
I wonder why they would need a legislation change to do that.

The Maltese vessel, with Finnish Cargo, heading for an Algerian port, now MINUS it's russian/latvian/estonian crew, is taken to a Russian Naval Base (with brand new weapons storage facility)????

Where did you got that "Russian/Latvian/Estonian crew" part, wasn't the crew only Russian?

The innocent crew are locked up in Jail cells?

Guilty until proved innocent.

I never seen any reference to the crew being locked up, and they (although not all) are already in their home town.

Hijackers were not on board when the vessel was "found".... then they were in custody?

Another thing that I haven't seen anywhere, could you please give me a source to that? Thanks.

reply to post by ArMaP


You forgot to mention who received the hijacking report and failed to pass it for four days, it was Sweden, right?

As far as I'm aware... It was not reported at all to anyone, until 28th July, when a conversation took place between the "crew" or "hijackers" and the English Channel Coastguard. The Swedish authorities said that they had written statements and photos of injuries, on or around the 30th July? They later said that these were received via email, which also contradicts with the official version of events where ALL communications equipment was disabled.


The Russians, rush through emergency legislation, allowing them to send the fleet to the Atlantic in pursuit.

I have seen several people saying that but I haven't seen any reference to that legislation change, could you point me to it? Thanks.
I wonder why they would need a legislation change to do that.

"Political intrigue
But Russian security expert Pavel Felgenhauer, a columnist with the opposition weekly Novaya Gazeta, suggests the affair has a whiff of political intrigue about it. He points to the English-language news page of the Kremlin’s own website for evidence.
On Monday, according to the website, President Dmitry Medvedev submitted a draft law to the State Duma that would entitle the Kremlin, for the first time, to deploy Russian military forces overseas at its discretion “to protect Russian citizens” and to “combat piracy.” The very next day, Mr. Medvedev ordered Russian forces into action to “find, and if need be, free the ship Arctic Sea.”

The Russian Navy has dispatched five warships from its Black Sea fleet, including two nuclear submarines and the guided-missile frigate Ladny, in what the Russian media describes as a major search operation.

“It’s an extraordinary coincidence that Medvedev introduces new legislation that would give him expanded powers to fight piracy, and the next day this opportunity arises,” says Mr. Felgenhauer. “It certainly comes in handy to illustrate the Kremlin’s case,” he says."

Link to source article


Where did you got that "Russian/Latvian/Estonian crew" part, wasn't the crew only Russian?

Yeah sorry - was thinking of the "supposed" russian/latvian/estonian hijack crew!


I never seen any reference to the crew being locked up, and they (although not all) are already in their home

"Eleven crew members (the captain and several others remained on the ship) were also detained and held at Lefortovo ward in Moscow as witnesses that, according to Russia's top investigator, "needed to be immediately interrogated."[22] The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation was not supplied any information on why the crew was being held, and if they were suspected of any wrongdoing"
Link to wiki reference
(Couldn't locate my original news source file)

Those that are home, have only just been released, after being... de-briefed?


Hijackers were not on board when the vessel was "found".... then they were in custody?

Another thing that I haven't seen anywhere, could you please give me a source to that? Thanks.

"Public statements made in Russia didn't make things look as clear as you state. President Dmitry Medvedev, for example, claimed the Baltic Sea is safe and that there are no pirates there. But the next day the defense minister said, Yes, there are pirates there."
link to a source article
(Again, can't locate my original source file)

Hope this helps clarify some points?
cheers
G

reply to post by Gordi The Drummer

Thanks, it helps a lot!

I have to look for more information about that, but now at least I know what to look for.

About the legislation change, apparently the new paragraph 21 would allow the sending of Russian troops out of their borders:

- To counter an attack against Russian Armed Forces or other troops deployed beyond Russia’s borders;

- To counter or prevent an aggression against another country;

- To protect Russian citizens abroad;

- To combat piracy and ensure safe passage of shipping.

I think that under the present law only the parliament has that power.

The "excuse" is last year's war with Georgia.

just a quick note ref how low the vessel was in the water . as i said in a previous post this vessel has a freeboard of 1.1m hence how the hijackers/terrorists/ mossad got on board so easily . the thought of a vessel being allowed to sail in open waters with a lower freeboard than that is ludicrous. i would of thought the vessel may have been piloted at some time on its journey and a pilot would of raised concerns as for transporting missiles by boat . a regular container would be more secure or an aircraft, the eastern block has some very usefull and adaptable aircraft.

the post regarding the minisubs is a bit off aswell . the vessels are desighned to operate at surface level to avoid radar. 4 men in a 20 sub with a desiel engine . id give it an hour before the crew is overcome. you would also be tempting fate to tow a submerged container throught the busiest shipping lanes in the world


adapting vessels to carry extras is a well established art ie howard hughes glomar explorer took it to extremes. Arctic Sea is a double hulled ship it would be farily straight forward to create a void to smuggle munitions etc .

There is still confusion in the stories, going by segurelha's post. It has two headlines, one says the hijackers were Mafia, the other says it was Mossad who did the boarding. It can't be both.

reply to post by smurfy


They were actually venus, viewed through swamp gas, lit by ball lightning... etc etc!

What???? It makes as much sense as the official BS we're being fed!

reply to post by Gordi The Drummer


That's what I mean,
(A) Russian mob deal?
(B) Russian mob hijackers???
(C) Mossad intervention= no hijackers.
(D) Crew are all said to be Russian.
(E) Russian mob hijackers are all said to be Ethnic Russians,regardless of country,(see this link) www.guardian.co.uk...

It all stinks of official business to me.

A quote from a Simon Shuster article,
"Russia's chief investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, told official state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta that a band of new-age pirates, possibly in connivance with the crew, is all that lies behind the Arctic Sea mystery. But he did concede that there are questions that need answering. "We don't rule out the possibility that [the ship] was carrying more than just timber," he said, without elaborating further".
New-age pirates!! from the official investigator


The July manouevres in the Caspian sea were joint Russian AND Iranian navy exercises, so who needs the MV Arctic Sea?
engforum.pravda.ru...
What is the connection between Israel and the Burmese Junta?,
www.ww4report.com...
what is the connection between Russia and the Burmese Junta?
www.irrawaddy.org...
it just goes on and on.









[edit on 3-9-2009 by smurfy]