This is a new video which supposedly shows the launch of a Maysaloon-type missile. The Maysaloon is the Syrian version of Iranian Zelzal and North Korean No-Dong 1 missiles. In this case, however, i believe this to be a Tishreen, a domestic copy of the Iranian Fateh-110 missile.

Below is a photo of Maysaloon-type missile on its launch truck

Notice the smoothness of its surface.

Now another photo of the missile in the video. Notice the upper fins as well as the different launch vehicle.

Compare this to the actual photo of a Syrian Tishreen missile…

And we’ve got a match! Not only with the fins, but the launch vehicle is the same as well.
It’s definitely a Fateh-110 AKA Tishreen.

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Let’s explore both claims.

This is the rebel video claiming the jet has burst into flames.
At 0006 notice the sun reflecting against the structure.
At 0007 a glimmer of the sun reflects against the jet’s nose below.

At 0013, the reflection stats shimmering against the body, photo below

At 0014, reflection is in full effect, giving the illusion of a fire breaking out. Notice the lack of any kind of smoke, on or after the “fire” claims.

Now let’s examine the government’s counterclaims. The government said the airport was operating normally, with passenger jets still landing and taking off. A key moment to verify their claims comes in a report broadcast on 28/03/2013 on pro-government Sama TV.

God bless plane spotters and the internet. All flights checked out to be Kosher on http://www.flightradar24.com/data/airplanes/syrian-arab-airlines-syr

Contrary to what rebels and Pan-Arab TVs such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya were claiming, the Damascus International Airport is still operational and open for business.

Now the best part of the charade comes as i was just about ready to discount rebel claims on this one. A video, broadcast on Russia Today from a different angle shows rebels firing at what looked like Boeing 747 passenger jet, at least that’s what Russia Today is leading with. “Rebels try to shoot down jet full of passengers”. The rebels were in close proximity of the landing aircraft and would have indeed been able to shoot it down had they used heavy caliber guns.

However, while i was checking the incoming flights at Damascus International Airport, i learnt that all passenger jets listed were a variation of Airbus. The passenger jet in the footage is an unlisted Boeing 747!!

Both Syrian and Iranian Airways operate 747s. However, the stable livery is all wrong… This 747 sports an all blue tail and another blue line across the body.

Check out both Iran Air and Syrian Air below

But wait… The Shah’s Air Force used to operate Military 747s Cargos that were rehabilitated in 2010 and are now being flown under the Islamic Republic flag. A quick google image search… and Busted! Thank God for plane spotters, again!… An Iran Air Force Boeing in its full glory below.

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M47 Dragon Anti-Tank systems have apparently found their way into Syria, a pretty unconventional sighting by most standards. Blogger Brown Moses has already wrote in detail about it.

“With a history of use in Iran, Iraq, Israel, and Jordan, as well as the US, it leaves the question of the source wide open, but hopefully the P/N reference will make tracking the origin much more straight-forward,” he concluded.

But what if those systems had a more sinister background?!

We already know that Iran is supplying the Syrian Army with weapons, ammo and training. So it should be no surprise to anyone should the M47 systems come from Iranian stockpiles. After all, the Shah was one the top US weaponry customers in the 70s.

What i’m hoping is some skeletons reappearing i.e. the Iran-Contra Affair (When Iran bought US weapons in exchange for hostages). Should those rounds have originally been listed in Israeli stockpiles or have been shipped in 1985-1986, then that would make this discovery exciting for us, history buffs. Not only did the haughty, Islamic, anti-Israeli Ayatollahs regime enlist US-Israeli help back in the 1980s but now, the anti-Israeli Syrian regime would also be using US/Israeli weapons to put down a revolution.

Ah, the irony of times!

Markings listing the round was made in March 1977.

Tags:  Iran, Israel, military, Syria

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Some Syrian doctor activists are now saying that the alleged “chemical attack” in Homs, which took place on 23 December, was in fact an incapacitating agent dubbed Agent 15 or BZ (Buzz). 

This is actually a more plausible version that the initial accounts of Sarin or Sarin-like gas being used considering its extreme potency. Most injuries in the video were alive and kicking when they should have been already convulsing or dead.

