"A top insurgent leader boasted that his al-Qaida-linked group was now making its own rockets, posting the claim in an audiotape online Tuesday," the AP says. It's all part of Iraq becoming a "'university of terrorism' producing highly qualified warriors since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion," Reuters adds.
The voice on the audiotape was said to be that of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, head of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq.
The tape was posted on an Islamic Web site used by militant groups, but its authenticity could not be confirmed.
The rockets -- called al-Quds-1, or Jerusalem-1 -- "have moved into the phase of military production with an advanced degree of range and accuracy,"
al-Baghdadi said, without elaborating.
Insurgents in Iraq have used a range of Soviet-era rockets like Katyushas [including this failed attack the U.N. secretary-general], and shoulder-fired ground-to-air Sam-7 missiles -- most of which were looted from
Saddam Hussein's depots in the lawless weeks that followed the collapse of his regime. Recently, the U.S. has accused Iran of funneling Iranian-made weapons to insurgents in Iraq.
Terrorist groups in Lebanon have been using Katyushas for years, of course -- most recently, in last summer's war with Israel. And Palestinian guerrillas have been cobbled together their own (much smaller, less effective) rockets out of industrial materials and leftover parts since 2002. Often, they call these weapons "Quds" -- and even mark the rockets in Hebrew and Arabic, for easy identification (see picture above).
Could insurgents in Iraq in Iraq pull off the same trick? Aharon Etengoff, who tracks Palestinian arsenals for WeaponsSurvey.com, thinks so.
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It seems to be a natural development. If smuggling is too expensive, or difficult, it is easier to manufacture indigenous rockets out of simple materials, such as pipes and use basic ingredients for fuel, such as sugar and fertilizer... It is hard to enforce an embargo of metal pipes and fertilizer.
