Category Archives: Military

Russian Dumb Bombs Land in Iran, ooops

Posted on by

TWS:  A number of cruise missiles launched from a Russian ship and aimed at targets in Syria have crashed in Iran, two U.S. officials told CNN Thursday. Monitoring by U.S. military and intelligence assets has concluded that at least four missiles crashed as they flew over Iran. One official said there may be casualties, but another official said this is not yet known.

Evidently, Russian ordinance is not quite state the art and Putin’s weapons do not match up with his will. Hard to imagine that will deter him.

***

Russia has very few precision guided missiles valued at $26,000 each, so they aging inventory of dumb bombs dropped manually, valued at $600 each are the ordnance of choice. So, accuracy by Russian pilots is well…lousy.

Why is Russia using ‘dumb bombs’ in Syria?

Russian planes bomb the old-fashioned way, letting the bombs just fall

Experts: Kremlin doesn’t have vast supplies of precision-guided missiles

Risk: An old-fashioned, unguided bomb drifts off course, lands in Turkey

WASHINGTON

Russia has made little use of precision-guided bombs during its young air campaign in Syria, a choice that experts say increases the chances that more civilians will be killed in the strikes and that a stray bomb hitting Turkey could bring other NATO nations into the war.

That danger was illustrated over the weekend when a Russian aircraft crossed into Turkey and a second warplane breached a Turkish-monitored safety zone inside Syria as they conducted bombing runs in northern Syria. Turkey scrambled jets to intercept the intruders, and NATO issue a sharp rebuke over the incidents.

A repeat, however, is highly likely, because unlike the United States military, Russia doesn’t have a vast supply of the precision-guided weapons that have become the hallmark of American air power.

Since the start of the U.S.-led air war in Iraq and Syria more than a year ago, American military leaders repeatedly have boasted that the current U.S.-led air campaign is the most surgical that American forces ever have conducted, thanks to the use of laser-guided missiles, GPS targeting and other high-tech systems. Last week, Army Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, called the airstrikes over Iraq and Syria “the most precise in the history of warfare.”

“The amount of care that we have taken to preserve civilian life, to preserve civilian infrastructure is unprecedented,” he said.

Still, that care has not saved the lives of hundreds of civilians who’ve died in U.S. airstrikes. While the U.S. Central Command, which runs American military operations in the Middle East, has acknowledged responsibility for only two such collateral killings – the deaths of two children in a November 2014 bombing raid in Syria – human rights groups and local activists put the numbers much higher.

Russian bombing is likely to take an even higher toll, experts say, for one simple reason: Russia is bombing the old-fashioned way: flying its planes over the target, releasing the bombs and letting gravity carry them to their ground targets.

“I can’t definitively rule out that they haven’t used any of their advanced guided munitions, but so far there is nothing in the images and video we’ve seen of the actual strikes that indicates the use of those guided munitions yet,” said Sim Tack, a Russian military analyst with Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based group that sells geopolitical intelligence to U.S. and international corporations and government agencies.

Tack and other experts offered a range of theories for why the Russians aren’t using precision-guided missiles in Syria, from their much higher cost (precision-guided weapons cost from $26,000 to $1.1 million each; an unguided bomb as little as $600) and the Kremlin’s relative inexperience in employing them, to looser rules of engagement that allow Russian pilots to identify their targets with relative impunity from discipline over civilian deaths.

“There are at least some pilots in the Russian air force who have some capability of using (precision-guided weapons),” Tack said. “If the Russians wanted to make it a priority right now, they could do so. The fact that they are not probably means they’re fine with doing things as they are.”

But beyond the increased threat to civilians, Russia’s bombing strategy carries a still greater risk: Sparking a wider war by hitting Turkey, even if only incidentally.

Satellite imagery and reports from Syrians in the area indicate that some Russian bombs have landed as close as 200 yards from the Turkish border.

10,684 The number of Islamic State sites that U.S. Central Command says were hit by American bombs during the first year of Operation Inherent Resolve, including buildings, fighting positions, staging areas, Humvees, oil infrastructure, tanks and other targets.

“The lighter a bomb is, the more surface area it has, the higher you drop it from and the stronger the wind, the farther it can drift off course,” Tack said. “I would say that 200 meters is definitely dangerously close to the border, if that’s where they are conducting their bombings.”

Dmitri Gorenburg, a researcher at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian Studies and an analyst for the CNA think tank in Arlington, Va., said successive Russian governments showed little regard for civilian life during their short-lived 2008 war in the former Soviet republic of Georgia or earlier during two wars totaling more than 10 years in the vast country’s Muslim-dominated Chechnya region.

