💭 Some of the billions of dollars of weapons the United States sent to Ukraine has fallen into Iranian hands, a report Friday details.
As Republican lawmakers have stepped up their oversight on U.S. aid to Ukraine, four anonymous sources revealed to CNN some of the weapons provided to Ukraine have been captured by Russian forces and sent to Iran for reverse-engineering.
Those weapons include the Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that Ukraine has begged the U.S. to send more of. The weapons were likely picked up on the battlefield, the sources told CNN.
In many of those cases, Russia has then flown the equipment to Iran to dismantle and analyze, likely so the Iranian military can attempt to make their own version of the weapons, sources said. Russia believes that continuing to provide captured Western weapons to Iran will incentivize Tehran to maintain its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, the sources said.
Earlier this month, Republican lawmakers had pressed Department of Defense officials on whether any U.S. weapons have fallen into the wrong hands.
The Pentagon’s top policy official, Colin Kahl, repeatedly insisted that the DOD was not seeing “any evidence of significant diversion” of weapons sent to Ukraine.
😈 United by their Illuminist-Luciferian-Masonic-Satanist agendas The following Edomite-Ishmaelite entities and bodies are helping the genocidal fascist Oromo regime of evil Abiy Ahmed Ali:
☆ The United Nations
☆ The World Health Organization
☆ Antonio Gutterez
☆ Tedros Adhanom
☆ Klaus Schwab
☆ The European Union
☆ The African Union
🔥 The UNITED STATES, Canada & Cuba
🔥 RUSSIA
🔥 UKRAINE
☆ China
☆ Israel
☆ Arab States / Arab League
☆ Southern Ethiopians
☆ Amharas
☆ Eritrea
☆ Djibouti
☆ Kenya
☆ Sudan
☆ Somalia
☆ Egypt
🔥 IRAN
☆ Pakistan
☆ India
☆ Azerbaijan
☆ Amnesty International
☆ Human Rights Watch
☆ World Food Program (2020 Nobel Peace Laureate)
☆ The Nobel Prize Committee
☆ The World Economic Forum
☆ The World Bank & International Monetary Fund
☆ The Atheists and Animists
☆ The Muslims
☆ The Protestants
☆ The Sodomites
☆ TPLF
💭 Even those nations that are one another enemies, like: ‘Israel vs Iran’, ‘Russia + China vs Ukraine + The West’, ‘Egypt + Sudan vs Iran + Turkey’, ‘India vs Pakistan’ have now become friends – as they are all united in the anti-Christian, anti-Zionist-Ethiopia-Conspiracy. This has never ever happened before it is a very curios phenomenon – a strange unique appearance in world history.
✞ With the Zionist Tigray-Ethiopians are:
❖ The Almighty Egziabher God & His Saints
❖ St. Mary of Zion
❖ The Ark of The Covenant
💭 Due to the leftist and atheistic nature of the TPLF, because of its tiresome, imported and Satan-influenced ideological games of: „Unitarianism vs Multiculturalism“, the Supernatural Force that always stood/stands with the Northern Ethiopian Christians is blocked – and These Celestial Powers are not yet being ‘activated’. Even the the above Edomite and Ishmaelite entities and bodies who in the beginning tried to help them have gradually abandoned them.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 27, 2023
In the accompanying documents, the machinery being exported was generically described as a “parallel lathe” and “hot forming machines.”
But the machines seized at the port of Genoa by the Finance Police and the Customs Agency were actually a “grooving machine” and a “trimming machine” (worth more than €3 million) used to produce cartridge cases for ammunition, as the manuals and instructions for use that accompanied them also made clear.
The machines in question, found inside two containers, were destined for Ethiopia, where there is an ongoing war between the central government and the Tigray Liberation Front (a region seeking independence), in the course of which all sides have been guilty of war crimes.
As a result, in October 2021, a European Parliament resolution called on all European Union member states to halt arms exports to the East African nation.
In the judiciary investigation launched in October following the discovery of the containers in question, coordinated by the Genoa Public Prosecutor’s Office, three people are currently under criminal investigation, accused of exporting armament materials without the required authorization and of criminal misrepresentation by a private individual in a public document.
Meanwhile, the headquarters of the Lecco company that issued the delivery notes for those machines was also searched. In its press release on Monday morning, the Genoa provincial command of the Finance Police did not reveal the name of the company in question, whose managers were entered into the register of suspects.
However, according to Weapon Watch, the observatory on weapons in European and Mediterranean ports, the company is “Forza 3M srl […], a company that does not appear to be registered in the National Register of Enterprises under Law 185/1990, and therefore could not apply for export authorization for armament material.”
On its website, the company openly calls itself a business that sells “solutions for small caliber ammunition” (5.56 mm to 12.7 mm) and shows brochures of its products.
This is what is known about the company: it is “newly established” (March 2021), has a small share capital (€20,000), has a declared headquarters that is only for legal purposes and, in the only financial statements presented so far, it declared a quasi-negligible turnover (about €116,000) with “only one employee.”
This is why, again according to Weapon Watch, Forza 3M srl “would hardly be considered a serious entity in order to be authorized to export military equipment.”
