Russia considers nuclear missiles for Syria, Mediterranean, Baltic
DEBKAfile Special Report

August 17, 2008, 9:25 AM (GMT+02:00)

Russia's nuclear-capable Iskandar missile

DEBKAfile's military sources report Moscow's planned retaliation for
America's missile interceptors in Poland and US-Israeli military aid to
Georgia may come in the form of installing Iskandar surface missiles in
Syria and its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.

Russian Baltic and Middle East warships, submarines and long-range bombers
may be armed with nuclear warheads, according to Sunday newspapers in
Europe.

In Georgia, Russian troops and tanks advanced to within 30 km of Tbilisi
Saturday, Aug. 15. A Russian general said Sunday they had started pulling
out after president Dimitry Medvedev signed the ceasefire agreement with
Georgia and president George W. Bush called again for an immediate
withdrawal.

After routing Georgia over the breakaway enclaves of South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, Moscow appears to be eying Poland, the Middle East, and possibly
Ukraine, as the main arenas for its reprisals.

One plan on the table in Moscow, DEBKAfile's sources report, is the
establishment of big Russian military, naval and air bases in Syria and the
release of advanced weapons systems withheld until now to Iran (the S-300
air-missile defense system) and Syria (the nuclear-capable 200 km-range
Iskandar surface missile).

Shortly before the Georgian conflict flared, Moscow promised Washington not
to let Iran and Syria have these sophisticated pieces of hardware.

The Iskander's cruise attributes make its launch and trajectory extremely
hard to detect and intercept. If this missile reaches Syria, Israel will
have to revamp its anti-missile defense array and Air Force assault plans
for the third time in two years, as it constitutes a threat which transcends
all its defensive red lines.

Moscow's war planners know this and are therefore considering new sea and
air bases in Syria as sites for the Iskander missiles. Russia would thus
keep the missiles under its hand and make sure they were not transferred to
Iran. At the same time, Syrian crews would be trained in their operation.

DEBKAfile's military sources report Syrian president Bashar Assad will be
invited to Moscow soon to finalize these plans in detail.

Military spokesmen in Moscow said Saturday and Sunday that Russian military
planners to started redesigning the nationÂ’s strategic plans for a fitting
response to America's decision to install 10 missile interceptors in Poland
and the war developments in Georgia.

The chairman of the Israeli Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee,
Tzahi Hanegbi, spoke out strongly Sunday, Aug. 17, against treasury plans to
slash the defense budget. He warned that the military faced grave
confrontations in the coming year - possibly on several fronts.

http://debka.com/headline.php?hid=5513