“In Chechnya, there was wholesale destruction of (the regional capital) Grozny, not just from aircraft but with artillery as well,” Gorenburg told McClatchy. “And if you look at (the Russian incursion in) Ukraine recently, there haven’t been too many qualms about using artillery on population centers. So Russia certainly has demonstrated less care about harming civilians.”

Gorenburg said that Russia may be more hesitant to use precision bombs simply because it possesses fewer of them than do the United States and its more technologically advanced allies.

“They don’t want to use up all their (precision-guided weapons) in Syria, so they use the dumb bombs instead,” Gorenburg told McClatchy. “From their point of view, given the scale of destruction that’s already taken place in Syria, it may not matter as much if some stray building gets hit.”

Gorenburg said that Moscow may be starting its air campaign by using bombs it had previously given or sold to the Syrian government, a longtime Russia ally.

“Because Syria uses the same (Russian-made) planes, they can use the bombs they’ve provided Syria the last few years,” he said. “They weren’t giving the Syrians anything too fancy or expensive.”

Pentagon: USA is Now ‘Putin’s Prison Bitch’

Posted on by

When Barack Obama surrenders diplomacy and military power in full retreat, others are invited to step in. The Pentagon is keen on the conditions and the attitude is, America is now a lil’ bitch of Putin. this blogger would add Iran and China to that conclusion.

Some argue this began with Barack Obama’s shallow red-line on Syrian use of chemical weapons and deferring action to Russia to solve, perhaps the real opening for Iran and Russia was the failed operation and fallout on Libya, coupled with abandoning the Kurds and Yazidis in Iraq.

From TheHill in part: The ferocity of Russia’s air campaign will all but certainly exacerbate the crisis, fuel additional support for ISIS and further cleanse Syria of Sunni Muslims, improving the demographic balance for the nominally Shiite Assad regime.

Whether the administration was, as The Washington Post reported, “blindsided” by Russian military operations, or whether it quietly welcomed the bombing as some kind of macabre burden-sharing, Moscow’s Syrian initiative makes matters worse. As Nancy Youssef of the Daily Beast recently tweeted that she “overheard” at the Pentagon, “Right now, we are Putin’s prison bitch.”

Russia’s military deployment in Syria is a strategic boon for the Shiite “Axis of Resistance” and its new partner, Russia. This resurgent axis was in part made possible by the absence of a credible U.S. Syria policy, but it will only be bolstered should Washington embrace Russia and Iran as its regional security partners. Already in the Middle East, there is a widely held perception that the U.S. has made this decision. No doubt, the administration will continue to insist that the Iran nuclear deal doesn’t signal a broader regional realignment. Should the U.S. tilt toward Russia and Iran persist, President Obama might find himself alongside Assad, Khamenei, Nasrallah and Putin on the next run of posters. More here.

At real odds, Obama administration vs. Putin:

NYT in part:

The Obama administration, by contrast, says its own airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria can succeed only with a political transition that ends with Mr. Assad’s removal.

The administration’s position was ridiculed Monday by Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, who said the American airstrikes, which began more than a year ago, had done little militarily. In comments carried by Russia’s official Tass news agency, Mr. Lavrov said that even the Americans had acknowledged their faltering efforts to create a force of so-called moderate insurgents in Syria.

While Barack Obama talks about gun control and pushes a Strong Cities initiative through the United Nations”

From Politico in part: In 2014, Vian Dakhil’s stirring plea for international intervention helped inspire President Barack Obama to order airstrikes and launch a humanitarian effort to rescue thousands of Yazidi Iraqis who were trapped on a mountainside under assault by Islamic State.

A year later, Dakhil, one of two Yazidi members of the Iraqi parliament, says her people have been abandoned by Washington and the international community.

In an emotional, at times tearful, on-stage interview at POLITICO’s “Women Rule” event Wednesday morning in Washington, Dakhil described a full-blown humanitarian crisis — 420,000 Yazidis living in refugee camps in tents with mud floors, women and girls continuing to be kidnapped, 2,200 girls in captivity as sexual slaves, and survivors returning from the horror of ISIL captivity with no resources for psychological support. Thousands of orphans have no homes.

Dakhil, who is credited with saving many Yazidi women and girls from ISIL captivity, said she was not contacted by U.S. officials after the initial announcement. A letter to Michelle Obama received no response, she said.

