WarSclerotic

Syria steps up Hezbollah armament – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Growing unrest in Syria seems to have no impact on Damascus’ efforts to supply Shiite group with weapons. Recent deliveries said to include Scud D, M600 ballistic missiles which put Israel, Jordan, parts of Turkey in range

News agencies

Damascus has accelerated its supply of weapons to Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, Ynet learned Saturday.

According to intelligence sources in the West and the Middle East, Syria’s arms shipments to the Shiite organization have remained steady despite the unrest sweeping across the country, and they include advanced ballistic missiles.

Syria is said to be employing the help of experts from Iran and North Korea to press ahead with its development of sophisticated missiles at a secret site, believed to be built into Jabal Taqsis, a mountain near the opposition stronghold of Hama.

The missile program is allegedly run by the Scientific Studies and Research Centre in Damascus, an organization that is already on the United States’ sanctions list.

With financial and political support from Iran, Damascus has also stepped up its military assistance to Hezbollah.

Sources close to Hezbollah said that the flow of weapons entering the Bekaa Valley from Syria had accelerated since March, when protests erupted against the Assad regime.

The scale of arms shipments is said to be so great that Hezbollah “doesn’t know where to put it all.” Another source said that the shipments were simply contingency measures and that “We can send it all back when things calm down in Syria.”

Latest weapon deliveries to the Lebanon-based militant group include, according to The Australian, advanced Scud D surface-to-surface missiles, which can carry a one-ton warhead and have a range of 700km – placing all of Israel, Jordan and a large part of Turkey within Hezbollah’s range and therefore at risk.

Hezbollah has also reportedly been given M600 surface-to-surface missiles, which have a range of 250km and are based on Iranian technology.

According to The Times, M600 missiles are considered “strategic weapons” and “This is the first time that a terror organization has obtained a missile of this type.”

Scud missiles are based on North Korean expertise.

“North Korea has transitioned from selling full missile systems to licensed production and assembly of missiles (in third countries),” said Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies non-proliferation and disarmament program.

Israeli military intelligence also confirmed that Hezbollah has been engaged in a serious arms build-up.

“They moved some weapons before the uprisings in Syria, when the situation in Egypt was starting. But now that they see Syria as possibly unstable we are seeing the movement of a lot of weapons into Lebanon,” an Israeli military intelligence source said.

“We have never had a quieter border with Lebanon but the threat from there has never been greater.”

AFP contributed to this report

Clinton fends off Arab League cri… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER,  JPOST CORRESPONDENT 
07/16/2011 09:38

 

After Nabil Elaraby, in Istanbul, condemns “foreign interference in Syria,” US Secretary of State reiterates Assad “has lost his legitimacy in the eyes of his people”; comments come as 32 Syrian protesters killed.

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  WASHINGTON – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fended off criticism from the Arab League over America’s condemnation of Syria, reiterating that the current regime had lost the legitimacy to lead as it killed at least 32 civilian protesters Friday.

“[Syrian President Bashar] Assad has lost his legitimacy in the eyes of his people because of the brutality of their crackdown, including today,” Clinton said during a meeting of the Libya Contact Group in Istanbul. “And we, along with many others in the region and beyond, have said we strongly support a democratic transition.”

She noted that US officials had conducted many conversations with counterparts concerning Syria during the course of the day.

“We’ve made our views very clear, and the messages coming into Syria are remarkably similar, from everyone that I spoke with today,” she said.

Clinton was responding to comments from new Arab League head Nabil Elaraby slamming “foreign interference” in the affairs of Arab countries and declaring that Syria’s governance is “exclusively decided by the people” at a news conference he held Wednesday in Damascus after meeting with Assad.

US President Barack Obama refrained from calling Assad’s rule illegitimate until just this week, months after protesters began taking to the streets and paying with their lives. The Obama administration was much quicker to slap a similar label on the Libyan regime after leader Moammar Qadafi began to kill civilians calling for an end to his rule.

Administration officials explained the discrepancy in part because of the greater Arab support for challenging Qadafi. Syria, in contrast, retains much stronger ties and allegiances from Arab leaders, as demonstrated by Wednesday’s meeting.

Clinton’s comments came as Syrian security forces killed 32 civilians, including 23 in the capital, in a crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations, the Local Coordination Committees grassroots activists’ group said.

Hundreds of thousands of people participated in what were the biggest protests so far against Assad, witnesses and rights groups said.

The casualties represented the highest death toll in central neighborhoods of Damascus since the uprising against Assad’s autocratic rule erupted four months ago in the southern part of the country.

The killings prompted the opposition to cancel a “National Salvation” conference that was due to be held in Damascus Saturday after security forces killed 14 protesters in front of the wedding hall where the conference was scheduled to take place, opposition leader Walid al-Bunni told Reuters.

Reuters contributed to this report.