9-Apr-11: You'll know better when they tell you about those pathetic home-made Gazan rockets...

The ongoing effort to paint the armed-to-the-teeth, embedded-within-the-civilian-population Hamas terrorist forces as pathetic victims continues.

"It was not known that the bus targeted on the outskirts of Gaza carried school children," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding that the road where the bus was travelling was often used by Israeli military vehicles.

Do you remember the last time the terrorists of Hamastan attacked or struck an Israeli military target? Attacking Jewish school buses is not new, and Hamas deliberately and massively attacking innocent Israeli children is central to their strategy. The only aspect of this that's new (this strategic warfare website report from 2009 said Hamas still did not have the Kornets) is now they have the ability to do it better. It's a significant and very worrying upgrading of the jihadists' offensive capability.

From yesterday's New York Times

"Israeli security officials said that the Kornet antitank missile fired on Thursday was an advanced and accurate weapon deliberately aimed at the bus. The missile, which is laser guided, has a range of about three miles, and in this case, according to initial findings, it hit its target from a distance of nearly two miles, the officials said."  

Reminder: the bus was standing still when hit, having deposited about fifty school children just minutes earlier.

From a military equipment website

And the Kornet - what's that?

The Kornet (Russian: "Корнет"; English: Cornet) is a Russian anti-tank missile (ATGM). It is a second generation ATGM intended to deal with main battle tanks and to engage slow and low flying helicopters... The launcher fires Kornet missiles with tandem shaped charge HEAT warheads to defeat tanks fitted with ERA or with high explosive/incendiary (thermobaric effect) warheads, for use against bunkers, fortifications and fire emplacements. Armour penetration for the HEAT warhead is stated to be 1,200mm. Range is 5km. The missile has semi-automatic command-to-line-of-sight (SACLOS) laser beamriding guidance, flying along the line of sight to engage the target head on in a direct attack profile.

So how did these super-sophisticated armor-piercing weapons reach this sensitive, terror-afflicted part of the world? A January 2011 article called "Iran Secretly Shipping Thousands of Weapons to HAMAS" gives some indications.