Terrorists now have Ballistic Missiles.

[MKSheppard]

Link

Syria Gave Scuds to Hezbollah, U.S. Says
By CHARLES LEVINSON and JAY SOLOMON
JERUSALEM—Syria has transferred long-range Scud missiles to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, Israeli and U.S. officials alleged, in a move that threatens to alter the Middle East's military balance and sets back a major diplomatic outreach effort to Damascus by the Obama administration.

Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday publicly charged President Bashar Assad's government with transferring Scud missiles to Hezbollah's forces inside Lebanon. Syria and Hezbollah both denied the charges. But the allegations already are affecting U.S. foreign policy: Republicans pressed on Capitol Hill to block the appointment of a new American ambassador to Damascus, according to congressional officials. The White House said it was pressing ahead.

The Scuds are believed to have a range of more than 435 miles—placing Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israel's nuclear installations all within range of Hezbollah's military forces. During a monthlong war with Israel in 2006, Hezbollah used rockets with ranges of 20 to 60 miles.

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Getty Images Israeli President Shimon Peres, shown in Paris Tuesday, claimed Syria gave Scud missiles to Hezbollah
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MoreWSJ.com/Mideast: News, video, graphics .
Israeli officials called Scud missiles "game-changing" armaments that mark a new escalation in the Mideast conflict. They alleged that Mr. Assad is increasingly linking Syria's military command with those of Hezbollah and Iran.

Officials briefed on the intelligence said Israeli and American officials believe Syria transferred Scud missiles built with either North Korean or Russian technology.

Rumors of the arms transfer had been swirling around Jerusalem and Washington for more than a week, but both Israeli and U.S. officials initially declined to confirm the reports. "Syria claims it wants peace while at the same time it delivers Scuds to Hezbollah, whose only goal is to threaten the state of Israel," Mr. Peres said in an interview with Israeli radio.

President Barack Obama has made engaging Mr. Assad's government a cornerstone of his Mideast policy, hoping to woo Damascus into a regional peace process and lure it from a strategic alliance with Iran.

The Bush administration had increased sanctions on Damascus and pushed a United Nations-backed investigation into the murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri; Mr. Obama's aides said these measures just drove Syria closer to Iran.

In addition to nominating an ambassador, Mr. Obama moved to ease, though not lift, sanctions targeting Syria's ability to import airplane parts and software. The U.S. has sought to increase military-to-military contacts with Damascus to better secure Syria's border with Iraq.

A senior U.S. official involved in Mideast policy said Washington was uncertain why Mr. Assad would escalate tensions with Israel. But in recent months, Israeli and Syrian officials have publicly charged each other with preparing for war. The U.S. official said Syria's arms transfer could have been meant as a form of deterrence.

The Israelis in recent weeks postponed war games in an effort to calm tensions with Damascus, however. And Israeli officials have publicly told Mr. Assad that the Jewish state doesn't seek a conflict. Many Israeli officials said they felt tensions were lessening ahead of the announcement of the alleged Scuds shipment.

Syrian officials also have voiced frustration with the pace of the U.S. rapprochement. Some have said they believed sanctions could be removed quicker. They also said Washington appeared unable to extract from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a meaningful commitment to negotiations aimed at reverting the Golan Heights region to Syrian sovereignty.

Fears of a new military conflict in the region have escalated in recent weeks among U.S., Israeli and Arab officials. In late February, Mr. Assad hosted a summit in Damascus with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah's secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah. The three pledged to continue their "resistance" against the U.S.-Israeli alliance.

A spokesman for Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, who went as an emissary to Damascus on April 1, said that he couldn't comment on classified matters but that the Massachusetts senator had raised long-running concerns about Syria helping to arm Hezbollah directly with President Assad.

"These weapons transfers must stop in order to promote regional stability and security," said the spokesman, Frederick Jones.


Detractors of the White House's policy of engagement with Damascus seized on the news Tuesday as evidence Mr. Assad has no intention of breaking Syria's strategic ties to Tehran and Hezbollah.

