Stingers in Syria
Stars & Stripes is reporting that the Russians claim that Syrian rebels have an unknown number of Stinger missiles.
Gen. Nikolai Makarov, the chief of the military’s General Staff, didn’t say how many such missiles the rebels had and who supplied them. Makarov said Wednesday in remarks carried by Russian news agencies that some of the weapons could have been delivered by commercial airlines, but he didn’t elaborate.
However, according to Reuters, the Pentagon is denying that the missiles were supplied by the US;
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Wednesday he had no knowledge of the United States supplying Stinger missiles to Syrian rebel forces, after Moscow said the rebels had acquired the U.S.-made surface-to-air missiles.
[…]
A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the United States was unable to confirm that the rebels had acquired U.S. Stingers.
I’m guessing that most likely culprit is our NATO ally, Turkey, which has been known to be supplying the Syrians rebels with arms. So, I’m sure some rocket scientist troll will claim that the Stingers are left over from when we armed the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, but that’s not possible. Any missiles we gave them and that we weren’t able to buy back after the Soviets left have degraded beyond any serviceable use by now.
Of course, there are more than 29 nations that field Stingers, so who knows, but since the Russians are pretty mad at the Turks for downing their illegal weapons resupply to the Syrian government a week or so ago, I’m guessing that they’re blowing the whistle on Turkey to even the score.
Category: Foreign Policy, Military issues
I think more likely is they are leftovers from ones we supplied to the rebels in Libya, that were then smuggled into the country.
Stingers? That is SO 1990s!
Turkey would be common sense, given their outright hatred of Asad.
I suspect it’s more likely 9K38 Igla’s. Which the Libyans and Syrians have lots of. The rebels have overrun multiple SAM sites and Russian doctrine is to have MANPADs to provide close in protection of the SAM site, so the rebels have had opportunities to get some.
#4 Kevin: suspect you’re correct.
Erdogan wants to be the king-maker, a new Ottoman emperor. Supplying not-quite-allies with weapons that would later be used against Turkish ambitions is not Erdogan’s style. He would ensure both sides are equally armed, and equally and dreadfully attrited.
SAMs? MANPADs?
Are those anything like TOADs and C6 and GWTs and BOGOs?
Ex-PH2:
SAM – surface-to-air missile
MANPADS: man-portable air defense system
SAMs can be easily portable, transportable with difficulty, or fixed installations. MANPADS are typically small, shoulder-fired SAMs of limited range.
What questions did I pose the other night regarding weapons programs?
I believe there is a weapons nexus betweem North Africa, Turkey, and Syria.
BTW Stingers are early 1980’s … very easy to use. I trained on them. Every US Navy ship carried them in the Gulf during Iraq Iran War!
Then there is the rumor that our now dead ambassador was meeting with some Turks, possibly arranging some mystical arms deal.
Oh, well.
@ OWB …. more than a rumor!
Do those MANPADs come individually wrapped in a pretty purple box? 🙂
Here’s my surprised face
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What is known.
1) Syrian Rebels were loosing the war to Assad’s air superiority
2) The US President signed an executive “Intelligence Finding” in Early August, giving the US departments CIA, Dept of State, DoD, the authority to oust Assad
3) The US Department of State representative Ms. Nuland, confirmed in late October that MANPADS were in the hands of Syrian Rebels, She confirmed SA7 type MANPADS and no evidence of US Stingers. She also confirmed that those Russian MANPADS were from Libya
4) Russia Foreign Minister on 6 Nov 2012 confirmed that Syrian Rebels had in their possession 50 US Stingers. Stingers were the same weapon that Afghanistan used against Russia two decades ago, which resulted in the downing of nearly 300 Russian Aircraft.
5) We know there are confirmed reports by British reporters on the ground that Al-Qa’ida has infiltrated the Syrian Rebels and is receiving most of the arms shipments for the rebels.
6) We know Syrian Chemical weapons are no missing from Syria and can not be located.
We know Islamic extremist Shia are working with Russia via Iran. We also know that if they have MANPADS and Chemical weapons in their possession, they will use them against Western targets.