'China helped Iran in devp missile, rocket program'

Washington, Aug 11: US intelligence officials have said China was a key player in helping Iran's missile and rocket program, which is now in full international view with the fighting in southern Lebanon, media reports here said today.

The Washington post said Iran has developed a variety of short-range rockets and missiles with the help of China and transferred thousands of the weapons to the Hizbollah forces now fighting Israel.

Most of the Hizbollah rockets are unguided weapons with ranges between 10 and 30 miles. However, Iran is also believed to have supplied them with longer-range weapons, including missiles that can travel up to 120 miles.

Richard Fisher, a weapon expert with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said in a recent report that the most alarming Chinese system used by Hizbollah so far is a variant of China's C-802 anti-ship cruise missile. Two of the cruise missiles were fired at an Israeli coastal patrol boat July 14, killing four sailors.

''Through Hizbollah, Iran has only unleashed a small taste of its Chinese-aided arsenal,'' the Times report said quoting Mr Fisher. But its willingness to share very sophisticated weapons like the C-802 should provide warning that Iran is capable of doing much more.'' The Iran-China short-range missile cooperation was disclosed in a classified intelligence report from 1997, made public by the Washington Times.

The report said the head of Iran's solid-propellent missile program arranged for a delegation of missile technicians from Iran to visit China on May 7 of that year to observe a static motor test of a 450 mm-diameter rocket motor that was being produced for Iran's indigenous 105-mile-range NP-110 missile.

The Iranians also purchased special X-ray equipment in China for the NP-110 program, the report said.

Intelligence officials said the Chinese cooperation was vital to Iran's missile and rocket program and that the Chinese technology was incorporated in the Iranian missiles and rockets now being used by Hizbollah.

UNI

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