Could it be that Bashir al Assad is now terrified of his long relationship with Iran and Vladimir Putin’s ride into Syria on his white steed to save Syria will turn into a wider conflict later between the Shiites and Sunnis in the region?

In part from DerSpiegel: Fear of his enemies was the primary reason for Bashar Assad’s call for help to Moscow. “But right after that came the fear of his friends,” says a Russian official who long worked in his country’s embassy in Damascus. The friend he refers to is Iran, the Syrian regime’s most important protector. “Assad and those around him are afraid of the Iranians,” the Russian says. Anger over the arrogance of the Iranians, who treat Syria like a colony, is also part of it, the Russian continues. Most of all, though, the Syrians “mistrust Tehran’s goals, for which Assad’s position of power may no longer be decisive. That is why the Syrians absolutely want us in the country.”

What the Russian diplomat, who wants to remain anonymous, has to say is a bit jarring at first. Without the Shiite auxiliaries from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Lebanon — whose recruitment and transfer is organized by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard — Assad’s rule would long since have come to an end. Yet his comments are complemented by a number of additional details that add up to an image of a behind-the-scenes power struggle — one which casts a new, scary light on the condition of the Syrian regime and on the country’s prospects as a whole.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has long planned and carried out the most important missions and operations of the Syrian regime. They were responsible, right down to the details, for the sporadically successful offensives in Aleppo in the north and Daraa in the south, which began in 2013. In Iran, the Revolutionary Guard is one of those groups intent on continuing the “Islamic Revolution” — the victory of Shiites over the Sunnis. They are a state within a state, one which owns several companies and is answerable only to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. President Hassan Rohani has no power over the Revolutionary Guard whatsoever.

Their goals go far beyond merely reestablishing the status quo in Syria. In early 2013, Hojatoleslam Mehdi Taeb, one of the planners behind Iran’s engagement in Syria, said: “Syria is the 35th province of Iran and it is a strategic province for us.” For several decades, the alliance between the Assads and Iran was a profitable one, particularly in opposition to the Iraq of Saddam Hussein, which long had the upper hand in the region. But today, Assad depends on Iran to remain in power, and Tehran is taking advantage of the situation. To read more from the Russian perspective, click here.

 

Iran Cmdr: Ready for War with U.S.

Posted on by

‘No big deal’: Senior Iranian commander says Tehran ready for war with US

RT: A top commander warned that Iran is ready for an all-out war with US, alleging that aggression against Tehran “will mobilize the Muslim world” against it. The remarks follow Secretary of State John Kerry’s claims that military force was still an option.

Brigadier General Hossein Salami, lieutenant commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), spoke Wednesday to a state-run TV channel as Western powers readied for a new round of talks on getting the Islamic Republic to curb its nuclear ambitions ahead of a June 30 deadline.

He also stated, “War against Iran will mobilize the Muslim world against the US, an issue which is very well known by the enemy.”

Iran recently agreed on a framework deal concerning its nuclear interests with the P5+1 group in Switzerland, which would pave the way for it to be finalized. However, Israel was highly critical of the move. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that it “would not block Iran’s path to the bomb. It would pave it.”

Kerry has recently appeared to try to ease tensions with the Jewish state by assuring it that war was still on the table. This and possible other similar remarks don’t sit well with Salami.

“We have prepared ourselves for the most dangerous scenarios and this is no big deal and is simple to digest for us; we welcome war with the US as we do believe that it will be the scene for our success to display the real potentials of our power,” Salami said, as cited by Iran’s FARS news agency.

The general’s rationale is that past US military victories owe themselves to their enemies’ “rotten” armies – not the case with Iran, he warned.

Addressing the officials currently at the negotiating table, Salami urged them to halt negotiations if any threat of force is issued again by a US official.

Salami echoed the words of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, who in a separate speech remarked that making simultaneous military threats while at the negotiating table will not fly. More to the story here.