However, the observatory further reveals, the company “is closely linked to another Lecco-based company, Minuterie 3M srl, which belongs to the same corporate owners and has been operating since 1995 in the metal small parts sector. In its 2021 financial statements, the latter declared a turnover of €12.7 million (doubled compared to 2019) and 61 employees working at a plant in the industrial area of Lecco.”
Weapon Watch stresses that “the goods presented for boarding did not qualify as dual use, because they were specifically intended for the manufacture of ammunition, as confirmed by the presence of molds for the 7.62×39 mm caliber, typical of Soviet-made weapons of war and in particular of the AK-47 Kalashnikov, an assault rifle that was also manufactured under license in Ethiopia at the Gafat Armament Engineering Complex plants.”
This is not the first time that such incidents, and the export of weapons to conflict areas more generally (such as Yemen and Syria), have occurred at the port of Genoa.
😈 United by their Illuminist-Luciferian-Masonic-Satanist agendas The following Edomite-Ishmaelite entities and bodies are helping the genocidal fascist Oromo regime of evil Abby Ahmed Ali:
☆ The United Nations
☆ The World Bank
☆ The International Monetary Fund
☆ The European Union
☆ The African Union
☆ The World Economic Forum
☆ The United States, Canada & Cuba
☆ Russia
☆ Ukraine
☆ China
☆ Israel
☆ Arab States
☆ Southern Ethiopians
☆ Amharas
☆ Eritrea
☆ Djibouti
☆ Kenya
☆ Sudan
☆ Somalia
☆ Egypt
☆ Iran
☆ Pakistan
☆ India
☆ Azerbaijan
☆ Amnesty International
☆ Human Rights Watch
☆ World Food Program (2020 Nobel Peace Laureate)
☆ The Nobel Prize Committee
☆ The Atheists and Animists
☆ The Muslims
☆ The Protestants
☆ The Sodomites
☆ TPLF
💭 Even those nations that are one another enemies, like: ‘Israel vs Iran’, ‘Russia + China vs Ukraine + The West’, ‘Egypt + Sudan vs Iran + Turkey’, ‘India vs Pakistan’ have now become friends – as they are all united in the anti-Christian, anti-Zionist-Ethiopia-Conspiracy. This has never ever happened before it is a very curios phenomenon – a strange unique appearance in world history.
Yohannes and Gebremeskel knew it would be freezing cold inside the bulk cargo area of the Airbus A350 plane on the long flight from Ethiopia’s capital to Belgium.
But the two ground technicians with Ethiopian Airlines, both of Tigrayan origin, said they felt a threat from the Ethiopian authorities that left them no choice but to stow away among crates of fresh flowers.
Both men said family members had been detained under sweeping emergency laws that have targeted ethnic Tigrayans — and that they feared it was their turn next. The laws were imposed in November as Ethiopian government troops battle forces from the northern Tigray region in a bitter conflict that has now dragged on for 14 months. The government denies the laws targeted any particular group and recently lifted the state of emergency.
A view of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on November 27. Witnesses and Ethiopia's human rights commission accused authorities of arresting people in the capital based on ethnicity, using the wider powers granted by the state of emergency.
A view of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on November 27. Witnesses and Ethiopia’s human rights commission accused authorities of arresting people in the capital based on ethnicity, using the wider powers granted by the state of emergency.
So, in the early hours of December 4, Yohannes and Gebremeskel, both 25, made a spur of the moment decision to climb into the storage section of a converted Ethiopian Airlines cargo plane that was sitting in one of the hangars at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, waiting for the early morning flight to Brussels, Belgium.
As ground technicians with Ethiopia’s flagship commercial airline for the past five years, they had access to the compartment for routine inspection purposes. But if their hiding place was discovered, they would face harsh punishment, they said. CNN has changed both men’s names at their request for security reasons.
For more than three hours before take-off, they hid in the cold among the cabin crew’s luggage, not far away from the plane’s cargo shipment — crates loaded with roses ready to be delivered to Europe.
“We took the risk. We were — we had no choice, we had no choice, we couldn’t live in Addis Ababa, we were being treated as terrorists,” Yohannes, who has now obtained asylum in Belgium, told CNN in one of several phone conversations.
Four of his relatives have been killed, his fiancée is in prison in Ethiopia’s Afar region and his sister, about seven months pregnant, was seized from his house along with his furniture, he said. Yohannes believes these killings and detentions were motivated by their Tigrayan ethnicity and actioned under Ethiopia’s new emergency laws. “I don’t know where she [his fiancée] is currently,” he added. CNN has not been able to independently verify the deaths or imprisonment of Yohannes’ relatives.
“We took the risk. We were — we had no choice, we had no choice, we couldn’t live in Addis Ababa, we were being treated as terrorists.”
Yohannes
A spokeswoman for the office of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed noted in an emailed statement to CNN that the state of emergency was lifted on January 26, 2022.
“You would note that the Council of Ministers have today decided to lift the State of Emergency. Individuals apprehended under the SOE [State of Emergency] have been released in great numbers, over the past weeks by the security sector, following investigations,” spokeswoman Billene Seyoum Woldeyes said.
