Offentliggjort den 22/07/2014 Marie Harf, State Department Deputy Spokesperson. U.S. Department of State - Daily Briefing: July.21.2014 state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2014/ 4 MISSILE BATTERIES NEAR TRAGEDY SITE - 25 July (KUALA LUMPUR) - At least four Buk M1 missile batteries were positioned near Donetsk, days before Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine. Intelligence sources who spoke to the New Straits Times point to a number of disturbing questions over the shoot down. The latest revolves around the deployment of these surface-to-air missile batteries in a region controlled by Ukrainian government forces. Several high-resolution photos clearly showed the mobile missile batteries, comprising launchers, targeting and acquisition infrastructure, and command and control centres. Sources said the missile batteries were brought online on July 14, three days before the shootdown, which killed all 298 passengers on board. “It’s a complex and sophisticated piece of equipment,” a source said, referring to the SA-11 missile system, codenamed “Gadfly” by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s Air Standards Coordinating Commitee. The source added that it took at least a year to train the crew to operate the system effectively. “You can’t just launch it with the push of a button and hit the target. It doesn’t work that way. The acquisition and targeting procedure is very precise and involves complex algorithms and calculations. There’s no way a regular person with minimal training could work this system, let alone hit a target at an altitude of 10km.” Read more: nst.my/node/17391 https://youtube/watch?v=B9H0PfZT9v8
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 08:38:41 +0000