The U.S. loves Iran relationship is over:

American Enterprise Institute in part: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled out the possibility of expanded negotiations with the U.S. Supreme Leader Khamenei proscribed any future negotiations with the U.S. during a meeting with IRGC Navy commanders on October 7 in Tehran. Khamenei stressed that “we now have to negotiate with the entire world,” but warned that “negotiations with America would mean paving the way for [U.S.] infiltration into the country’s economic, cultural, political and security domains.” The Supreme Leader also censured a “certain group” for attempting to “justify negotiations” between the U.S. and Iran. Khamenei also condemned the U.S. airstrike on a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Special Parliamentary Commission to Review the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, Head Ali Reza Zakani responded to allegations from fellow commission members Alaeddin Boroujerdi, Mansour Haghighat Pour, Gholam Reza Tajgardun, Massoud Pezeshkian, and Abbas Ali Mansouri Arani that the commission’s report was written “outside the commission” and unfairly ignores the “very positive points” of the nuclear deal. Zakani stated that the report used “all of the [commission] subcommittees’ reports.” Zakani also criticized the National Security and Foreign Policy (NSFP) Parliamentary Commission’s review of the resolution implementing the JCPOA, arguing that it had rushed their appraisal of the resolution earlier this week. NSFP Parliamentary Commission members Mansour Haghighat Pour and Hossein Sobhani Nia both noted that Parliament’s review of the resolution is unlikely to change its contents.

TWS: Go Easy on Iran

Yeganeh Torbati of Reuters reports:

…the U.S. government has pursued far fewer violations of a long-standing arms embargo against Iran in the past year compared to recent years, according to a review of court records and interviews with two senior officials involved in sanctions enforcement.

Well, one thinks, perhaps Iran has decided to forsake its wicked ways.  But no:

The sharp fall in new prosecutions did not reflect fewer attempts by Iran to break the embargo, the officials said. Rather, uncertainty among prosecutors and agents on how the terms of the deal would affect cases made them reluctant to commit already scarce resources with the same vigor as in previous years, the officials said.

“Uncertainty” seems to be the word of choice, these days. Useful in just about any geopolitical context.  Remember how, not so long ago, President Obama was saying:

“Faced with the potential of mass atrocities, and a call from the Libyan people, the United States and our friends and allies stopped Qaddafi’s forces in their tracks … This comes at a time when we see the strength of American leadership across the world. We’ve taken out Al Qaeda leaders, and we’ve put them on the path to defeat. We’re winding down the war in Iraq, and have begun a transition in Afghanistan.”

So much certainty, back then.

26 Missiles Fired From Russian Warships in the Caspian

Posted on by

Russia launched the missiles Wednesday morning from four ships in the Caspian Sea nearly 1,500 kilometers (around 930 miles) from their 11 targets, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin in a televised meeting.

Russian (4) warships fire cruise missiles into Syria

AFP: Russian warships joined in strikes in Syria with a volley of cruise missile attacks Wednesday as Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged his air force would back a ground offensive by government forces.

Ships from the Caspian Sea fleet launched 26 cruise missile strikes that hit 11 targets over 1,500 kilometres away in Syria, Moscow said.

Putin said Russian efforts “will be synchronised with the actions of the Syrian army on the ground and the actions of our air force will effectively support the offensive operation of the Syrian army”, at a televised meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

The Russian leader, however, also stressed the need for cooperation with a US-led coalition fighting Islamic State jihadists, saying that without cooperation from the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the intervention was unlikely to work.

Russian forces have struck 112 targets in war-torn Syria since last week launching a bombing campaign that Moscow says is targeting the IS group, Shoigu told Putin in the televised briefing.

“Strikes have hit 112 targets from September 30 until today,” Shoigu said. “The intensity of the strikes is increasing.”

In a sign that Russia was ramping up its involvement, Shoigu said that four Russian warships had hit sites in Syria on Wednesday with cruise missiles.

“In addition to the air force, four warships of the Caspian flotilla have been involved,” Shoigu said, adding that the warships had carried out 26 cruise missile strikes against 11 targets.

A military spokesman told Russian news wires that the strikes from the warships had hit positions of IS and Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

Rockets in the darkness

A video released by the Russian defence ministry showed rockets being launched from a ship in darkness and traced their route to Syria over Iran and Iraq.

Russia began air strikes in Syria a week ago following a request by long-standing ally President Bashar al-Assad.

Moscow insists it is hitting IS and other “terrorist” targets, but the US and its allies fear that Moscow is aiming to bolster Assad’s regime.

Putin also said that French leader Francois Hollande had suggested a possible plan to get Assad’s forces to combine efforts with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, the main moderate opposition group fighting the Damascus regime.

A Hollande aide later denied he had said any such thing. “The president spoke of the necessary presence of the Syrian opposition around a future negotiating table. The rest is not a French idea,” he told reporters in Strasbourg.

“During my last visit to Paris, French President Hollande expressed an interesting idea according to which, in his opinion, it might be possible to at least try to unite the efforts of the government troops of president Assad’s army and the so-called Free Syrian Army,” Putin said.

A member of Hollande’s entourage denied that he had suggested an alliance between the groups.

