RE: Russia Deploying Nuclear Missiles Carriers To Syria

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

Admiral Kuznetsov nuclear aircraft carrier

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Russia sends aircraft carrier to Syria
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Barents Observer
2008-08-20

http://www. barentsobserver. com/russia-sends-aircraft-carrier-to-s...

The Russian aircraft carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov” is ready to head from Murmansk towards the Mediterranean and the Syrian port of Tartus.
The mission comes after Syrian President Bashar Assad said he is open for a Russian base in the area
The “Admiral Kuznetsov”, part of the Northern Fleet and Russia’s only aircraft carrier, will head a Navy mission to the area The mission will also include the missile cruiser “Moskva” and several submarines, Newsru. com reports

President Assad in meetings in Moscow this week expressed support to Russia’s intervention in South Ossetia and Georgia.
He also expressed interest in the establishment of Russian missile air defence facilities on his land

The “Admiral Kuznetsov” also last year headed a navy mission to the Mediterranean.
Then, on the way from the Kola Peninsula and south, it stopped in the North Sea where it conducted a navy training exercise in the immediate vicinity of Norwegian offshore installations


Syrian weapons - Russian made


RUSSIA AND SYRIA ALLIANCE-THREAT TO ISRAEL AND UNITED STATES


Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appears to be keeping his options open

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Fear of new Mid East 'Cold War' as Syria strengthens military alliance with Russia
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Sunday Times UK
August 20, 2008
Kevin O’Flynn, in Moscow and James Hider, Middle East Correspondent

http://www. timesonline. co. uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4...


Syria sought to revive its security alliance with Russia today, when President Bashar al-Assad arrived in Moscow to clinch a series of military agreements, raising fears that the new Cold War that has erupted in the Caucasus will spill over into the Middle East

“Our position is that we are ready to co-operate with Russia in any project that can strengthen its security,” the Syrian leader told Russian newspapers at the start of his two-day trip.
“I think Russia really has to think of the response it will make when it finds itself closed in a circle”

Mr al-Assad said that he would be discussing the deployment of Russian missiles on Syrian territory, possibly the Iskander system.
Syrians is also interested in buying Russian anti-aircraft and tanks missiles

In return, Moscow is expected to propose a revival of its Cold War era naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus on the Mediterranean. Some Russian reports even suggest that Moscow is deepening the port it to accommodate a fleet of warships. Russia may have similar ambitions for Latakia.
Either port would give the Russian Navy its foothold in the Mediterranean for two decades

“In order to have a base you need a decent navy. Ours is weak,” said Alexei Malashenko, an expert at the Carnegie Centre in Moscow. “A base is expensive to keep. Is it just to have a flag there . . .
a show of strength to scare”

Damascus and Moscow were close allies during the Cold War but the Kremlin’s influence in the region waned after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Today's rapprochement, in the middle of the crisis in Georgia, raised the possibility that Moscow intends to recreate a global anti-Western alliance with former Soviet bloc allies from Latin America, to Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and the Middle East

“Georgia began the crisis and the West accuses Russia.
Syria suffered the same thing; attempts to destabilise the country, distortion of the facts and double standards,” said Mr al-Assad, only the third world leader to visit Moscow since the crisis began

Israel, like its main sponsor America, has developed close military ties with Georgia in recent years, with defence contractors supplying training and equipment to the small, US-backed state

As Syria renews its Soviet-era close ties with Moscow, many in Israel fear that the region could once again become a theatre for the two great powers to exert their spheres of influence, militarily and politically

Already, Israeli observers worry that the chaos in the Caucasus may disrupt gas supplies to Europe and Turkey from the Caspian Sea region, creating a greater energy reliance on Iran and its vast reserves.
The crisis could in turn allow Tehran to exploit splits in the international community and use Russia as a powerful backer to advance its controversial nuclear programme

Russia has wooed Syria, internationally isolated and weakened after its withdrawal from Lebanon, in recent years as it has tried to increase its influence in the Middle East and increase arms sales

Syria and Israel recently confirmed that they had been holding indirect talks to reach a peace deal after decades of hostility.
Part of Syria’s motivation was to break the international isolation that it has suffered for its strategic alliance with Tehran, and which has wrought serious damage on its economy

A closer alliance with a resurgent Russia, flush with petro-dollars, could afford Mr al-Assad a way out of any binding commitment.
Some Israeli analysts even fear it could encourage Syria to try to take back the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in 1967, by force

The conflict in Georgia has already sparked a mocking speech by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, over the performance of Israeli-trained Georgian forces.
One of the main Israeli military advisers there was reserve Brigadier-General Gal Hirsch, who commanded a division in Israel’s inconclusive war with Hezbollah in 2006 and later resigned his commission

“The entire front line of the army’s brass stepped down because of the war. Gal Hirsch, who was defeated in Lebanon, went to Georgia and they too lost because of him,” taunted the Shia leader. “Relying on Israeli experts and weapons, Georgia learnt why the Israeli generals failed . . .
what happened in Georgia is a message to all those the Americans are seeking to entangle in dangerous adventures”

That Cold War rhetoric was echoed by Mr al-Assad, who also used the Georgian crisis as a stick to beat Israel. “I think that in Russia and in the world everyone is now aware of Israel’s role and its military consultants in the Georgian crisis,” he told the Russian newspaper Kommersant.
“And if before in Russia there were people who thought these forces can be friendly then now I think no one thinks that way”

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Russia considers nuclear missiles for Syria, Mediterranean, Baltic
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DEBKA file Special Report

August 17, 2008, 9:25 AM

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

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 nation’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