RUSSIA TO SUPPLY NEW MISSILES TO ASSAD REGIME
Russia will supply its ally Syria with more advanced anti-missile technology and jam radar signals in the eastern Mediterranean, following a deadly friendly fire incident.
Moscow will send newer S-300 surface-toair missile defence systems to Syria within the next two weeks, said Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister. The system fires missiles from trucks and is designed to shoot down military aircraft and short- and mediumrange ballistic missiles.
The decision came a week after Israeli F-16 planes struck targets near Moscow’s airbase in Latakia, western Syria, prompting the Syrian government to respond.
Its unsophisticated air defence missiles instead hit a Russian Il-20 surveillance plane, killing all 15 servicemen on board.
Russian officials said Syria’s outdated S-200 systems were not sophisticated enough to identify the Russian plane as a friendly one.
Shoigu said the supply of S-300s and socalled “friend or foe” identification technology to Syria will “calm down some hotheads” whose actions “pose a threat to our troops.”