NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Iran alarms U.S. Navy with new missile tests
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Iran has test-fired a new low-flying missile designed to attack ships, adding to its potential for disrupting the Persian Gulf, the commander of U.S. naval forces in the Gulf said yesterday.
Vice Adm. Scott Redd, commander of the Gulf-based U.S. 5th Fleet, said Iran also had expanded its network of antiaircraft and other missiles based on land and was likely to add a third Russian-made submarine to its fleet this year.
Taken as a whole, these developments point to an increasingly advanced Iranian naval capability but leave unclear whether Iran's leaders intend to try to choke off the vital oil lanes of the Persian Gulf, Reddsaid.
The United States has 14,000 sailors and aviators in the area, including Redd's 35-ship fleet based at Bahrain, which normally includes an aircraft carrier.
"We can handle it," Redd said of the Iranian threat. "But the bottom line is, it's getting tough."
Iran's newest addition is the anti- cruise missile, which飞iles low to
avoid radar detection. Made by China, it is designated the C-802. Redd said it added a new threat dimension to Iran's capabilities against Gulf shipping, but other Pentagon officials stressed the limits of Iran's naval power.
"We believe we have an overwhelming military advantage in the Gulf," said Kenneth Bacon, chief representative for Defense Secretary William Perry. The new anti-ship missile does not make Iran a major threat to shipping, Bacon said.
Redd said that Iran had performed a test launch of the missile Jan. 6 in the northern Arabian Sea. The Iranian test range is just outside the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which ships must enter and leave the Gulf.
He said the C-802 had become Iran's first sea-based anti-ship missile since the United States sank an Iranian frigate armed with Harpoon anti-ship missiles in 1988. Its shore-to-ship missiles include the dangerous Chinese-made Silkworm.
Redd would not say how many C-802s Iran had. But he said the Iranians had modified a significant number of naval patrol boats to make them capable of launching the new
missile, which he said had a range of about 60 miles.
The missile is roughly equivalent in capability to the Exocet missile that an Iraqi pilot used in 1987 to attack the frigate USS Stark in the Gulf and kill 37 Americans, Redd said.
Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East expert at the Congressional Research Service, said that Iran's intentions remained unclear but that he doubted that the latest missile test signals were an effort to choke off oil commerce in the Gulf.
Redd told reporters that Iran had been adding new sites ashore for surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missile batteries, including the sophisticated Russian-made SA-6 antiaircraft system. The number of such sites has tripled over the past 18 months from four to 12. Redd said.
"They want to be as intimidating to the Gulf states as possible." he said.
Redd also confirmed that Iran had carried out an exercise in the Gulf last summer using helicopters to spray an aerosol on its own ships. He said this indicated Iran's capability to use chemical weapons against Gulf shipping, which includes tankers carrying most of the world's oil.
AIDS study uses chimps
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — For the first time, scientists have managed to give AIDS to a chimpanzee, a possible substitute for people in testing ways to control the disease.
Wednesday, January 31, 1996
Since the AIDS epidemic began, about 100 chimps intentionally have been given the AIDS virus in an effort to learn more about the disease. But while these animals had been infected, none until now actually had developed AIDS. In fact, many scientists doubted whether the disease was even possible in a chimp.
Researchers from the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta described the first chimp AIDS case at a medical conference yesterday.
While monkeys get sick with a simian version of HIV, the AIDS virus, researchers fear that insights from studying these animals may not apply to people.
One of the things that has made AIDS so difficult to control has been the lack of a so-called animal model — a lab animal that can stand in for people in studies of the disease.
The discovery of true AIDS in a chimpanzee could give scientists their first animal model for the disease. But whether this will be practical still is unclear.
Another backdraw is controversy about using chimps for medical
studies. These animals are humans' closest relative, and they are endangered in the wild.
"We believe this to be the first development of AIDS in a chimpanzee infected with HIV," said Francis Novembre, a virologist, at the annual Conference on Retro-
the annual cor viruses and Opportunistic Infections.
The animal, code-named C499, was inoculated with HIV in 1985 and quickly became infected. It remained outwardly well until last August, when it developed chronic diarrhea. In November, it came down with pneumonia.
Both of these illnesses are typical signs of AIDS in HIV-infected people.
fallen 10-fold since 1990. The chimp still is alive and is being treated with antibiotics, just as people with AIDS are, to ward off bacteria.
Last September, the Yerkes researchers were afraid the chimp would die, so they transfused some of its blood into another uninfected
"We believe this to be the first development of AIDS in a chimpanzee infected with HIV."
They occur because the body's immune defenses are too weak to fight off common microbes.
Meanwhile, levels of the chimp's helper T cells — the main target of HIV in the bloodstream — have
Francis Novembro Virologist
9A
chimp. This animal quickly lost helper T cells and appears to be close to getting AIDS as well.
Novembre said that while their chimp was the first to have AIDS, other infected chimps in primate centers around the country may go on to develop the disease, too. He said it might have been that HIV took as long — or even longer — to produce AIDS in chimps as it
did in people.
Chimps often have been used to test possible AIDS vaccines. November said the fact that they could get AIDS should make the study results more meaningful.
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