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Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Scuds give the group the ability to strike from further away than rockets like these used in 2006 attacks.
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"It's increasingly hard to argue that the engagement track has worked," said Andrew Tabler, a Syria analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a regional think tank with no party affiliation that some view as pro-Israel.

White House supporters replied that the U.S. needs close engagement with Syria all the more because of provocations like the Scud surprise, in order to be better placed to sway Syria.

"If anything, we need (an ambassador) in Damascus full time just to ensure that reality gets its day in court now and then," a senior administration official said.

Israeli officials have been concerned that Syria could transfer antiaircraft missile systems and armor-piercing munitions to its Lebanese ally.

AFP/Getty Images Syrian President Bashar Assad's government has transferred long-range Scud missiles to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
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Hezbollah officials Tuesday in Lebanon dismissed the allegations as an Israeli attempt to divert attention from continued Jewish construction of homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Syrian embassy's spokesman in Washington charged Israel with trying to cover up its own regional military buildup.

"It is ridiculous that Israel dictates the agenda of arms control in the region while stifling any discussion of its nuclear arsenal, along with the influx of top-caliber U.S. weaponry," said Ahmed Salkini.

In February, President Obama nominated a career diplomat, Robert Ford, to be the first U.S. ambassador to Damascus since 2005. The Bush administration pulled its chief envoy after the assassination of Lebanon's Mr. Hariri, which was widely blamed on Syrian agents. Damascus has denied the allegations.

Mr. Ford's appointment was part of a phased U.S. re-engagement with Syria to be tied to Damascus's cooperation in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, say U.S. officials. The State Department also recently dispatched its No. 3 diplomat, William Burns, to Damascus to talk with Mr. Assad.

Congressional officials said Republicans were now seeking to place a hold on Mr. Ford's confirmation, which was passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on a voice vote Tuesday with three Republicans dissenting. They expect the fight to continue on the Senate floor.

U.S. officials stressed Tuesday that the White House wasn't second-guessing its strategy and was pushing ahead with Mr. Ford's nomination. "Sending an ambassador to Syria who can press the Syrian government in a firm and coordinated fashion...is part of our strategy to achieve comprehensive peace in the region," a White House statement said..

I hear cancelling ABM developments such as KEI and MKV, which would have allowed ABM to be deployed in ever more mobile locations was a smart and nuanced decision by the super-genius President we have...

[JointStrikeFighter]

Israel can fund their own ABM if they feel it is critical to their defences. SCUD is hardly a major threat to the US shep

[Stark]

Isn't the solution to invade Syria, since they are supporting terrorists?

[MKSheppard]

Israel can fund their own ABM if they feel it is critical to their defences.

Considering that Hizbollah is considered by just about everyone to be a terrorist organization, it is disquieting that they have managed to make the jump from battlefield tactical rockets with ranges of about 40~ km at the best, to ballistic missiles with ranges in excess of 300-400~ km (depending on what SCUD variant they got) in their inventory.

SCUD is hardly a major threat to the US shep

The missiles can go in other directions than south towards Israel you realize?

Parts of Turkey (NATO ally natch) are to the north, as are parts of Iraq to the east (where US troops are stationed).

But overall, what this shows is that missile technology is proliferating at an increasing rate to the point where Syria feels comfortable enough that it can give away these to it's client terrorists.

[JointStrikeFighter]

The missiles can go in other directions than south towards Israel you realize?

Parts of Turkey (NATO ally natch) are to the north, as are parts of Iraq to the east (where US troops are stationed).

But overall, what this shows is that missile technology is proliferating at an increasing rate to the point where Syria feels comfortable enough that it can give away these to it's client terrorists.

You mean where the US already has PAC-3 and SM-3 those missiles that can shoot down ballistic missiles?

[JointStrikeFighter]

Shep is doubly dishonest here;

AFP/Getty Images Syrian President Bashar Assad's government has transferred long-range Scud missiles to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

Oh look there hasn't been any technology transfer they just gave Hez some fucking obsolete missiles from the 50s

[MKSheppard]

Oh look there hasn't been any technology transfer they just gave Hez some fucking obsolete missiles from the 50s

Before this month, the best Hizbollah had was 75 km ranged rockets that were a Iranian copy of a Chinese artillery bombardment rocket, with a 90 kg warhead.