“The SOE was never enacted to ‘persecute’ any group of people based on their identity,” she said.
The pair are not the only airline employees to attempt a risky escape from their home country in recent weeks. On December 1, shortly before Yohannes and Gebremeskel fled to Belgium, two other Ethiopian Airlines technicians concealed themselves in a passenger aircraft destined for Washington, DC, a spokesperson for the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed to CNN via an emailed statement.
Yohannes and Gebremeskel decided to flee from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport after reports that security was more lax there following the suspension of dozens of Tigrayan guards.
Yohannes and Gebremeskel decided to flee from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport after reports that security was more lax there following the suspension of dozens of Tigrayan guards.
They had concealed themselves in the ceiling space above the seating, according to a source at Ethiopian Airlines with firsthand knowledge of the internal investigation that was launched afterward.
Their journey would last more than 36 hours in total, as the plane flew from Addis Ababa via Lagos, Nigeria, and Dublin, Ireland, before finally landing at Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC.
Upon arrival in the US, the individuals were detained by the US Department of Homeland Security before later being transferred to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
CNN has also spoken to several other Tigrayan employees of Ethiopian Airlines who have fled Ethiopia in recent months through their jobs as flight crew. They told similar stories of widespread detentions of Tigrayans in Ethiopia and of targeted ethnic harassment from within the airline.
Concealed above plane crew’s bunk
CNN has been unable to speak directly to the stowaways who reached Washington, DC, but the source at Ethiopian Airlines said that both men were also of Tigrayan origin.
A CBP spokesperson said in a statement to CNN that after an identification and security examination, officers discovered the two “possessed Ethiopian Airlines employee identification cards, and that they stowed away with the intent of claiming asylum in the United States.”
“The two Ethiopian males are presently housed at a federal detention facility pending a hearing before an immigration judge,” the statement added. “CBP issued a civil penalty to Ethiopian Airlines for the security breach and were briefed on measures the airline is undertaking to enhance the airline’s aircraft security plan.”
CNN has obtained photos of the inside of the Boeing 777 aircraft as it looked during an inspection in the aftermath of the escape. In some pictures, it is possible to see the crew bunk in the center of the plane’s seating area, which the two men reportedly entered before lifting a mattress to reveal a maintenance access panel.
The images indicate they then cut a larger hole in the panel to enable them to smuggle themselves through the gap into the plane’s ceiling. They hid in this spot, not far above the aircraft’s toilets, for over a day and a half. CNN showed Boeing the photographs and a Boeing representative deferred to Ethiopian Airlines for comment.
The source at the airline told CNN they believed the fact that the stowaways were former maintenance technicians for the airline enabled them to know exactly where to hide inside the plane to go undetected without damaging the structure of the aircraft.
That they had the necessary tools with them to cut through the panelling might suggest the pair had planned the attempt in advance, the source at the airline added.
In total, 16 Ethiopian Airlines technicians appeared to have escaped via any possible means, either by boarding as cabin crew and walking off or stowing away, he said. CNN has been unable to independently verify this number.
For Yohannes and Gebremeskel, the decision to flee was an impromptu one, they said. They picked the first scheduled flight to a European country that was available and had to leave possessions including their cell phones behind in their lockers.
For the whole of their seven-hour flight to Brussels, they sat in the cargo area of the Airbus A350 with no food, no water, in the freezing cold, unbeknownst to the other members of the crew on board.
“I didn’t even have any clothes with me, I was wearing the uniform for maintenance […] I’m still wearing it,” Yohannes said.
“We don’t have anything to change into here, no underwear, no shoes, even the shoes […] we tried to cover our feet and the legs with what we had, it was night shift, on night shift we have the jacket of Ethiopian Airlines crew,” Gebremeskel, who also obtained asylum in Belgium, told CNN.
It was not how Gebremeskel imagined he would experience his first trip out of Ethiopia. Despite working for five years at Ethiopian Airlines, he had never boarded an international flight.
Airline employees claim discrimination against Tigrayans
Many people have left Ethiopia by land since the conflict began in November 2020. As of mid-December 2021, more than 50,000 people had fled into neighboring Sudan, according to UN figures. At the peak of the influx, “more than 1,000 people on average were arriving each day, overwhelming the capacity to provide aid,” a UN report said.
A refugee camp in Um Rakuba, Sudan, pictured in August. More than 50,000 Ethiopians have fled to Sudan since the Tigray conflict began in late 2020, according to the UN.
A refugee camp in Um Rakuba, Sudan, pictured in August. More than 50,000 Ethiopians have fled to Sudan since the Tigray conflict began in late 2020, according to the UN.
Meanwhile, attempts to leave Ethiopia by air by legal means have become increasingly difficult for Tigrayans, according to Ethiopian Airlines employees CNN spoke with.
Several attempted to leave by boarding planes from Addis Ababa’s Bole Airport as legitimate passengers but were denied access due to their Tigrayan ethnicity, they claimed. One former employee told CNN there were four checkpoints at the airport where passengers had their passports checked before departure.
“They check place of birth and name,” they told CNN, recalling three of their own failed attempts to leave. If the person was born in Tigray or had a Tigrayan name they were denied exit from Ethiopia, the former employee said.
