Iran accuses Israel over faulty parts for ballistic missile program

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran accused Israel on Thursday of trying to sabotage its ballistic missile program through faulty foreign parts that could explode, damaging or destroying the weapons before they could be used.

The Israeli prime minister’s office declined to comment on the allegation, though it comes amid a yearslong effort by both Israel and the U.S. to target Iran. A reporter also said the parts could be used in Iran’s extensive arsenal of drones, which have grown in prominence amid their use by Russia in its war on Ukraine.

The report described the alleged Israeli operation as “one of the biggest attempts at sabotage” it had ever seen. It accused Israeli Mossad agents of supplying the faulty parts, which the state TV report described as low-price “connectors.”

Footage aired by state TV showed the alleged parts, some of them popping up into the air, as if affected by an explosive.

The pieces shown in the television report appeared to be military-style, high-density circular electrical connectors. Such connectors can be used to attach electronic components of a missile or a drone, such as its guidance computer, and pass both electricity and signals. Video released by Iran in the past showed missile scientists working with similar connectors.

“This was planted in a part called the connector, which is responsible for connecting the [computer] network of Iranian-made ballistic missiles, as well as drones,” state television military correspondent Younes Shadloo said in the report. “Apparently the part contained a modified explosive kit planted in it and was timed to explode at a certain time.”

The state TV report did not explain why Iran sought to purchase the connectors abroad, though some Iranian websites advertising such connectors suggest that Russian-made ones were the best in the market. Russia faces international sanctions over its war on Ukraine, which has seen its own supply of electronics needed for missile systems challenged.

Iranian-made drones used by Russia in the war also use circular connectors, according to reports by experts who have torn down the weapons.

The TV broadcast did not say when authorities discovered the faulty parts, nor if they had been installed in any ballistic missile prior. In May 2022, an explosion at a major Iranian military and weapons development base east of Tehran called Parchin killed an engineer and wounded another. Other blasts have struck as well, including failures in Iran’s space program that the U.S. has long criticized as advancing Tehran’s ballistic missile program.

The New York Times in 2019 reported the U.S. under then-President Donald Trump had accelerated a sabotage program targeting Iran’s missile and rocket program that dated back to the administration of President George W. Bush.

The CIA declined to comment on the purported sabotage attack.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, a hard-line force answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, oversees the country’s ballistic missile arsenal.

Fabian Hinz, a missile expert and research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who examined the state TV footage of the parts, said the circular connectors “are used in almost every type of ballistic missile.”

“It’s quite likely Iran purchases these connectors from abroad,” Hinz said. “This is not the first time Iran is talking about components being tampered with to sabotage the missile program.”

Israel also has been suspected in a series of targeted killings of nuclear scientists in Iran. Sabotage attacks also have damaged Iranian nuclear sites.

The Stuxnet computer virus in the late 2000s also attacked control units for uranium centrifuges, causing the sensitive devices to spin out of control and destroy themselves. Experts widely attribute the attack to America and Israel, as does Iran.

Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Saab buys British artificial intelligence specialist BlueBear

LONDON — Saab has boosted its footprint in the artificial intelligence sector with the acquisition of British specialists BlueBear Systems.

The British company is a leading provider of AI-enabled autonomous swarm systems and command-and-control systems.

No financial details of the acquisition have been released.

BlueBear had a turnover of £8 million, or $10 million, last year and employs 65 people at a site near Bedford in southern England.

Micael Johansson, president and CEO of Saab, said the acquisition is another step towards ensuring the company sustains its competitive position in key international markets.

“BlueBear, as world-leading provider of AI-enabled autonomous swarm systems for complex defense and security applications, is a good fit with our approach of leveraging emerging technologies in the fields of autonomous systems and AI,” Johansson said in a statement announcing the takeover.

As part of Saab’s AI effort, BlueBear will become a center for rapid concept development, providing expertise and scaling-up innovation, according to the Saab statement.

Typical of BlueBear’s work in the fast-moving AI sector is a July 11 announcement that the company, along with SeeByte, a software developer for naval drones, had secured a British Ministry of Defence contract to investigate and build a safe architecture for mixed multi-domain swarms of robotic autonomous systems.

Saab already has some experience with AI-related technology through its 9LV naval combat management system, especially in its Swedish and Australian business units supporting local navies deploying that system on their ships, said Dean Rosenfield, Saab UK group managing director. “This is an important technology area for Saab and we will continue to expand our reach internationally in that regard but also work with others in AI, as partnerships are very much how Saab works.”

The BlueBear acquisition comes as Saab continues a period of organic and non-organic expansion, bringing the company’s U.K. personnel footprint from a bit over 100 in 2022 to 400 now, Rosenfield added.

Saab occupies rank 33 in this year’s Defense News Top 100 tabulation of the world’s biggest defense companies, posting defense-sector revenue of $3.7 billion in 2022.

Japan unveils defense budget, seeking hypersonics, frigates, F-35s

MELBOURNE, Australia — Japan’s Defense Ministry has requested another record defense budget, with the agenda featuring naval vessels, F-35 fighter jets, hypersonic weapons development and armored vehicles.

The ministry announced Aug. 31 that it submitted a request for $52.9 billion to the Finance Ministry for the coming fiscal year, which starts April 1, 2024. The dollar figure continues a decade-long trend of record defense budgets as Japan continues its modernization drive in the face of North Korea’s missile threat and China’s growing military might.

The request, which was only published in Japanese, features acquisition efforts, research programs and upgrades for Japan’s self-defense forces across several domains of warfare. It is now up to the Finance Ministry to approve the budget.

