Iraq attempted to convert the Volga/SA-2 anti-aircraft missile into the Al-Fahd-300, a 300 km range SRBM with an SA-2 engine and a solid-propellant booster. The project was reportedly abandoned in research and development.
In its resolution 687 (1991) of 3 April 1991, the Security Council decided that Iraq should unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless, under international supervision, of all ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers, and related major parts and repair and production facilities. The Fahd missiles were proscribed weapons with declared ranges of 300 or 500 kilometers.
Around August 1991, Iraq started a secret project to construct a surface-to-surface missile called "J-1" without notifying the UN Special Commission [UNSCOM] as required by the Security Council resolutions. Iraq's development of the J-1 surface-to-surface missile was based on the Volga/SA2 surface-to-air missile with certain modifications, particularly to its engine and guidance and control system. There were key similarities between the J-1 missile and the Fahad missiles that were under development in Iraq before the adoption of resolution 687 (1991).
During the period when work on the J-1 project was ongoing, UNSCOM inspectors were told by Iraq that it was merely developing a non-proscribed Ababil-100 missile that it had declared to UNSCOM. As it is known now, the Ababil 100 had some specifications similar to the J-1. Iraq admitted later that its intention had been to hide the "covert" undeclared project from inspectors within "open" work being done at declared missile facilities. Specific measures were taken by Iraq to conceal the J-1 effort from the inspection teams. Components for J-1 missiles were hidden or removed before visits of UNSCOM inspection teams.
The J-1 project was declared abandoned in May 1993. According to Iraq's declarations, prototypes of the J-1 missile were built and six flight tests were conducted in January - April 1993. Iraq provided several documents as well as imagery showing some of the test launches. Some components said to be produced under the J-1 program were also shown to UNSCOM inspectors. UNSCOM conducted document and computer searches at the relevant facilities to find additional supporting data - such as contemporaneous production records - to verify Iraq's declarations, albeit without success. Iraq stated that some of the hardware associated with the project had unilaterally been melted in foundries after the J-1 project had been stopped in May 1993.
No aspect of the J-1 program - from design, to parts manufactured, to flight-testing - was declared to UNSCOM until late 1995 i.e. some two years after it was allegedly aborted. Iraq states that Lt. General Hussein Kamil issued the orders both for the project itself and for the requirement to keep it a secret fromUNSCOM.
Iraq declared that the J-1 missile had never been intended to reach proscribed ranges, and stated that the longest range achieved during the tests in 1993 was 134 kilometres. UNSCOM had no independent information that verifies the ranges achieved in the J-1 missile flight tests. UNSCOM's analysis indicated that the system, as tested, was inherently capable of reaching proscribed ranges.