Syria's military flatters to
deceive By Richard M Bennett
While it is still largely true that the
Syrian military remains one of the largest and
best-trained forces in the Arab world, it has
significantly lost every major conflict with
Israel since 1948. Its combat strength has
deteriorated dramatically over the past 15 years
as its equipment has become increasingly
obsolescent, poorly maintained and short of spare
parts.
The collapse of the Soviet Union
created immense problems of resupply for the
Syrians, and the slowdown experienced by the
Syrian economy resulted in a
further downgrading of the military's combat
efficiency.
This said, the recent military
cooperation agreement signed with Iran has offered
Damascus a much-needed opportunity to update and
re-equip large parts of its armed forces. Spare
parts for its Russian weapons, improved
electronics and new Iranian-made missile systems
will provide a considerable strengthening of
combat capability and a possible improvement in
morale.
Syria, like its more powerful
partner Iran, is desperate to become a serious
participant in any negotiations involving the
future of the Middle East and is widely suspected
of trying to use Hezbollah, its protege in
Lebanon, as a lever to help fulfill its
geostrategic ambitions.
The risk that
Syria runs in adopting the policy of limited
confrontation with Israel via a third party is
that Israel and indeed the United States may take
it as a welcome opportunity to embark on a
campaign finally to remove the Assad regime in
Damascus.
If Syria has seriously
miscalculated over the use of Hezbollah, then the
question arises whether the Syrian armed forces
could prevent the regime of President Bashar
al-Assad from reaping the whirlwind it had so
unwisely stirred.
A close analysis of its
current military capability would suggest that
they could not.
The army The
Syrian army has some 220,000 personnel, with the
core of its combat units deployed between the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and the capital
city, Damascus. Significant military units are to
be found deployed along the Lebanese and Iraqi
borders and to the north on the border with
Turkey.
The army command also directly
controls both the Republican Guard Mechanized
Division, which acts as a Praetorian Guard,
equipped with the best of Syria's weapons,
including T72/72M battle tanks, and the elite 14th
Special Forces Division with the 1st, 2nd 3rd and
4th SF Regiments deployed near the Golan Heights,
around the Mount Hermon area and along the
Lebanese border.
The army's main
war-fighting element comprises three corps formed
in 1985 to allow, at least in theory, more
flexibility and to improve combat efficiency by
decentralizing the command structure. This was an
attempt to absorb at least some of the lessons
learned during the Israeli invasion of the Lebanon
in 1982.
1st Corps. The
heavily fortified defense zone between Damascus
and the Golan Heights bristles with long-range
artillery, anti-tank weapons, mines and bunkers.
Behind this is based the army's premier 1st Corps,
with its headquarters in Damascus and deployed in
an arc from the capital to Der'a on the Jordanian
border.
2nd Corps. To the
north of Damascus and covering the Lebanese
border, with a headquarters in Zebdani, is the 2nd
Corps.
3rd Corps. The last
of the major formations, the 3rd Corps, formed in
the late 1980s, is based in the north and covers
Hama, the Turkish and Iraqi borders, and the
Mediterranean coastline and is tasked with
protecting the complex of chemical and biological
weapons (CBW) and missile production and launch
facilities. It is headquartered in Aleppo.
Syrian armored and mechanized divisions
are still largely structured along traditional
Soviet army lines and equipped with some 3,500
aging Russian battle tanks, with another 1,000 in
static positions or in store. More than 4,500
armored personnel carriers and 500 self-propelled
and 1,500 towed artillery, protected by some 2,000
anti-aircraft guns, make up a substantial and, on
paper, powerful military force.
The army
also deploys a fairly modern and effective
anti-tank missile force with some 6,000 Russian
AT3, AT5, AT7, AT10 and AT14, as well as the Euro
MILAN (missile infantry light anti-tank). To this
can be added more than 5,000 Russian and Iranian
man-portable surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).
A separate air defense command has some
600 aging Russian SA2, SA3, SA5 and SA6 SAM
systems, with only the few SA8 and SA10 being
considered modern, and about 4,000 anti-aircraft
guns. This important aspect of Syria's defense
will probably be the first to benefit from the
agreement with Iran, as new radar, missiles,
command and control systems are an undoubted
priority for Damascus.
Missiles and
WMD Of particular interest is Syria's
undoubted strength in missiles and in chemical
warfare. This ranges from long-range Scuds to a
coast-defense brigade deployed to protect Latakia
and other naval bases with four battalions of
Russian and Iranian anti-ship missiles, such as
the SSC-1B Sepal and C802 systems. The latter
recently proved its effectiveness by damaging an
Israel warship off the coast of Lebanon.
However, the real Syrian military threat
to Israel is provided by the large number of such
weapons now available to the missile command based
in Aleppo. It has been suggested by some observers
that as many as 1,000 Russian or Iranian modified
Scuds are deployed on some 60-70
transporter-erector-launchers (TELs), in numerous
well-hidden launch silos or housed within a
reported 15 massive tunnel complexes constructed
in recent years with the help of Iranian and North
Korean engineers.
The majority of these
missiles are improved Scud-D or Iranian/North
Korean versions with ranges of some 700 kilometers
with a 500-kilogram warhead. To this can be added
some 210 highly mobile Russian SS-21 Scarab
short-range missiles. Syria may also have acquired
Chinese technology in the form of the M-9 and M-11
missile systems. Syria has two large underground
improved Scud-missile production facilities near
Aleppo and Hamah built with Iranian, North Korean
and Chinese assistance.
It is believed by
some intelligence sources that between 150 and 200
of the longest-range missiles are equipped with
CBW warheads. There is considerable evidence that
Sarin nerve agents and HD (mustard gas) are
produced at facilities just north of Damascus and
near Hamah, while the deadly VX nerve agent is
produced at a petrochemical complex just south of
Homs. Anthrax has reportedly been produced by the
Damascus-based Scientific Research Council.
The air force The Syrian air
force still appears, at least on paper, to be
highly impressive with a strength of some 40,000
personnel and reportedly some nine fighter and
bomber squadrons and 17 air defense fighter
squadrons.
These are equipped with 90
Su-22, 134 MiG-23, 20 Su-24, 198 MiG-21, 40 MiG-25
and 60 MiG-29 combat aircraft and 48 Mi-24/25
attack helicopters. They are armed with a wide
variety of relatively modern Russian and French
air-to-surface and air-to-air missiles. Most of
the main air bases are well provided with hardened
shelters, camouflaged dispersal sites and heavy
air defense.
However, the fact that about
half of the aircraft are currently non-operational
and the limited amount of annual flying hours,
with little or no advanced training, for the
combat pilots place significant limits on the air
force's actual combat capability.
There is
little doubt that Syria's pilots are both brave
and committed, but the hard reality is that the
air force could not sustain more than a day or
two, at most, of full-scale conflict with its
Israeli neighbors.
The navy The
5,000-strong Syrian navy is unlikely to play any
significant part in any future conflict with
Israel. Its small force of eight elderly fast
missile boats, two anti-submarine patrol craft and
a handful of other minor vessels based in the
ports of Latakia, Baniyas, Minat al-Bayda and
Tartus are probably destined to provide no more
than useful target practice for Israel's warships.
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(Copyright 2006 AFI Research. Used
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