A little bit of Iraq in Italy.

I believe the tanker made it as far as Alexandria in Egypt before being impounded.

It was a modified Stromboli class of some 8700 tons full load.

It was in Alexandria from 1986, however where it ended up is anyone’s guess.

Unicorn

4 frigates Lupo class was ordered from Saddam, but were never delivered due to the embargo.
So, 2 frigates were sold to Peruvian Navy and 2 are in service in Italian navy.

I believe that the whole deal was 4 Lupos and 6 corvettes and a tanker. Saddam bought them as a package deal for a whole new navy. The Iran Iraq War held the whole thing up I believe.

The corvette look very neat with a helipad.

Nep: mate that second pic I posted here a while ago if you do a search you’ll see that we did a chat about it and in the background you can see the two Malay vessels being prepaired for delivery.

From a c i g .org (naval section) Here they are.
Mussa Ben Nussair and the other picture shows two of the non-helicopter Assad class along with some of the Iraqi Lupo’s (now in Italian service as Artiglieri).

Iraqi Navy to Receive Saddam-Era Corvettes from Italian Firm

By AMI INTERNATIONAL INC.

Two Assad-class corvettes built for Iraq in the 1980s will be released to the Iraqi Navy by Italy. Although the delivery date for the corvettes has not been determined, Italy agreed to begin training the Iraqi crews in order to transfer the ships.

The two Assad-class corvettes are the remnants of a six-ship deal between former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Fincantieri SpA in 1981. After all six units were built, however, they could not be delivered to the Iraqi Navy due to United Nations sanctions on Iraq for its war against Iran.

The first four units of the class were sold to Malaysia, two in 1995 and two in 1996. The remaining two units were maintained at Fincantieri until present. Negotiations between the new Iraqi government and Italy began in 2004. The new agreement was reached in March.

The Iraqi Navy took delivery of five Taiwanese-built 28-meter patrol boats in the first quarter of 2004, followed by six Iraqi-built Al Uboor-class patrol craft in 2005.

http://www.navyleague.org/sea_power/jun_05_66.php

Didn’t Iraq also order 4 Lupo class frigates from the Italians which were also not delivered! I think that they eneded up in Italian Navy service.

Its hardly any wonder that Saddam felt the need to invade Kuwait with all the money he was speneding on his military so soon after the end of th war with Iran, Iraq was probably near the point of economic collapse!

During my regular boredom induced musings today at work my mind dug up a little nugget of information I came by a few years back relating to the Iraqi navy.

For the last 17 years a couple of new Iraqi corvettes built by Fincantieri have been impounded at the NATO base La Spezia Italy with a small caretaker crew.

A recent BBC report about the RN training Iraqs new naval patrol service mentioned these two vessels ( Mussa Ben Nussair and the Tarik Ben Ziad I think) and that they were going to be inducted into service.

I would be interested to know if this is the case and what kind of work is being done to overhaul them and who is paying for it?

Any photos of these two naval orphans would be welcome.

These are the helicopter equipped sisterships of the missile boats sold to Malaysia. I think they will have gun armament only but with helicopter could be usefull for the fledgeling new Iraqi navy.

I thought they were bought by Egypt. How many were imppounded in total? Maybe it was just these two mentioned that didn’t get a new owner.

/Dan