But why is Syria’s possession of Agent 15 plausible, despite it not being listed in its arsenal? Perhaps, the missing link lies in 2003 Iraq.

In 1998, the British Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Defence accused Iraq of storing incapacitating agents similar to BZ.

“George Robertson, Secretary of State for Defence, told MPs: ‘ … At the time of the Gulf war Iraq may have possessed large quantities of a chemical war mental incapacitant agent known as Agent 15.” Immediate effects of exposure include weakness, dizziness, disorientation and loss of co-ordination. Officials said large doses could prove fatal, and could render victims into a zombie-like state.” The independent, Feb 10 1998.

In 2003, Iraq was accused of transferring its arsenal to Syria, its Baathist arch-nemesis. Certainly, Iraq has a history of weapon transfers in times of crises:  In 1991, it sent over 60 jets to its arch-enemy Iran for “safekeeping”.

“In October 2003, the US intelligence community publicly pointed for the first time to transfers of WMD from Iraq to Syria. The Director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, James Clapper, said it linked the disappearance of Iraqi WMD with the huge number of Iraqi trucks entering Syria before and during the US invasion; based on satellite imagery, it assessed that these trucks contained missiles and WMD components.” The Daily Mail, Jul 25 2012

So, theoretically at least, the Syrian regime could well posses the BZ-like agent and might have had used it against Homs. On the other hand, what are the chances of Agent 15 stockpiles still being active? After all, Iraq’s chemical weapons were infamous for having a short shelf-life because of the impure precursors used.

Agent 15 symptoms include slurred speech, disorientation, hallucinations and phantom behaviour among others. This was not the case in Homs.

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Note: Ok, i had a few friends saying those videos are relics of Saddam-era SCUD launches. They base their theory on the accent of the narrator which they say is from the Iraqi borders area.
Fair play. My counter-theory is that 1- The narrator could well be from the Iraqi borders region. Shawaya, as they’re locally called, are known for their support of the regime and hence would find it natural that they be posted to a missile unit. 2- Most importantly, there were no video-camera phones during Saddam-era Iraq. In fact, the first commercial video-enabled phone was launched in 2007!!

Note 2: Mmmm, that’s embarrassing. Someone just came up to me and told me he had a Nokia 9500 Communicator with working video cam in 2005. Bummer. In fact, first video camera apparently was the Nokia 3650 with a VGA cam capable of capturing 176×144 in 2003. But still, what are the possibilities of an Iraqi private having the latest Nokia in Saddam-era Iraq?!

Here are the first two videos confirming SCUD launches in Syria. They’ve been reportedly fired from Al-Nassiriyah Base where the 578 Missile Battalion is allegedly stationed. The missiles are said to have fallen in northern Aleppo, near a recently-captured artillery base.

A former SAS operative who helped hunt SCUD launchers in the desert during the first Gulf War confirmed its identity.”The scuds i saw flying in Iraq in 1991 were large. they had a red glow from its rear and were not travelling that fast,” he told me in an earlier conversation. “Now that’s a SCUD,” he said when i showed him this recent footage.

The videos description says both videos have been supplied by a “defector”. This definitely has a ring of truth to it. On 13 December, AFP quoted a defector from this specific base confirming the launch. “He defected soon after the launch and prefers not to be named,” AFP said. Below is the location of the potential launch site, north-east of Damascus.

An officer who defected almost a year ago told AFP that the missile in question was a locally-modified Russian SCUD dubbed “Golan 1″ with a range of 300 kilometers. This is the equivalent of Russian SCUD-B.
The closest missile base where SCUDs are stored, and may be fired from, is about 20 kilometers south of Al-Nasiriyah, just north-east of Al-Dumayr.

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Photo taken in Aleppo’s Al-Shaar district

Sometimes the level of Arab and Muslim stupid online activism stupefies me. This photo on the Africa to Gaza Convoy Facebook page has been peddled as a Gazan child killed by Israeli Air Force strikes against the Strip on 14 November.

To the time of the writing, it has been shared over 1400 times.

Well this photo was actually taken in Aleppo’s Al-Shaara district. I don’t know why those activists chose to go with this photo and market it as Gaza. It’s not like Gaza is actually missing this kind of photos or that children aren’t really dying there. Photos of killed babies and children can be found by the thousands! It could have probably been less damaging had they used an old photo of a killed Gaza child.