Now they have North Korean-designed SCUD clones built in Syria, with a range of 500 km and a 700 kg warhead.

That's a pretty big qualitative leap in firepower and range.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Prove that Hezbollah has the missiles in an operational capacity and either has an operationaly significant quantity or the ability to produce more or that Israel existing patriot defences cant deal with this threat, let alone the iron dome system.

[eion]

Did I miss it in the article, did they say how many SCUDs they think Hezbollah has now? I didn't see any mention of support vehicles (C&C, TEL, fuel trucks, etc.) If Syria just shipped the missile FedEx by itself then Hez is still missing a lot of the launch infrastructure needed to deploy this think operationally.

The first SCUD was a liquid fueled rocket using kerosene and nitric acid as propellant. Is that still the case with these NK designed ones? Not that kerosene and nitric acid are that hard to find or make, just wondering how long they could be stored fueled.

[MKSheppard]

You realize of course champ, that the only people who know exactly how many systems were transferred to Hizbollah aren't telling?

As for ABM defenses -- dealing with SCUDs is within the capability of just about every modernish heavy air defense system.

The problem is that modern heavy air defense SAMs are expensive and still comparatively rare. The US and NATO have been working on a modern medium air defense system that is cheaper than PATRIOT, but more modern than Chaparral -- that can also handle ballistic missiles. It's rather imaginatively named MEADS. But it's still aways off from deployment.

The implication of the transfer of SCUDs is that the technology for ballistic missiles is proliferating way beyond what anyone could have dreamed of in the 1990s and 2000s -- to the point where a third-tier nation state like Syria feels comfortable enough that it's mastered the technology of manufacture that it can hand them out to the local terrorist group.

[Phantasee]

The missiles can go in other directions than south towards Israel you realize?

Parts of Turkey (NATO ally natch) are to the north, as are parts of Iraq to the east (where US troops are stationed).

Doesn't that mean that Lebanon is going to get it's ass shocked and awed, and possibly invaded by the Turks? So it's not like they're going to try it unless they think they can hold off Turkey and NATO?

[eion]

You realize of course champ, that the only people who know exactly how many systems were transferred to Hizbollah aren't telling?

Of course, that's why I asked if it was mentioned and I missed it. So I'll assume Israel has offered no proof of any kind that any transfer has taken place. Why should we believe them? They stand to profit greatly by isolating Syria futher from the U.S.

[Phantasee]

Is it still true that you can't get into Syria if you have an Israeli stamp on your passport, but Israel lets you in if you have a Syrian stamp first?

[Agent Sorchus]

Basically I don't trust this without better sources. It has been what just two weeks from a spike in US Israel tensions and this looks a quick and easy way to get the attention off of it. A political trick like that is one of the oldest around, and as such should be seriously considered. That it comes just prior to appointing a diplomat is even more reason for it to be suspect.

Now if it is true I do not understand why Hezbola would want SKUD's. They are far more of an investment that Israel can eliminate due to their smaller numbers. They rely on good intelligence to be of any significant bombardment value. And for the investment in skuds they should be able to buy things they a greater need for. Like SAM's.

[Vympel]

Israeli and U.S. officials alleged

Well, I'm convinced.

[Edi]

Israeli and U.S. officials alleged

Well, I'm convinced.

Yep yep. I notice a lot of "officials said", "officials alleged", "spokesmen said" and the various other weasel phrases where the people making these accusations state them as fact from the protection of anonymity and the stenographers in the "liberal media" dutifully regurgitate without questioning.

This is just one more in a long string in the same vein, so until we actually have some tangible, verifiable evidence of this instead of just anonymous statements, that article is a lie.

[Sarevok]

Scuds are an inaccurate bombardment weapon with terrible accuracy. They can be intercepted easily and their launch sites are easy to detect and destroy with air strikes. How is scud missiles bu Hezbollah a threat to anyone but Hezbollah themselves because they justed procured an expensive bweapon that is worthless to them ?

