(Danger Room)- Robert Beckhusen- The manager of Venezuela's drone program is an engineer who helped build ballistic missiles for Iran. The supervisor, Ramin Keshavarz, is a member of the Revolutionary Guards and former employee of Iran's Defense Industry Organization, a firm embargoed by the United States for overseeing Iran's ballistic missile program. According to El Nuevo Herald, U.S. officials believe Iran shipped drones to Venezuela hidden in cargo containers. The date and specific port are not known, but Venezuela only received six drones - in a shipment of 70 containers carrying each more than 24,000 pounds of cargo. Why do Venezuela and Iran cooperate with each other? The explanation has Iran using Venezuela as a forward base against the United States. In this view, Venezuela is a location to store Iranian military assets, possibly even missiles.
2012-06-19 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive