Condor missile

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This article is about the Argentine/Middle Eastern Condor missile, for the US Navy's air-to-surface missile see AGM-53 Condor.

For other uses, see Condor (disambiguation).

The Argentine Condor missile program started in the 1970s as a multinational space research program with significant contract work being performed by German company MBB (now a group within DaimlerChrysler).

The original Condor had little military capability but was used to build expertise that went into to the Alacrán program which was a functional short range ballistic missile. After the 1982 Falklands War's (Spanish: Guerra de Malvinas ) problems with French missiles (France placed an arms embargo during the conflict), the Argentine Air Force, under command of Ernesto Crespo, decided it was time have its own medium-range missile, and started the Condor II program.

This program was driven in close collaboration with Egypt, and then Iraq, but in the earlies 1990s Carlos Menem discontinued it because of political preassure from the United States. The missile was developed in Falda del Carmen, Córdoba Province.

It is believed that Libya has assumed the Condor II project around 1995. Extensive shifts in the Middle East have obscured the exact status of the Condor II program, but it was clearly the most promising of the Libyan missile programs.

In 1997 the Argentine Air Force reported to Congress that it still possessed 2 of the missiles that were to be destroyed.

Reports of a Condor III program are extensive. The Condor III would have an increased range to some 1,500 km (932 miles) with the same payload as the Condor II. It was however likely that this program ended with the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.