TEL AVIV — Palestinian insurgents have been testing indigenous
versions of a Russian-origin short-range rocket in preparation for mass
production.
Israeli military sources said Islamic Jihad has been test-firing
indigenous version of the BM-21 Grad rocket from the northern Gaza Strip.
The sources said the Grad was being tested for range and accuracy.
"We believe Islamic Jihad, probably with Hamas, has been developing and
producing prototypes of the Grad," a military source said. "We know they
have the expertise and the equipment to produce the rocket."
[On Wednesday, Israel's military asserted that the PA, under the late
chairman Yasser Arafat, spent up to $10 million per year on weapons
purchases. The military, basing its assertion on the interrogation of an
Arafat adviser, said the money stemmed from revenue provided by Israel and
the international community.]
So far, the Grad rocket has been fired three times from the northern
Gaza Strip into Israel. The last time was on Tuesday, when the rocket landed
in a chicken coop in an Israeli kibbutz along the border with the Gaza
Strip. Nobody was injured.
The 122 mm Grad has a range of 20 kilometers with a warhead of six
kilograms. The rocket fired on Tuesday traveled 3.5 kilometers, the sources
said.
"They seem to be working out bugs in the rockets," a military source
said. "We believe they are preparing for serial production."
The sources said Jihad and Hamas have acquired between 30 and 50 Grad
rockets from Hizbullah. They said the rockets were smuggled either whole or
in parts from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
For its part, Jihad has claimed responsibility for the Grad rocket that
struck Moshav Netiv Ha'asara. The group linked the rocket attack to an
Israel Air Force strike the previous day in which three Jihad operatives
were injured in the northern Gaza Strip. On Wednesday, two Jihad operatives
were killed in an Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank city
of Nablus.
A Jihad spokesman said the organization has developed a rocket, termed
Amr-2, with a
range of 24 kilometers. The spokesman, identified as Abu Hamza, said Jihad
would soon complete missile development.
"This is a message to the Zionist war minister and to his army that
resistance is the only strategic option for us, and that the ongoing war
against our fighters and heroes will not stop our jihad and fight," Jihad
spokesman Abu Hamza said.
