A Full Rundown Of Iran's Military Might

[longknife]

Walter Hickey and Robert Johnson Iran's Military Weapons - Business Insider

Iran's military has 545,000 active personnel and some of the most advanced military technology of anyone out there.

The thing is, the United States gave them a lot of it.

Read more: Iran's Military Weapons - Business Insider with many pictures and links to a most impressive arsenal.

This sits one back on one's heels to see their arsenal.

 

[toastman]

Just remember, a fighter jet is only as good as the pilot who operates it.

Israel has some of the best pilots in the world.

 

[Urbanguerrilla]

Just remember, a fighter jet is only as good as the pilot who operates it.

Israel has some of the best pilots in the world.

How would you know...they havent had to 'fight' a first world pilot since at least the 70s...

[ame="http://youtu.be/L6qT_1S5xTs"]http://youtu.be/L6qT_1S5xTs[/ame]

 

[Urbanguerrilla]

Israel is not invincible...Hezbollah made a meal of their Merkava tank.

$5.5 billion to make these tanks and the Al quids Brigade can blow them sky-high with old 1970s RPG technology...

[ame=http://youtu.be/dgZdbM2Mnmg]Israeli tanks failure from 1973 war to Lebanon 2006 - p(2/4) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[waltky]

Iran backin' terrorists...

More Evidence Emerges of Worldwide Iranian-Backed Terror Plotting
February 22, 2013 – Two incidents almost 3,000 miles apart this week have shed fresh light on allegations that a Iranian-backed network is plotting against Western targets, primarily Israeli but also American.

In a court in the Cypriot seaside resort of Limassol, a dual Lebanese-Swedish national suspected of espionage and terrorism confessed to being a member of Hezbollah, the Iranian-sponsored Lebanese Shi’ite group, and of carrying out tasks including identifying locations in Cyprus where Israelis gather, and arranging the rental of a warehouse. In his notebook, police found registration numbers of tourist buses.

The 24-year-old, who travels on a Swedish passport, also said he had earlier delivered packages on Hezbollah’s behalf in Turkey, France and the Netherlands. He claimed ignorance of the contents. The suspect was arrested in a Limassol hotel last July, just days before a bus bombing in Bulgaria killed five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian. The Bulgarian government early this month said investigations had concluded that Hezbollah members were behind the attack.

Cyprus and Bulgaria are both members of the European Union, which the United States has been urging to designate the Lebanese group as a terrorist organization in a bid to strangle its funding sources in Europe. The union is divided over the issue, but the revelation that the suspect in Cyprus undertook tasks for Hezbollah in at least three E.U. countries, while traveling on the passport of an E.U. member state, will add to concerns.

Sweden is also a member of the Schengen agreement, which allows travel between 26 countries (although Cyprus is not yet one of them), without border controls. The Hezbollah operative appeared in the Limassol court on Thursday, and was remanded in custody until a next appearance, scheduled for March 7. Although he admitted being a member of Hezbollah for four years and of undergoing military training, he denied involvement in a bombing plot. He faces eight counts, including conspiracy, intention to commit a crime, and participation in a criminal organization.

USAID, Jewish Center among targets

See also:

UK trial reveals new al Qaeda strategy to hit West
February 21st, 2013 - The trial of three Birmingham men convicted Thursday of plotting to launch a "catastrophic" suicide bombing attack in the United Kingdom revealed that al Qaeda has developed a new strategy to target the West.

The new strategy involves a teacher-training approach in which a select few Western operatives are taught bombmaking and other aspects of terrorist tradecraft in the tribal areas of Pakistan and are then instructed to return back to the West to "spread the knowledge" to a larger body of Islamist extremists keen on launching attacks. The new approach is a response to the growing toll of drone strikes which have made travel to the tribal areas increasingly perilous for Western recruits and significantly diminished al Qaeda's ability to orchestrate terrorist plots from the region. The trial revealed that terrorist groups in Pakistan are actively dissuading Western militants from making the trip.

Two of those convicted Thursday - Irfan Naseer and Irfan Khalid - received 40 days of terrorist training in the tribal areas of Pakistan in the spring of 2011, mostly inside houses in the valleys of Waziristan. In conversations bugged by British police, the plotters described being handled by al Qaeda operatives and having attended a training camp run by Harakat al Mujahideen, a Pakistani terrorist group closely affiliated with al Qaeda. The recordings revealed that like other Western militants before them, they were provided detailed instruction in the tricky and potentially hazardous methods to make bombs out of substances readily available in the West, and practiced detonating them. Their instructors included Arabs and Pakistanis.

They also were taught how to put poisons in face creams. And their teachers emphasized they should put nails inside their bombs, to act as razor-sharp shrapnel. Naseer, a pharmacy major and the plot's alleged ringleader, was heard recalling how one of their trainers had said the July 7, 2005, London bombers had missed an opportunity to kill more people by failing to put nails in their devices. Naseer commented on how they were given so much information that they had accumulated 30-40 pages of notes. They were told the smaller the cell they recruited the better, illustrating al Qaeda's move away from spectacular attacks on the 9/11 scale toward smaller strikes that have a better chance of getting through.

In the recordings played in court, Naseer said his cell should keep the numbers launching the attack in the United Kingdom to around half a dozen. The recordings, however, indicated the cell's plans grew increasingly ambitious with talk of launching an attack bigger than the 2005 London bombings. The need for less ambitious attacks was previously stressed by two senior American al Qaeda operatives: al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Adnan Shukrijumah, an operative believed to be still at large in Pakistan. An internal al Qaeda strategy document, authored in around 2009, and recovered in 2011 from a Berlin operative, had called for a greater emphasis on low-cost low-tech attacks by Western militants, whom it said should be quickly trained in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Teaching Westerners to teach back home

 

[tjvh]

Walter Hickey and Robert Johnson Iran's Military Weapons - Business Insider

Iran's military has 545,000 active personnel and some of the most advanced military technology of anyone out there.

The thing is, the United States gave them a lot of it.

Read more: Iran's Military Weapons - Business Insider with many pictures and links to a most impressive arsenal.

This sits one back on one's heels to see their arsenal.

The F-14? Really. When I left the military in 1989 they said the probability that any of those F-14's were still operational (then) was next to zero. People have to understand, that without a viable parts stream Western fighters like that become giant paper weights. I'm sure the same goes for any other American made aircraft acquired so long ago -under the Shah's regime.

 

[Politico]

How would you know...they havent had to 'fight' a first world pilot since at least the 70s...

Iran Air Force, 2012 The Secret World's best. - YouTube

Neither have we. What's your point?