Putin met with Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss a peace plan for Ukraine in Paris last Friday.

Meanwhile:

EXCLUSIVE: Russian jets ‘intercept’ US predator drones over Syria, officials say

FNC: Russian fighter jets shadowed U.S. predator drones on at least three separate occasions high above Syria since the start of Russia’s air campaign last week, according to two U.S. officials briefed on this latest intelligence from the region.

“The first time it happened, we thought the Russians got lucky. Then it happened two more times,” said one official.

Both officials said that the incidents took place over ISIS-controlled Syria, including its de facto headquarters in Raqqa, as well as along the Turkish-Syrian border near Korbani. Another occurred in the northwest, near the highly contested city of Aleppo.

The U.S. military’s MQ-1 Predator drone is not a stealth aircraft.

“It is easy to see a predator on radar,” said one official.

The Russians have not attempted to shoot down any of the U.S. drones, but instead have flown “intercept tracks,” a doctrinal term meaning the Russians flew close enough to make their presence felt, according to one official.

One other official said, “the Russians flew very close, but did not impede the drone flight.”

“The first time it happened, we thought the Russians got lucky. Then it happened two more times.”

– U.S. official briefed on intelligence

Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook, traveling with the defense secretary in Europe leading up to a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels Thursday, said the Pentagon is open to more military-to-military talks with the Russians. No immediate date has been established to conduct the next round of talks, according to one defense official.

This development comes as Russia has moved some of its Mi-24 gunships and transport helicopters from an air base along the Mediterranean to another air base outside Homs, roughly 100 miles away. Russian ground forces, hundreds of Russian marines — as well as four BM-30 Smerch rocket launchers capable of firing cluster munitions, mines as well as high explosive warheads — are now in position to strike, but there is no evidence they have done so according to multiple defense officials. Infantry fighting vehicles and more a conventional artillery battery has also been seen by the intelligence community.

All these movements demonstrate the Russians are forming a “protective belt” around Latakia, the stronghold of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and are carrying out airstrikes against anti-Assad rebel forces, some backed by the CIA, to protect both regime and Russian interests, including a Russian naval base in Tartus established in the 70s.

The Pentagon maintains the vast majority of strikes from its forward operating base at Bassel al-Assad airport in Latakia including some 30 fighter/bomber jets have been against Syrian opposition forces and not ISIS, and one official pushed back on Russian defense ministry claims on the number of strikes the Russians have launched.

“The Russians carried out only one half or at best a quarter of the strikes they claim to have conducted,” said a senior military official.

Over the past weekend, Turkey claims that Russia on two separate occasions violated its airspace. Despite Turkish pressure on NATO and top US government officials calling the action “unprofessional” and a “provocation” two senior US military officials downplayed the incident.

“The Russians flew along the border and we still don’t know for sure what happened.”

At least one of the alleged incidences occurred in Turkey’s Hatay Province.

In 1939, land belonging to Syria and the Assad family in the northwest, along the Mediterranean bordering Latakia where the Russia has established an air base, was annexed by Turkey. Syria has never recognized the action and the two countries have been bitter enemies ever since.

 

Nuclear smugglers sought terrorist buyers

Posted on by

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — Over the pulsating beat at an exclusive nightclub, the arms smuggler made his pitch to a client: 2.5 million euros for enough radioactive cesium to contaminate several city blocks.

It was earlier this year, and the two men were plotting their deal at an unlikely spot: the terrace of Cocos Prive, a dance club and sushi bar in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova.

“You can make a dirty bomb, which would be perfect for the Islamic State,” the smuggler said. “If you have a connection with them, the business will go smoothly.”

But the smuggler, Valentin Grossu, wasn’t sure the client was for real — and he was right to worry. The client was an informant, and it took some 20 meetings to persuade Grossu that he was an authentic Islamic State representative. Eventually, the two men exchanged cash for a sample in a sting operation that landed Grossu in jail.

The previously unpublicized case is one of at least four attempts in five years in which criminal networks with suspected Russian ties sought to sell radioactive material to extremists through Moldova, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. One investigation uncovered an attempt to sell bomb-grade uranium to a real buyer from the Middle East, the first known case of its kind.

In that operation, wiretaps and interviews with investigators show, a middleman for the gang repeatedly ranted with hatred for America as he focused on smuggling the essential material for an atomic bomb and blueprints for a dirty bomb to a Middle Eastern buyer.