At sea

Equipment requests for the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force stands out in this year’s budget request. According to the document, the ministry wants $2.6 billion for a pair of Aegis system-equipped vessels to bolster ballistic missile defense capabilities.

The request also provides more information about the two ships, which will be 190 meters (623 feet) long and displace 12,000 tons. They will be include 128 vertical launching system cells for ballistic missile interceptors, as wel as launchers for the indigenous Type 12 anti-ship, land-attack missile.

Construction of the first ship will begin in 2024, with commissioning planned for 2027. The second vessel is to join the maritime service the following year.

Japan will also start construction of a new class of frigates from 2024, with a request of $1.2 billion for two vessels. The 12 new ships are to be based on the current Mogami class of frigates, according to the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency, and will incorporate lessons learned from the existing Mogami class.

Plans include extending the ships’ length to 142 meters from 133 meters, reworking internal spaces, and equipping the ships with Type 12 missiles that will bring their displacement to 4,900 tons.

Missiles and hypersonic weapons

Japan is taking a multiprong approach to developing its standoff attack capabilities, with the budget requesting funds for continued research into the land-based, truck-launched Type 12 missile to increase its range so it can strike targets 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) away. Japan is also working to expand the weapon’s launch methods to include shipboard and aircraft-launched variants.

The U.S. ally is also continuing to invest in the development of hypersonic weapons, with concurrent programs into developing a high-velocity glide projectile and a hypersonic missile.

It is also continuing efforts to buy standoff weapons from abroad, with the budget request seeking the Joint Strike Missile made by Norwegian firm Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace, and the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile made by U.S. defense giant Lockheed Martin.

Aviation

Those two foreign missiles will equip the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighters and upgraded Mitsubishi F-15J Eagle interceptors with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, respectively.

The budget request asked for $739.3 million to acquire eight F-35A conventional-takeoff-and-landing variants as well as $862.3 million for seven F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing versions.

The Defense Ministry also wants funds to upgrade the service’s existing F-15J and F-2 fleets, with a request to upgrade eight F-2s for $83 million that will see them gain the ability to fire the air-launched Type 12 missile currently under development.

By land

The request is also seeks funding for the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force to acquire more combat vehicles and self-propelled artillery systems.

The ministry is asking for $561 million to buy 24 wheeled infantry fighting vehicles, eight self-propelled mortars, 19 Type 16 maneuver combat vehicles, 10 Type 10 main battle tanks, and 16 155mm Type 19 wheeled self-propelled howitzers.

It is also asking for $215.4 million to procure 28 AMV wheeled armored personnel carriers from Finland’s Patria, which won a competitive tender in December 2022.

Why ‘JADC2′ needs yet another ‘C,’ according to Pentagon officials

WASHINGTON — A growing emphasis on international coordination is pushing U.S. defense officials to tack an additional “C” onto an acronym the Pentagon uses to officially label its multibillion-dollar connect-everything-everywhere campaign.

Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or JADC2, is increasingly being called “CJADC2” in public, with the prefix denoting the concept of “combined,” or the capacity of U.S. troops to successfully fight alongside forces from friendly nations. The stylistic choice may sound familiar; the Army and Air Force inked a two-year agreement in 2020 using the moniker.

The term is now resurgent — with broader scope — and reflects “how we are already working, and have been working for quite some time,” according to Margie Palmieri, the Pentagon’s deputy chief digital and artificial intelligence officer.

“We really wanted to send out the signal that we operate and fight with our allies and partners all the time,” Palmieri said at the NDIA Emerging Technologies for Defense conference this week in Washington. “And as we design capabilities, we’re finding that sharing information, sharing data, with our allies and partners and ensuring interoperability as we come together as a joint and combined force has to be baked into all of our solutions. We wanted that to be front and center.”

The Chief Digital and AI office leads the Global Information Dominance Experiments, meant to shape CJADC2, and has been tasked with establishing a data integration layer that would help collect findings from disparate sources and present them in a uniform, understandable manner.

Palmieri is not alone in her employment of the quadrisyllabic tongue-twister. Navy Adm. Chris Grady, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Air Force Lt. Gen. Mary O’Brien, a command, control, communications, computers and cyber director; and recently retired Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville have all rolled it out at recent events.

“If the Joint Warfighting Concept is the fabric of how we fight as a joint force,” Grady said last month, “then CJADC2 is the thread that runs through it.”

Ukraine war driving US Army electronic warfare development, Bush says

The Defense Department is pursuing CJADC2 as a means to understand and react faster on battlefields of tomorrow. By tying together forces and databases across land, air, sea, space and cyber, defense officials hope to outthink, outmaneuver and outshoot technologically advanced adversaries, namely China and Russia.

The military services are contributing in their own way and are folding in international participants. Australia and the U.K. were directly involved in the Army’s Project Convergence last year, and insights from the Navy’s Project Overmatch are being shared abroad in hopes of fostering global links, officials have said.

A key attribute of CJADC2 is the mission-partner environment, which allows data from a range of militaries to be collated, secured, shared and acted upon. The U.S. and U.K. in November agreed to jointly improve command and control while focusing on compatibility.

“The United States has command and controlled, and evolved its command and control, in operations over and over throughout history as the the strategic environment has changed, as our capabilities have changed, as our people have changed,” Palmieri said. “Now, for the 21st century, doing combined, joint and all-domain command and control is no different.”

The Defense Department’s fiscal 2024 budget blueprint allocated $1.4 billion for the connectivity campaign. Government documents describe the funding as necessary to “transform warfighting capability by delivering information advantage at the speed of relevance across” every environment.