As a result, several employees told CNN they escaped by working on board international flights as flight crew and fleeing when the aircraft landed abroad, often when the destination was in Europe or the US.
CNN has obtained IDs that confirm the identities of all four men who stowed away. Flight paths of the two flights — the one to Brussels and the one from Addis to Dulles airport through Dublin — have also been crosschecked on FlightRadar24.
Ethiopian Airlines has not responded to CNN’s request for comment regarding the stowaways’ journeys or the allegations of discrimination against Tigrayans.
This is not the first time Ethiopian Airlines has made headlines during the conflict in Ethiopia. In October last year CNN revealed that the airline had been ferrying weapons between Ethiopia and Eritrea at the outset of the conflict in November 2020, an act that was condemned by the international community as a potential violation of aviation law.
CNN’s investigation triggered calls by US lawmakers for sanctions and investigations into Ethiopia’s eligibility for a lucrative US trade program. Ethiopia was kicked out of the program over human rights violations at the start of 2022.
The airline has issued multiple denials about transporting weapons.
‘We were shaking’
After the aircraft carrying Yohannes and Gebremeskel landed in Brussels, the two waited for their chance to reach the terminal building.
“There were two guys working on the aircraft. One was unloading the cargo shipment and the other was coming with a torch around the plane,” Yohannes said. “So when the first was unloading the flowers we jumped to the ground — me and my friend — we jumped, and we ran to the terminal.”
Inside, employees gave them water and something to eat, but Yohannes and Gebremeskel were still in shock. “We were afraid they were going to send us back […] The guards, they brought us tea, but we were kneeling down on the ground, we were shaking,” Yohannes added.
Slowly, they felt a sense of relief, perhaps for the first time since they took off from Addis Ababa.
Their decision to flee had been prompted in part by reports that 38 Tigrayan security guards had been recently suspended at Bole Airport, meaning security was more lax than usual, they said.
“We were afraid of course … Luckily, we were not found. If we had been found, the punishment would have been harsh.”
Gebremeskel
But NISS, Ethiopia’s national intelligence security service, was still searching every part of the aircraft before departure, Gebremeskel explained, in order to prevent escapes. The Ethiopian Prime Minister’s spokesperson, Billene Seyoum, did not comment on these allegations.
Ethiopian Airlines has not responded to CNN’s request for comment on the security situation at Bole Airport
“We had some tools with us, we were afraid they were going to catch us because they check — the guy from the national intelligence security service checks every flight before departure,” Gebremeskel said.
“We were afraid of course. We were sitting with some tools with us. Maybe they will come to check that we’re working on it. Luckily, we were not found. If we had been found, the punishment would have been harsh.”
Yohannes hopes that in Belgium, he will find a country that will “respect my demands, the right to life.”
Pieter-Jan De Block, their lawyer, confirmed in a statement to CNN that both his clients had “obtained international protection in Belgium” and that they’d been released from the center where they were staying.
For Gebremeskel, the picture is bittersweet. With his family still far away — his parents are in a refugee camp in Sudan — and no money or job in Belgium, life is not easy. Although he has accommodation now, his first two nights after being granted asylum were spent sleeping at a train station.
He told CNN he hoped one day to return to Ethiopia but that until the country is a place where “people aren’t treated differently for their ethnicity,” that hope feels very remote.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 27, 2022
🔫 Arms from UAE likely bound for Ethiopia & Eritrea
The Houthi armed forces seized a UAE-owned vessel allegedly ‘carrying military equipment’ off Hodeidah, spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree announced in a televised address on Monday.
During the address, Saree presented footage of the vessel ‘Rwabee,’ showing vehicles and military equipment, as well as weapons and ammunition on board.
“The Yemeni naval forces succeeded in carrying out a special military operation targeting a vessel in the Yemeni territorial waters in the Red Sea, specifically off the Hodeidah Governorate, while it was carrying out hostile activities,” said Saree.
“This hostile vessel carries military equipment, including machinery and devices, and other equipment that is used in the aggression against the Yemeni people,” he went on to say.
He also pointed out that the naval forces “were watching this vessel as it was transporting large and different quantities of weapons,” adding that its seizure falls “within the framework of the legitimate defence of our country and our people.”
Saree concluded by emphasising that the armed Houthi forces “will not hesitate to carry out special operations and will face escalation with escalation.”
The Saudi coalition accused the Houthis of ‘piracy,’ announcing that the movement ‘hijacked the vessel ‘Rwabee’ off the port of Hodeidah,’ noting that it ‘was flying the UAE flag’ and ‘was carrying equipment which was used in the Saudi field hospital on the island of Socotra.’
The coalition called on the Houthis to release the ship ‘immediately,’ threatening that it would take ‘all necessary measures and procedures to deal with this violation, including the use of force.’
The Saudi-led coalition, with the participation of the UAE, began its military operations in Yemen in 2015 under the slogan of supporting government forces against the Ansar Allah Houthi movement after its forces seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2015, which subsequently resulted in the outbreak of a war that caused the worst humanitarian disaster in the world, according to the United Nations.