In wiretaps, videotaped arrests, photographs of bomb-grade material, documents and interviews, AP found that smugglers are explicitly targeting buyers who are enemies of the West. The developments represent the fulfillment of a long-feared scenario in which organized crime gangs are trying to link up with groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida — both of which have made clear their ambition to use weapons of mass destruction.

The sting operations involved a partnership between the FBI and a small group of Moldovan investigators, who over five years went from near total ignorance of the black market to wrapping up four sting operations. Informants and police posing as connected gangsters penetrated the smuggling networks, using old-fashioned undercover tactics as well as high-tech gear from radiation detectors to clothing threaded with recording devices.

But their successes were undercut by striking shortcomings: Kingpins got away, and those arrested evaded long prison sentences, sometimes quickly returning to nuclear smuggling, AP found.

For strategic reasons, in most of the operations arrests were made after samples of nuclear material had been obtained rather than the larger quantities. That means that if smugglers did have access to the bulk of material they offered, it remains in criminal hands.

The repeated attempts to peddle radioactive materials signal that a thriving nuclear black market has emerged in an impoverished corner of Eastern Europe on the fringes of the former Soviet Union. Moldova, which borders Romania, is a former Soviet republic.

Moldovan police and judicial authorities shared investigative case files with the AP in an effort to spotlight how dangerous the black market has become. They say a breakdown in cooperation between Russia and the West means that it is much harder to know whether smugglers are finding ways to move parts of Russia’s vast store of radioactive materials.

“We can expect more of these cases,” said Constantin Malic, one of the Moldovan investigators. “As long as the smugglers think they can make big money without getting caught, they will keep doing it.”

The FBI and the White House declined to comment. The U.S. State Department would not comment on the specifics of the cases.

“Moldova has taken many important steps to strengthen its counter nuclear smuggling capabilities,” said Eric Lund, spokesman for the State Department’s bureau in charge of nonproliferation. “The arrests made by Moldovan authorities in 2011 for the attempted smuggling of nuclear materials is a good example of how Moldova is doing its part.”

Wiretapped conversations exposed plots that targeted the United States, the Moldovan officials said. In one case, a middleman said it was essential the smuggled bomb-grade uranium go to Arabs, said Malic, an investigator in all four sting operations.

“He said: ‘I really want an Islamic buyer because they will bomb the Americans.'”

___

“HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF URANIUM?”

Malic was a 27-year-old police officer when he first stumbled upon the nuclear black market in 2009. He was working on a fraud unit in Chisinau, and had an informant helping police take down a euro counterfeiting ring stretching from the Black Sea to Naples, Italy.

The informant, an aging businessman, casually mentioned to Malic that over the years, contacts had periodically offered him radioactive material.

“Have you ever heard of uranium?” he asked Malic.

Malic was so new to the nuclear racket that he didn’t know what uranium was, and had to look it up on Google. He was horrified — “not just for one country,” he said, “but for humanity.”

“Soon after, the informant received an offer for uranium. At about that time, the U.S. government was starting a program to train Moldovan police in countering the nuclear black market, part of a global multi-million dollar effort.

In Malic’s first case, three people were arrested on Aug. 20, 2010, after a sample of the material, a sawed-off piece of a depleted uranium cylinder, was exchanged for cash. That kind of uranium would be difficult to turn into a bomb.

Authorities suspected, but couldn’t prove, that the uranium had come from the melted down Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine, Malic said.

Malic transported the seized radioactive material in a matchbox on the passenger seat of his car. It did not occur to him that the uranium should have been stored in a shielded container to protect him from possible radiation.

When FBI agents came to collect it, they were stunned when he simply proffered the matchbox in his uncovered hand: “Take it,” Malic said.

“Madman!” the American officers exclaimed.

The uranium, fortunately, turned out not to be highly toxic.

___

PLUTONIUM FOR FREE

Several months later, a former KGB informant, Teodor Chetrus, called Malic’s source, the Moldovan businessman. Chetrus told him he had uranium to sell, but was looking for a Middle Eastern buyer.

Unlike Malic’s first case, this one involved highly enriched uranium, the type that can be used to make a nuclear bomb.

Smarter and more cautious than the members of the previous gang, Chetrus was a bit of a paradox to the investigators. He was educated and well dressed, yet still lived in his dilapidated childhood farmhouse in a tiny village on Moldova’s border with Ukraine.

In many of the smuggling cases, the ringleaders insulated themselves through a complex network of middlemen who negotiated with buyers in order to shield the bosses from arrest. In this case, Chetrus was the go-between.