[Kuroji]

Because there is a chance, however slim, that the missiles can hit a populated area. And the warhead can be retrofitted to carry something other than explodes, as Iraq's former president-for-life Saddam Hussein showed us back in the eighties. Of course it would probably throw it off, but if they can put some chemical or nerve agent in ten missiles and one manages to hit its target...

Beside, just because they have a long range doesn't mean they have to utilize it. They could lob it fifty kilometers instead of five hundred, and reduce the chance of interception by that much.

[Sarevok]

A scud hitting someones house would be tragic but inconsquential. Getting hit by a hezbollah scud is like being struck by lightning. A scud would only pose a real threat with a nuclear warhead. A chemical warhead would be nasty but damage would be again inconsquential to a country. And it would pretty gurantee hezbollahs extinction as Israel goes on an exterminus campaign.

[Shroom Man 777]

Obviously this is a diplomatic message to Israel to dissuade it from continuing its nuclear weapons program, and to rebuke it for its policies regarding the construction of settlements and the marginalization of the Palestinian peoples, as well as its recent actions of terroristic assassinations. Also, Israel's possession of nuclear weapons means that its regime cannot be knocked over on a whim, thus this is bad for Western Middle Eastern civilization and nations.

[Kuroji]

A scud hitting someones house would be tragic but inconsquential. Getting hit by a hezbollah scud is like being struck by lightning. A scud would only pose a real threat with a nuclear warhead. A chemical warhead would be nasty but damage would be again inconsquential to a country. And it would pretty gurantee hezbollahs extinction as Israel goes on an exterminus campaign.

Well, I was going to say 'Inconsequential? Tell that to the Kurds who got gassed by Saddam' until I did some fact-checking and found out that the mustard gas and cyanide attacks were from bombs dropped on Kurdish cities and towns, rather than ballistic missiles. But yeah, use of that sort of warhead would basically galvanize much of the international community and justify Israel in doing just about anything they'd want to do. Not that not having such a justification would stop them anyway.

[Vympel]

Scuds are an inaccurate bombardment weapon with terrible accuracy. They can be intercepted easily and their launch sites are easy to detect and destroy with air strikes. How is scud missiles bu Hezbollah a threat to anyone but Hezbollah themselves because they justed procured an expensive bweapon that is worthless to them ?

SCUDs are hard to find, they're mobile launchers- they tried hunting them in Desert Storm and had fuck all success. However, they're still inaccurate old rubbish.

[Sarevok]

However Scuds should be comparatively easier to locate than the smaller rockets Hezbollah uses. A massive vehicle driving around with a ballistic missile on top is not easy to miss in a populated country like Lebanon.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Scuds are an inaccurate bombardment weapon with terrible accuracy. They can be intercepted easily and their launch sites are easy to detect and destroy with air strikes. How is scud missiles bu Hezbollah a threat to anyone but Hezbollah themselves because they justed procured an expensive bweapon that is worthless to them ?

SCUDs are hard to find, they're mobile launchers- they tried hunting them in Desert Storm and had fuck all success. However, they're still inaccurate old rubbish.

On the other hand, southern Lebanon is a rather smaller area than southern and southwestern Iraq and the Israelis probably have more UAVs for air reconnaissance now than the Coalition forces had in 1991.

[irishmick79]

Yeah, I'm not that inclined to accept these reports just yet. According to BBC, Gibbs wasn't willing to confirm the reports, and specified that he was making comments based on the statements by the Israeli President. It's possible that the US doesn't even really know what happened yet.

That being said, it's difficult to see what Hezbullah gets out of this, especially if they got a relatively primitive SCUD variant. Pretty much they get a target firmly planted on their backs. Unless it helps them solidify their political legitimacy in some way, I don't really see a tangible military benefit for them that doesn't dramatically increase the scope of the potential Israeli response. I suppose it could be also interpreted as a sign of weakening Syrian influence in Lebanon, if Hezbollah's sources for arms and equipment have diversified to the point where Syria needs to start sending more valuable and high powered weaponry to stay relevant.