A ship hijacked by Yemeni militias in the Red Sea has 11 crew on board from five countries, the United Arab Emirates told the United Nations Security Council president on Monday.
Seven of the crew are Indian and the others come from Ethiopia, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines, the UAE’s permanent representative said in a letter.
It denounced the “act of piracy” against the UAE-flagged Rwabee, which the Houthi militias seized on January 2.
The Iran-backed militias say they seized the Rwabee in Yemeni waters and have released a video which they say shows military equipment on board.
“This act of piracy is contrary to fundamental provisions of international law,” said the letter, signed by UAE ambassador Lana Nusseibeh and dated January 9.
“It also poses a serious threat to the freedom and safety of navigation as well as international trade in the Red Sea and to regional security and stability.”
Nusseibeh described the Rwabee as a “civilian cargo vessel” that was leased by a Saudi company and was carrying equipment used at a field hospital. It was travelling on an international route, she added.
The Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen to support the internationally-recognised government in March 2015 after the Houthis captured the capital, Sana’a, the previous September.
The UN estimated that the war would have killed an estimated 377,000 people directly or indirectly by the end of 2021, and calls it the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe.
Ethiopia FM condemns Houthi terrorist attack, affirms solidarity with UAE in phone call with H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on October 6, 2021
💭 My Note: Today fascist Abiy Ahmed Ali has named a new defense minister, traitor Tigrayan Abraham Belay. It is “symbolically interesting” to see a Tigrayan appointed as defense minister. I’ve stated in the past there are very cynic and satanic motives behind the appointment of all these Tigrayan technocrats.
Preparing for The #TigrayGenocide evil Abiy Ahmed and his Luciferian overlords brought Tigrayans to occupy key positions nationally and internationally:
👉 His Holiness Abune Mathias, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
👉 Dr. Lia Tadesse Gebremedhin, Minister of Health of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.
👉 Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Director-General of the World Health Organization.
💥 Wow! Let’s connect the dots…this is how monster war criminal Abiy Ahmed Ali and his Luciferian babysitters are literally working hard to destroy Ethiopia, instantly, before our very eyes – with the help of the Amharas — and how they are preparing themselves to blame those Tigrayan appointees for all the evil deeds of the fascist Oromo regime in Addis Ababa.
(CNN) Ethiopia’s government has used the country’s flagship commercial airline to shuttle weapons to and from neighboring Eritrea during the civil war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, a CNN investigation has found.
Cargo documents and manifests seen by CNN, as well as eyewitness accounts and photographic evidence, confirm that arms were transported between Addis Ababa’s international airport and airports in the Eritrean cities of Asmara and Massawa on board multiple Ethiopian Airlines planes in November 2020 during the first few weeks of the Tigray conflict.
It’s the first time this weapons trade between the former foes has been documented during the war. Experts said the flights would constitute a violation of international aviation law, which forbids the smuggling of arms for military use on civil aircraft.
Atrocities committed during the conflict also appear to violate the terms of a trade program that provides lucrative access to the United States market and which Ethiopian Airlines has benefited greatly from.
Ethiopian Airlines is a state-owned economic powerhouse that generates billions of dollars a year carrying passengers to hubs across the African continent and all over the world, and it is also a member of the Star Alliance, a group of some of the world’s top aviation companies.
The airline previously issued two denials about transporting weapons.
Responding to CNN’s latest investigation, Ethiopian Airlines said it “strictly complies with all National, regional and International aviation related regulations” and that “to the best of its knowledge and its records, it has not transported any war armament in any of its routes by any of its Aircraft.”
The governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.
Military refills
Long-simmering tensions between Ethiopia’s government and the ruling party in the Tigray region exploded on November 4, when Ethiopia accused the Tigray People’s Liberation Front of attacking a federal army base.
Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister, ordered a military offensive to oust the TPLF from power. Government forces and regional militias poured into Tigray, joined on the front lines by troops from Eritrea.
Thousands of people are estimated to have died in the conflict, which by many accounts bears the hallmarks of genocide and ethnic cleansing. While all sides have been accused of committing grave human rights abuses during Tigray’s war, previous CNN investigations established that Eritrean soldiers have been behind some of the worst atrocities, including sexual violence and mass killings. Eritrea has denied wrongdoing by its soldiers and only admitted to having troops in Tigray this spring.
Documents obtained by CNN indicate that flights carrying weapons between Ethiopia and Eritrea began at least as early as a few days after the outset of the Tigray conflict.
On at least six occasions — from November 9 to November 28 — Ethiopian Airlines billed Ethiopia’s ministry of defense tens of thousands of dollars for military items including guns and ammunition to be shipped to Eritrea, records seen by CNN show.
The documents, known as air waybills, detail the contents of each shipment. In one document, the “nature and quantity of goods” is listed as “Military refill” and “Dry food stuff.” Other entries included the description “Consolidated.” The records also had abbreviations and spelling mistakes such as “AM” for ammunition and “RIFFLES” for rifles, according to airline employees. They told CNN the spelling errors were introduced when the contents were manually entered by employees into the cargo database.