But he had his own agenda. Chetrus clung to a Soviet-era hatred of the West, Malic said, repeatedly ranting about how the Americans should be annihilated because of problems he thought they created in the Middle East.

“He said multiple times that this substance must have a real buyer from the Islamic states to make a dirty bomb,” Malic said.

Chetrus and the informant hammered out a deal to sell bomb-grade uranium to a “buyer in the Middle East” over months of wiretapped phone calls and meetings at Chetrus’ house.

The informant would show up with a recording device hidden in a different piece of clothing each time. On the other side of the road would be Malic, disguised as a migrant selling fruit and grains from a van — watching the house for signs of trouble.

In one early phone call, the informant pressed Chetrus to find out whether he had access to plutonium as well as uranium, saying his buyer had expressed interest, according to wiretaps. But Chetrus was suspicious, and insisted that before big quantities of either substance could be discussed, the buyer had to prove that he was for real and not an undercover agent.

Chetrus’ boss decided to sell the uranium in installments, starting with a sample. If the buyers were plants, he reasoned, the police would strike before the bulk of the uranium changed hands — an acceptable risk.

“I have to tell you one thing,” Chetrus told the informant in a wiretapped phone call. “Intelligence services never let go of the money.”

Eventually they worked out the terms of a deal: Chetrus would sell a 10-gram sample of the uranium for 320,000 euros ($360,000). The buyer could test it and if he liked what he saw, they could do a kilogram a week at the same rate — an astonishing 32 million euros every time until the buyer had the quantity he wanted. Ten kilograms of uranium was discussed — about a fifth of what was used over Hiroshima.

The two later met in the dirt courtyard of Chetrus’s house to discuss plutonium. The informant had a video camera hidden in his baseball cap. Chetrus can be seen in an army-green V-neck, talking animatedly as a rooster squawks in the background.

“For the plutonium,” Chetrus said, “if they prove they are serious people, we will provide the sample for free. You can use a small amount to make a dirty bomb.”

He spread his hands wide. Then waved them around, as if all before him was laid to waste.

Malic found the video chilling. “I was afraid to imagine what would happen if one of these scenarios happened one day.”

___

A REAL BUYER IN SUDAN

The man behind the bomb-grade uranium deal was Alexandr Agheenco, known as “the colonel” to his cohorts. He had both Russian and Ukrainian citizenship, police said, but lived in Moldova’s breakaway republic of Trans-Dniester.

A separatist enclave that is a notorious haven for smuggling of all kinds, Trans-Dniester was beyond the reach of the Moldovan police.

In a selfie included in police files, the colonel is balding, mustachioed, and smiling at the camera.

In June 2011, he arranged the uranium swap. He dispatched a Trans-Dniester police officer to smuggle the uranium to Moldova, according to court documents. At the same time, he sent his wife, Galina, on a “shopping outing” across the border to the capital.

Her job was to arrange a handoff of the uranium to Chetrus.

Galina Agheenco arrived in downtown Chisinau in a Lexus GS-330, parking near a circus. She met the police officer, who handed her a green sack with the uranium inside.

Meanwhile, the informant and Chetrus, sporting a dark suit and striped tie, pulled up at the Victoriabank on the city’s main drag in a chauffeur-driven gray BMW X5. Inside the bank, Chetrus inspected a safe deposit box with 320,000 euros, court documents show. He counted the bills and used a special light to check whether they were marked.

Satisfied, Chetrus went to collect the uranium package from the Lexus, where the colonel’s wife had left it. When he turned it over to the informant, the police pounced.

The bust, captured on video, shows officers in balaclavas forcing Chetrus to his knees and handcuffing him. Galina was arrested, too.

But the police officer-turned-smuggler managed to escape back to Trans-Dniester, where he and the colonel could not be touched by Moldovan police.

The arrests took Malic by surprise. He and the informant had been told that police would allow the sample exchange to go forward, so they could later seize the motherlode of uranium and arrest the ringleaders.

Malic was furious. Instead of capturing the gang leaders intent on selling nuclear bomb-grade material to terrorists, his Moldovan bosses had jumped the gun.

“What they did was simply create a scene for the news media,” Malic said. “We lost a huge opportunity to make the world safer.”

Tests of the uranium seized confirmed that it was high-grade material that could be used in a nuclear bomb. The tests also linked it to two earlier seizures of highly enriched uranium that investigators believed the colonel was also behind.

A search of Chetrus’ house showed just how dangerous the smugglers were. After police made their arrests in Chisinau, Malic combed through documents in the farmhouse.

