Michael Weiss · @michaeldweiss
23rd Feb 2013 from Twitlonger
http://www.jutarnji.hr/hrvatski-bestrzajni-topovi-i-bacaci-raketa-u-rukama-sirijskih-pobunjenika/1086872/
Syrian rebels fighting against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad recently used anti-tank weapons of Croatian origin, reports portal NOW, the online media specializing in the Middle East. According to their claims, the insurgents have recently starting using M79 rockets, known as the Wasp and the RPG-22, hand-held grenade launcher RBG-6 and M60 recoilless cannon. It is the same type of arms that the Croatian Army used in the war. These findings have been supported by video footage posted on YouTube. It shows Syrian insurgents in class learning to use anti-tank weapons.
On the benches of the front row anti-tank launchers RPG-22, M79 grenade launcher and RBG-6 are stacked. Grenade launcher is manufactured in Metallica in Rijeka, but also in the U.S., Turkey and SouthAfrica. The rest of the arms that Croatian Army had has been put out of use and kept in storage as long-term. Although the website does not mention the ammunition, a logical assumption is that the rebels got then with the weapons.
Croatian army has plenty of it. According to the official data, in army warehouses there are currently about 15,000 tons of obsolete ammunition, of which a good part of its RPG grenades, and M79 recoilless cannon. These weapons are slowly destroyed by the Croatian army HV ammo, and partly exported.
The news from the battlezones in Syria have confirmed that the rebels in Syria now hold of large quantities of weapons with which they have not possessed earlier: in recent weeks they have launched several attacks on Syrian army tank column and did not spare the ammunition. There are two theories as to how the weapons of Croatian descent ended up in the hands of Syrian rebels and that has been mentioned by the website that published the story. According to the first, the weapons came directly from Croatia, and according to another, those are the weapons that Croatia has sent to Libya opponents of the regime of Colonel Gaddafi a few years ago, that has now has been transferred to Syria.
In the case that the weapons from Croatian went direclty to Syria, our government would find itself in an unpleasant position because they accepted the sanctions against Syria, which was proclaimed by the European Union and those are prohibiting arms sales to any party in this country.
The government categorically states that Croatia complies with sanctions and arms sales to the Syrian rebels. The government also says that the Ministry of Defence last year issued several decisions on the sale of non-perspective arms and equipment. Although the identity of the buyers are kept as the secret, the government claims that it made no decision on the donation or sale of arms to any Middle Eastern country.
However, there is a possibility that Croatia has not sold weapons directly to the Syrian rebels, but to a third country that transferred the arms to Syria. The U.S. are mentioned in this context as the main military and political partner of Croatia. According to the information that no one in government wanted to comment on, Croatian weapons, and probably ammunition was sold or otherwise disposed by a third party, the United States, who had moved it to Syria. And in that scenario, the government is completely clean.
How were the weapons transferred? In recent months, there was a large number of unusual Jordanian transport aircrafts landing at Zagreb's Pleso airport. This is an Ilyushin 76 owned by the Jordanian International Air Cargo. Randomly recorded, and photos can be seen on the website PlanePictures.net. According to available information, a large transport aircraft landed on 14th and 23 December 2012. and 6 January and 18th February this year. There is no official data of what was transported in the airplanes. However, it is well known fact that a Croatian company has signed a commercial agreement on the legal sale of weapons to Jordan. But when it comes to the transport of those weapons, four airplanes were certainly not needed for this mission.
The Lebanese website associates Croatian weapons to Syria and Libya with 113 containers of arms and ammunition from the ship on the Adriatic coast to Otranto that was seized by NATO forces in 1994. Containers were intended for Croatia that was under the embargo in those years. The weapons were later transported and stored in Italy.
They have been moved several times and under strange circumstances ended in Libya in 2011, where rebels used them against Colonel Gaddafi. As Libyans had a large amount of weapons, it is possible that they transferred it to Syrian rebels. However, it remains questionable as how the grenade launcher RBG-6 ended in Libya because is was in the test phase at that time.