Source: Syria Hires N. Korea to Reverse Engineer, Manufacture Russian Missiles

A source who has proved reliable in the past e-mails me to pass along that the Syrian Scientific Study Research Center has made a deal with North Korea’s Korea Overseas Mining and Development, a/k/a KOMID. Both entities are notorious proliferators, and both CERS and KOMID have been sanctioned by the Treasury Department repeatedly.

The missile we speak of is not a ballistic missile. Instead, it’s the 9M133 “Kornet” missile, an advanced antitank missile known to NATO as the AT-14 Spriggan. The Kornet has a range of 5,000 meters and multiple charges designed to defeat reactive armor. They’re said to have knocked out Israeli Merkava tanks in the hands of the Hezbollah, and are also rumored to have taken out one or two M-1 Abrams tanks in Iraq. Here’s a Russian demo video:

After the Israelis captured several Kornets from the Hezb, still stamped with shipping labels to the Syrian Ministry of Defense, they leaned on the Russians to stop selling Kornets to Syria. Apparently, the Syrians want more than the Russians are willing to sell them. And because Syria has supplied them to Hezbollah, it’s safe to assume that Iran is financing the deal.

The outline of the deal is as follows: the Syrians sent eight examples of the Kornet to the North Koreans, who will reverse engineer the missiles and manufacture more to sell back to the Syrians. The quantity is apparently sufficient to have been very helpful to North Korea in continuing its WMD development despite the loss of South Korean aid.

So, can we finally put that “axis of evil” nonsense to rest, once and for all?