Benno Baksteen, chairman of DEGAS, the Dutch Expert Group Aviation Safety, told CNN that these waybills were required for all commercial flights as the crew on board need to know the contents of the cargo to ensure they are transported safely.
On November 9, five days after Abiy ordered a military offensive in Tigray, records show an Ethiopian Airlines flight transported guns and ammunitions from Addis Ababa to Asmara, Eritrea’s capital.
An air waybill and a cargo manifest from that date show that Ethiopian Airlines charged Ethiopia $166,398.32 for about 2,643 pieces of “DFS & RIFFLE WITH AM (sic)” on that flight. DFS is a reference to “dry food stuff,” according to airline sources.
Another air waybill from a few days later, November 13, has the same shipper and consignee. The content of that shipment was “military refill and dry food stuff,” according to the document. The shipments came at a time of increased military activity; security sources in the region told CNN the Eritreans needed re-supply for the fight in Tigray.
As planes went back and forth between the two countries, massacres of Tigrayans in the city of Axum and the village of Dengelat by Eritrean troops took place on November 19 and November 30 respectively.
Cargo documents show that the series of flights between Ethiopia and Eritrea continued until at least November 28, 2020.
Some current and former Ethiopian Airlines employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions, said the flights continued past this date but that the majority of arms trips to Eritrea were in November.
Both cargo and passenger planes were used in the operation, though CNN has no evidence that commercial passengers were on any of the flights carrying weapons. Many of these flights do not appear on popular online flight tracking platforms such as Flightradar24. When they do, the destination in Eritrea is often not visible and the flight path vanishes once the plane crosses the border from Ethiopia.
The employees told CNN the staff could manually turn off the ADS-B signal on board to prevent the flights being publicly tracked.
The flights were often assigned the same flight numbers, primarily ET3312, ET3313 and ET3314, with ‘ET’ being the code for Ethiopian Airlines. All the planes mentioned in the cargo files seen by CNN are American-made Boeing aircraft. The airline has been in a long relationship with the US aviation giant.
A Boeing representative declined to comment.
Ethiopian Airlines workers described witnessing other airline employees loading and unloading arms and military vehicles on flights directed to Asmara. A few even claimed they helped load the weapons on the planes themselves. All spoke of being ethnically profiled for being Tigrayan.
CNN has seen the Ethiopian Airlines’ ID cards of these employees and confirmed their identities.
One former employee told CNN they were instructed at Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport to load guns and four military vehicles onto an Ethiopian Airlines cargo plane that was due to fly to Belgium but was sent instead to Eritrea.
“The cars were Toyota pickups which have a stand for snipers,” the employee said. “I got a call from the managing director late at night informing me to handle the cargo. Soldiers came at 5 a.m. to start loading two big trucks loaded with weapons and the pickups.”
“I had to stop a flight to Brussels, a 777 cargo plane, which was loaded with flowers, then we unloaded half of the perishable goods to make space for the armaments.”
The former employee warned soldiers that the vehicles were carrying far more gas than was allowed under international air transport rules, but said they were overruled after a direct call from an army commander.
“He [the commander] said we are going to war and we need the fuel to be loaded,” the employee said. “Then I referred the issue to my manager and my manager took responsibility and allowed them to load it.”
The flight, loaded with both weapons and flowers, traveled to Eritrea, then returned to Addis before flying on to Brussels the following day, the employee said. CNN cross-referenced this testimony with Flightradar24 and found the record of an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft returning from the direction of Eritrea and flying to Brussels the next day, but could not independently verify it was the same flight referred to by the employee.
Days later, the employee said they were temporarily suspended from work. They believe they were suspended for being Tigrayan but also for the incident with the soldiers. The employee fled Ethiopia in March.
Ethiopian Airlines told CNN in its statement that no employees had been suspended or terminated due to their ethnic background.
It appears to be not the only long-distance international flight with unplanned stops. A flight from Addis Ababa to Shanghai on November 9, 2020, took a long detour via Eritrea according to the ADS-B signal that tracks the route on Flightradar24.
Several employees at the Addis Ababa airport said they saw multiple weapons flights leave for Eritrea each day at the outset of the conflict. They also spoke about flights carrying weapons from Eritrea back to Ethiopia. It’s unclear why armaments were being transferred back to Ethiopia.
One said they saw tanks and heavy artillery loaded onto planes coming to Addis Ababa, while small arms — mortars, launchers — were dispatched to Asmara. Employees told CNN they believed the smaller weaponry were being sent to Asmara to arm Eritrean troops.
All the employees said they were instructed by the airline to delete photos of the weapons from their phones. Not all of them did.
In June, photos circulated on social media platforms showing crates containing mortars on board an Ethiopian Airlines flight and the same crates being loaded on the plane in Massawa, Eritrea.
The company released a statement strongly denying the allegation that its planes were transporting weapons and claimed the photos were photoshopped.
However, CNN has corroborated the photos using visual analysis techniques, interviews and documentary evidence, dating them to a 777 Freighter cargo flight that flew from Ethiopia to Eritrea and back between November 8 and 9.
Egypt took delivery of a second French Mistral helicopter carrier on Friday, part of a $1 billion deal signed last year.