Now, it’s 1400 people lying unknowingly, until the Zionist propaganda machine “uncovers the truth”. And people ask why does the West take our claims with a grain of salt?!

I leave you with a real photo from Gaza on the night of 14 November.

Isn’t it dramatic enough?

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New Type of Artillery Deployed in Aleppo

Syrian activist pages are sharing this image which shows a new type of field rocketry being deployed in Aleppo. I’ve not seen this type of launchers before but the setup (artillery piece+regular trailer) immediately reminded of the countless Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps parades.

In 2011, The Telegraph published a piece about Israeli Mossad fearing that Iran was diverting civilian trailer trucks for military use.

Anyway,  i remember seeing the Fadjr-5 system (a 333mm multiple rocket launcher) and thought this could be the Iranian culprit. It turned out, however, that the length of the tube was too long to be the correct system fielded in Aleppo.

An Iranian-made Fadjr-5 Multiple Rocket Launcher

The 333mm-diameter looks right though. Setting about finding additional Iranian-made 333mm rockets, the Falaq-2 looked about the right size.

Iranian-made Falaq-2

Hence, the system fielded in Syria could be an Iranian-made version or a Syrian copy modified for purpose.

The Falaq-2 is an unguided surface-to-surface rocket. It weighs 255 Kgs, including a 120-Kg-warhead. Its maximum range is reported to be about 10 Kms.

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A quick look on Google Maps, however, proves otherwise.

MiG-23s parked at Aleppo International Airport

Those are MiG-23 fighter jets. Note the swept-back wings, a result of the MiG23 variable-geometry structure. For comparison purposes, find below similar Libyan MiG-23s.

Similarities with Syrian MiGs for comparison

Now that this has been established, where are the L-39s taking off from? Sensibly, they should be jetting off from bases near Aleppo in order to be poised to strike at a moment’s notice. Sure enough, i found the L-39 trainer jets based about 30 miles to the east of Aleppo in Deir Hafir and Al-Jirah airfields (Click for Wikimapia locations, links kindly provided by @bjoernen_dk of the extremely informative http://board-temporary.blogspot.dk/). I counted about 50 of them there, though i suspect there are a dozen more missing (Syria has about 50-80 L-39s).

L-39s Albatross based in Deir Hafir Airfield

Al-Jirah Airfield where more L-39s are based

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A few days ago, a Syrian revolution activist wrote a satirical, The-Onion-style hoax report to take the mickey out of the regime’s rhetoric. It ended up completely fooling state-owned and pro-regime media. He posted it originally on a pro-regime Facebook page, which then circulated  in more than two dozen websites finally to be quoted by SANA, Champress, Syriasteps, Syrian National TV, Dunya TV and even Hezbollah Al-Manar TV and Russian RT.

The report claims that Qatar, along with other states, are funding a 36bn dollar top secret Hollywood project dubbed “Resounding Downfall”. It features real-size models of main Damascus structures such as the presidential palace, the airport, the main squares and even a real-size Mount Qassiyoun (on top of which the presidential palace lies)! The shoot would have shown urban warfare with FSA rebels advancing in the capital and ending by the death of Bashar. The plot was allegedly uncovered by the Chinese intelligence agency.

Now the cherry on top: The Chinese intelligence spokesman’s name changes a couple of times (as if intelligence agencies have any). In one report he’s named as Ishma Songa  while another named him as Zunko Kung Pow (Kung Pow is a kung-fu parody film) and the production firm is called…. Assa Dis Duck Rilly آسا ديز داك ريلي (Assad is duck really)!!! It went on state TV as is!! hahahaha

PS: Duck/Batta is in reference to an endearment term which the president’s wife, Asma, calls Bashar al-Assad by, ‘My duck’ (Ya batta).

Fars news: http://arabic.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=9104251282

Syria Steps: http://www.syriasteps.com/index.php?d=110&id=90937

Russia Today (RT): http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:LnMWb8sY1u4J:arabic.rt.com/news_all_news/news/590452/+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Hezbollah’s Al-Intiqad: http://www.alintiqad.com/essaydetails.php?eid=64119&cid=75

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