He found the plans for the dirty bomb. Worse, there was evidence that Chetrus was making a separate deal to sell nuclear material to a real buyer.

Investigators found contracts made out to a Sudanese doctor named Yosif Faisal Ibrahim for attack helicopters and armored personnel carriers, government documents show. Chetrus had a copy of Ibrahim’s passport, and there was evidence that Chetrus was trying to help him obtain a Moldovan visa. Skype messages suggested that he was interested in uranium and the dirty bomb plans.

The deal was interrupted by the sting, but it looked like it had progressed pretty far. A lawyer working with the criminal ring had traveled to Sudan, officials said. But authorities say they could not determine who was behind Ibrahim or why he was seeking material for a nuclear bomb. AP efforts to reach Ibrahim were unsuccessful.

Consequences for the smugglers were minimal. Galina Agheenco got a light 3-year sentence because she had an infant son; and Chetrus was sentenced to a 5-year prison term. Interpol notices were issued for the colonel and the Trans-Dniester policeman who got away.

Moldovan officials say there were indications from a foreign intelligence agency that the colonel fled with his infant son through Ukraine to Russia shortly after the bust.

The authorities don’t know if the colonel also took a cache of uranium with him.

“Until the head of the criminal group is sentenced and jailed, until we know for sure where those substances seized in Europe came from and where they were going to, only then will we be able to say a danger is no longer present,” says Gheorghe Cavcaliuc, the senior police officer who oversaw the investigation.

___

A COOL FACE, A POUNDING HEART

In mid-2014, an informant told Malic he had been contacted by two separate groups, one offering uranium, the other cesium. The Moldovan police went directly to the FBI, who backed up their operations.

Malic volunteered to work undercover, posing as an agent for a Middle Eastern buyer. He did not have much training, and struggled with his nerves, resorting to shots of vodka before each meeting. He went into them with no weapon — showing a cool face while taming a pounding heart.

The FBI fitted him with a special shirt that had microphones woven into the fabric, so that even a pat-down could not reveal that he was wired. They also set him up in a white Mercedes S-Class to look like a gangster.

It worked. At one point, the unwitting smuggler said in text messages obtained by the AP that his gang had access to an outdated Russian missile system capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. The man said he could obtain two R29 submarine-based missiles and provide technical background on how to use them.

Following the same script as in 2011, the team wrapped up the investigation after a sample of 200 grams of unenriched uranium was exchanged for $15,000 on Dec. 3, 2014. Six people were arrested, five got away.

What worried Malic was what appeared to be a revolving door of smugglers. Three criminals involved in the new case had been taken into custody following the earlier investigations. Two of them had served short sentences and immediately rejoined the smuggling network, helping the new ring acquire the uranium. A third criminal was none other than the man who drove Chetrus to make his uranium deal.

The investigators tracked the new uranium for sale to an address in Ukraine. Although they reported it to the authorities, they never heard back.

As Malic’s frustration grew, so did the danger to him and his colleagues.

Early this year, at the Cocos Prive nightclub in Chisinau, the stakes became apparent. The middleman, Grossu, warned that his cesium supplier was a retired FSB officer with a reputation for brutality.

If there was any trouble, Grossu told a wired informant, “They will put all of us against the wall and shoot us,” Malic recalled.

Grossu’s bosses wanted the cesium to reach the Islamic State. “They have the money and they will know what to do with it,” he said.

The sellers claimed to have a huge cache of cesium 137 — which could be used to make a dirty bomb. As in previous cases, they insisted that the buyers prove their seriousness by first purchasing a sample vial of less-radioactive cesium 135, which is not potent enough for a dirty bomb.

They were busted on Feb. 19. Grossu and two other men were arrested. The suspected FSB officer and the remaining cesium disappeared.

It is not clear whether the Moldovan cases are indicative of widespread nuclear smuggling operations.

“It would be deeply concerning if terrorist groups are able to tap into organized crimes networks to gain the materials and expertise required to build a weapon of mass destruction,” said Andy Weber, former U.S. assistant secretary of defense, who oversaw counter-proliferation until a year ago.

On May 28, the FBI honored Malic and his team at an awards ceremony for the two recent investigations. But by then the Moldovan police department had disbanded the team amid political fallout and police infighting.

Chetrus’ 5-year prison sentence was supposed to run into next year. But Chetrus’ sister said this summer that he had been released in December, which the AP confirmed.

He had served barely three years for trying to sell a nuclear bomb to enemies of the United States.