Egypt took over the ship at a ceremony in the Atlantic coast port of Saint-Nazaire. It was the second of two France agreed last year to sell to Egypt.
The two ships were originally built for sale to Russia, but that sale was canceled after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
“It has been a very complicated, uncertain period to manage, but thanks to the French government’s support, we were able to find a navy that needed it,” a spokesman for the state-backed shipbuilder DCNS told Reuters.
The French naval contractor had to strip out all the ship’s information systems and instructions written in Cyrillic script and replace them with Arabic and English lettering.
The “Anwar El-Sadat” will sail from Saint-Nazaire early next week for joint exercises with the French navy before setting off for Alexandria.
The Mistral is known as the “Swiss army knife” of the French navy for its versatility. Capable of carrying vessels and tanks, the will serve as command centers for the Egyptian fleet.
Cairo has tried to boost its military power in the face of a two-year insurgency in northern Sinai and fears that civil war in neighboring Libya could spill over.
Egypt has also ordered four corvettes, 100-metres long, that will be built in two years, and negotiations are under way to order two more, the spokesman for DCNS told Reuters.
Cairo has tried to boost its military power in the face of a two-year insurgency in northern Sinai and fears that civil war in neighboring Libya could spill over.
My Note: Really? We know what the Egyptian snake needs these ships for. And the French, how could we forget, they first stole Djibouti from Ethiopia, and now they are arming her historical enemy (with a covert Russian concession to the ships – Russia, Egypt are in talks on equipment for Mistrals). According to the Book of Daniel those apostate western nations, like the French who betrayed Christianity are now creating temporary alliance of convenience with the Arab Muslim nations. These western nations are assisting anti-Christian Islamic movements everywhere. They were active provoking revolts and chaos in Ethiopia on the eve of September 11, New Year’s Day. The timing has always been very important for them. No! Our nation wouldn’t be fooled another time, but they still try to scare us with the French-made helicopter carrier – which is an important tool of power projection. But, in the end, these Luciferians will crumble big time.
Well, unless they immediately cease engaging in hostile activities directed against the Ethiopian nation and our Coptic brothers and sisters – the secret St. Teklehaymanot brigade will be ready to contaminate THE RIVER with very ancient radioactive material. Again, they’ll never learn, because of their hardened pharaoh heart and stubbornness, the world’s most populated Arab country will soon drop in stature to the lowliest of nations in the world. God Egziabher will surely bring judgment on His enemies.
“It shall be the lowliest of kingdoms; it shall never again exalt itself above the nations, for I will diminish them so that they will not rule over the nations anymore.” [Ezekiel 29:15]
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on October 12, 2015
The Russian-French Mistral Class helicopter carrier saga has been a long and rocky one. Originally the two amphibious assault ships were built for Russia, with many Russian combat systems installed, but France denied delivery after Russia seized Crimea a year and a half ago. Since then, many potential customers have been identified for the ships, but Egypt appears to be where these powerful ships will call home in the not so distant future.
The Mistral Class are pretty amazing ships. Not because they offer any sort of new capabilities that other amphibious flattops don’t, but because they offer a lot of capability for their price, costing around $700 million each. They also have much lower their operating costs when compared with say an American Wasp Class LHD, which only enhances their reputation for value.
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With this in mind, many navies around the globe looked at buying the orphaned ships, many of which are not known for carrier operations or for large navies for that matter. Canada, NATO, Brazil, India, Vietnam, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore and even China and the U.S. have been floated or rumored as potential buyers. In the end it appears that France has brokered a deal with Egypt for both the ships.
France has become a more heavily favored nation for Egyptian trade and arms deals in recent years as it has been in the past. The el-Sisi government has pivoted away from the U.S. as its main strategic partner in the region as the Obama Administration has greatly chilled the Egypt-U.S. relationship because of the military backed el-Sisi coup that seized power from the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood. As a result, F-16 and other arms deliveries were temporarily embargoed to Egypt, which among other things, disrupted the once strong relationship between the two countries. In Washington’s absence, Egypt has turned to France and Russia for arms sales, with major orders being penned worth billions of dollars for Dassault Rafale and MiG-29 fighters recently.
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Meanwhile, Egypt has been engaged in a deepening counter-terror fight against extremist elements, namely those aligned with ISIS. Geographically speaking, threats are emanating primarily from around the Sinai Peninsula, which Egypt worries could one day endanger the Suez Canal, and from the western border with Libya, which is embroiled in a full-on civil war and teaming with Islamic militants.
Even with the rising spectre of Islamic extremism looming over Saharan and portions of sub-Saharan Africa, it is not exactly clear what Egypt plans on doing with two amphibious helicopter carriers. These powerful ships could be used as seabases of sorts, parking them off the coast of trouble spots on the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Arabian Sea, but that would signal a massive expeditionary shift in Egypt’s foreign policy. Although maybe this shift has been underway already, with Sunni Arab states openly fighting Iranian backed Houthi Rebels in Yemen. In fact, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have joined forces to a certain degree militarily to attempt to shape the region as they see fit. This is known as the Cairo Declaration, and it was signed with little western media attention this summer. The addition of a pair of aircraft carriers and amphibous assault ships could provide a counter-balance against increasing Iranian influene in the region.
