Middle East Intelligence Bulletin
Jointly published by the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon and the Middle East Forum
  Vol. 2   No. 5

1 June 2000 


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Syria Receives New Arms Shipments from Russia, North Korea

Su-27
The Su-27 fighter
According to a report last month in the Russian newspaper Vremya Novostey, Moscow has completed delivery of around $500 million worth of military hardware to Damascus and will deliver a squadron of Su-27 fighter jets in coming months. The report said that Syria has already received shipments of T-90 tanks, produced by Uralvagonzavod in Nizhniy Tagil, as well as Kornet-E and Metis-M anti-tank rocket systems, manufactured by the Tula Design Bureau. The report also said that the Gagarin Aviation Production Association in Komsomolsk-na-Amure will soon be completing a Syrian order for the delivery of 30 Su-27 fighters and the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system will probably be shipped in the near future to replace outdated S-200 and S-125s.1

    Russian officials publicly denied that any arms shipments to Syria have been made. "We have no arms deals, have no evidence there are complete agreements or deals on this," Moscow's ambassador to Israel, Mikhail Bogdanov, told reporters after meeting with Israeli officials who inquired about the matter.2 Russian officials have acknowledged plans to repair and upgrade Syria's existing armaments, 90% of which are Soviet-built.

    Although most of these contracts were signed last summer when Syrian President Hafez Assad visited Moscow, delivery of the weapons systems had been indefinitely postponed due to several factors: Russia's insistence that the Syrians make at least a partial repayment of their debt to Moscow, estimated to be around $12 billion; threats by the U.S. to cut economic assistance to Russia and impose sanctions on Russian companies that sell weapons to Damascus; and U.S. promises to help Syria modernize its military in exchange for concluding a final peace settlement with Israel and a moratorium on future arms purchases from Russia.

    The failed summit meeting between Assad and U.S. President Bill Clinton in March and the collapse of the Syrian track of the peace process appear to have facilitated Syria's willingness to meet Russian conditions for the arms deliveries by definitively foreclosing the possibility of American arms sales to Syria in the foreseeable future. Moreover, Israel's declared intention to retaliate against Syria in the event that pro-Syrian paramilitary groups in Lebanon launch attacks across the border following its unilateral withdrawal has left the Syrians scrambling to find a way of defending against reprisals by the Israeli air force. The Su-27, an extremely advanced single-seat air superiority fighter, is clearly ideal for this task, though it Syria may not obtain them in sufficient quantities to significantly challenge Israeli air supremacy in the near future. It appears that Syrian plans to purchase MiG-29 SMT aircraft from Russia have been scrapped for the time being.

    Russian sources have speculated that the resumption of arms shipments to Syria after a decade-long hiatus may also have been the result of a deal between the two countries over the future of Russia's sole naval base in the Mediterranean Sea, located at the Syrian port of Tartus. Although the Russian naval presence there is much smaller than than that maintained by the former Soviet Union, reconnaissance ships from Russia's Black Sea Fleet regularly dock in Tartus. Russia also has naval repair facilities and coastal service depots in Tartus.

    In addition, Syria is reported by the Israeli daily Ha'aretz to have recently received deliveries from North Korea of a new ballistic missile, the Scud-D, with a longer range (700 km) than anything in its current arsenal, estimated at around 300 Scud-B ( 300 km) and Scud-C (500 km) missiles.3 Syria's acquisition of Scud-D missiles is significant because they will allow Damascus to strike targets throughout Israel from launchers positioned well inside Syrian territory (and thus less easily detected by Israel). It is not yet clear if the payload or guidance system of the Scud-D is significantly better than previous Scud models. The report also noted that Syria has begun assembling Scud-C missiles at a factory built by North Korea and is capable of producing several, but not all, of the components needed to construct the missiles. Syria maintains a large arsenal of chemical warheads that can be delivered by Scud missiles from 26 launchers.

  1 Vremya Novostey, 14 April 2000.
  2 UPI, 28 April 2000.
  3 Ha'aretz, 29 May 2000.

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