Al-Samoud 2
Al-Samoud (الصمود, alternately Al-Samed, which means steadfastness in Arabic)<ref name=Miller>Miller, David: Conflict Iraq: Weapons and tactics of US and Iraqi Forces. Zenith imprint, 2003, page 22. Template:ISBN</ref> was a liquid-propellant rocket tactical ballistic missile developed by Iraq in the years between the Gulf War and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The Iraqi army also developed a solid-fuel rocket version known as Ababil-100.
DevelopmentEdit
The missile was essentially a scaled-down Scud,Template:Citation needed though parts were mostly derived from the Soviet S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missile. The first test-firing was carried out as early as 1997<ref name=Miller/> and was supervised by UNSCOM.<ref>Iraq's missile programs Template:Webarchive</ref> The production started in 2001, and the goal was the assembly of ten missiles each month. The Al Samoud 2 was not fully operational by 2003, but some of them had been already delivered to the Iraqi army.Template:Citation needed
EngineEdit
The rocket engine evolved from the S-75 Dvina design and the thrust vector controls from the Scud. The system also included an Iraqi-designed mobile launcher similar to the Al-Nida, built for the missile Al Hussein,<ref>Cordesman, Anthony (2003). The Great Iraqi Missile Mystery: The Military Importance of the Ababil, Al Samoud II, Al Fatah, Badr 2000, and Al Huysayn Template:Webarchive. Center for Strategic and International Studies, 25 February 2003</ref> produced by the Iraqi company Al-Fida.<ref>Unmovic - IAEA Press Statement on Inspection Activities in Iraq, 19 February 2003</ref>
PayloadEdit
The missile carried a 280 kilogram warhead that was half high explosives and half protective steel shell. The explosive charge weighed 140 kg, made of a mixture of 84 kg of RDX=60%, 42 kg of TNT= 30% and 14 kg of aluminium= 10%, the latter used as an energetic blast enhancer. The payload was also designed to upload different types of bomblets.Template:Citation needed
GuidanceEdit
The guidance package was assembled by cannibalizing gyroscopes from the Chinese Silkworm cruise missile.Template:Citation needed A source is cited as claiming that there were inertial and even GPS guidance systems illegally imported from Belarus, but these allegations have not been confirmed.Template:Citation needed
Banned by the UNEdit
On February 13, 2003, a UN panel reported that Iraq's Al-Samoud 2 missiles, disclosed by Iraq to weapons inspectors in December, have a range of 180 km, in breach of UNSCR 1441. The limit allowed by the UN is 150 km.Template:Citation needed
Iraq agreed to destroy the Al-Samoud 2 long range missiles, and by mid-March 2003, a number had been destroyed. Although UNMOVIC ordered to stop its production, Iraq assembled some 20 missiles during the early months of 2003.Template:Citation needed
American forces found a cache of 12 Al Samoud missiles south of Baiji on July 21, 2003.Template:Citation needed
Operational history (March–April 2003)Edit
A number of Al-Samoud 2 missiles were fired at Kuwait during the 2003 conflict.<ref>The sources claim that only three to five Al-Samoud 2 were actually used by the Iraqis, the remainder missiles were purportedly Ababil-100/Al-Fahd or Laith-90, this latter a locally upgraded version of the Frog-7:
- www.cdi.org Template:Webarchive</ref> One of them, aimed at the Coalition Headquarters at Camp Doha, was successfully intercepted by a Patriot missile on March 27. Some debris hit buildings inside the US base.<ref>www.cnn.com/2003</ref> The other missiles were also shot down or landed harmlessly in the desert.
A similar development, the Al-Fahd or Ababil-100, a solid propellant version of the Al-Samoud, was also used by the Iraqi army during the invasion. The Headquarters of the 2nd Brigade, US 3rd Infantry Division, were struck south of Baghdad by a missile of this kind on April 7. Three soldiers and two foreign reporters were killed in the blast.<ref>Zucchino, David: Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad. Grove Press, 2004, page 162.</ref><ref>"He (Lt. Col. Wesley, second in command) had gotten only thirty feet from his vehicle when a powerful Abril (sic) missile hit it dead center." Lacey, Jim:Takedown: the 3rd Infantry Division's twenty-one day assault on Baghdad. Naval Institute Press, 2007, page 243. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Iraqi missile hits Army base, By Steven Lee Myers. The New York Times, 04/07/2003.</ref><ref>Nach ersten Erkenntnissen soll es sich um eine irakische Boden-Boden-Rakete vom Typ Ababil-100 mit einer Reichweite von 130 Kilometern handeln. Focus magazine, 14 April 2003, report by Gudrun Dometeit Template:In lang</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>