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If anything else, the purchase is a major sign that Egypt plans on becoming much more active when it comes to regional military operations than it has in the past.
Also of interest is that these ships were originally meant to be delivered to what is becoming Egpyt’s prime global ally, Russia. Russia, who was denied purchase of the vessels, has stated that it will build its own ships of similar capability. But Russia doesn’t necessarily have the shipbuilding ability to do so. Even though Russia has in-depth knowledge of the Mistral Class and its systems, building an entire one alone, without even a working example to go off of may be troublesome. Additionally, Russian sub-systems were never gutted from these ships after the original deal was cancelled and they remain an integral part of these ships. These systems will need servicing and upgrades, and sailors will need to be trained on them throughout the ship’s life. In other words, Egypt will need some cooporation with Russia when it comes to operating these ships.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on January 10, 2012
Tasers that elicit excruciating spasms in one person at a time? Foam pellets that send an entire crowd fleeing in agony? Pfft. So 2011. Where non-lethal weapons are concerned, the future’s all about sonic microwaves that can make swimmers puke mid-stroke, and aircraft with laser beams that can redirect an entire enemy plane mid-flight.
Or, at least, those are the deepest, darkest wishes of the Pentagon agency responsible for non-lethal weapons.
The military’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate’s “Non-Lethal Weapons Reference Book,” leaked online last week by PublicIntelligence.org, is a terrifying treasure trove that describes dozens of ways — some already in-use, others in development or still mere fantasy — for military and law enforcement officials to make you wish they were using the real bullets.
A total of 14 weapons, according to the reference book, are currently being fielded. Some of ‘em, you’ve heard of. Good old tasers, which the guide helpfully reminds us “can penetrate 2 inches of clothing” in order to “totally disable an individual,” and guns that shoot 600 rubber pellets filled with pepper spray to keep rowdy crowds — already used by law enforcement officials, sometimes with very lethal results — subdued.
Have you ever made an electromagnetic weapon? To make one, what you need is simply a microwave oven. The magnetron in the oven, a simple electronic circuit and a small foldable antenna, would give the device a radiation level strong enough to up-set a number of electronic systems used in banking, security, military, medical and public service control operations. A more powerful weapon can be developed with a slightly expensive magnetron available in most of the super markets in former Soviet Union countries. This weapon, which can be mounted in a car, could generate enough power to destroy many electronics and also make control systems run mad, even when operated at a long distance. The USA and other NATO alliances have developed much more powerful weapons that can cause mass destruction without a single ‘bang’.
There are a number of ways a terrorist may use these electromagnetic weaponry to attack military and civil targets. A landing aircraft would typically be at a height of 100m at 2 km distance from the edge of the runway. For an example, in the case of an airport, with an adjacent road, free vehicular movement maybe well within this distance. An electromagnetic emitter fixed to the roof of an automobile can direct a strong dose of radiation towards the plane as it passes by, causing the internal electronic network to fibrillate resulting the collapse of the aircraft. The consequences maybe even severe if the intruder strike the control tower of the airport by electromagnetic means.
In the present context, an even graver scenario is the illumination of vulnerable positions at ground level with electromagnetic waves by a low flying light enemy air-craft. Such an air-craft may carry a sizable radiator and kill many electronics without arousing much alarm in the neighbourhood.
In 1967, the USS Forrestal was involved in one of the worst cases of electromagnetic interference ever documented. During a carrier landing, a military aircraft was exposed to the ship’s radar (electromagnetic radiation) and accidentally fired its munitions hitting a fully armed and fuelled aircraft on the deck. The explosions caused severe damage to the carrier and resulted in 134 deaths. These incidents were unintentional but the question is ‘why a similar incident cannot be carried out intentionally?’
When antilock braking systems (ABS) were first introduced, problems arose in Germany on the autobahn when brakes were self-applied as the autos passed a nearby radio transmitter. Not only the braking system but the engines and many other options of the modern automobiles are fully computer controlled, and vulnerable to electromagnetic attacks. A group of Swedish scientists conducted a test few years ago on how external electromagnetic sources can interfere with the automation system of vehicles. This group has reported that the engine of a Volvo Car in motion can be subjected to a dead standstill within a fraction of a second by directing an electromagnetic pulse emitted from a microwave generator installed a few hundreds metres away by the road side. Such a sudden stoppage in a highway may cause a terrible pileup of which the outcome is beyond imagination.
The medical care industry has also been affected by EMI. A heart attack victim in US died when the attached monitor and defibrillator shut down every time the radio transmitter was used in an ambulance.
At very close distance apparently harmless devices such as mobile phones, portable computers and radios may act as lethal electromagnetic emitters. These electronic devices emit a low power signal while they are in use. They may induce small voltages in the conductors in the close vicinity, which will traverse into critical systems. For an example when you use a cellular phone inside a plane the signals emitted by the transmitter of the phone may generate voltage pulses in the communication wires hidden inside the wall panel adjacent to the seat. These pulses may propagate into the electronics of the control panel.
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