Thailand Saves Lives in Iraq

In December, the government of Thailand seized an Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane loaded with thirty-five tons of small arms. The aircraft had stopped in Bangkok enroute from North Korea to Iran.

The shipment contained rockets, fuses, rocket launchers and rocket-propelled grenades. Iran has no need to smuggle small arms from North Korea, for domestic use. Iran has not been banned from importing weapons. Therefore, there must be another logical reason for the Iranian government to be smuggling in weapons from North Korea.

The obvious logical reason for the Iranians to buy these weapons is to funnel them to terrorist organizations in Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza. Iran has been arming these thugs and it doesn’t want to get caught. This means that Iran needs to be able to ship weapons which were not manufactured locally in Iran. It’s difficult for the Iranian government to deny that it’s supplying weapons when the weapons are designed and built by the Iranian government.

The crew of the cargo aircraft are from Kazakhstan and Belarus, proving either that Kim Jong Il has too few trained and capable North Korean pilots or that he can’t trust them to leave North Korea and return.

The people of Iraq and America owe a hearty thanks to Thailand for preventing 35 tons of small arms from being smuggled to Iran’s agents in Iraq, such as Muqtada al-Sadr.