WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department summoned the senior Syrian diplomat in Washington on Monday to accuse his government of ''provocative behavior'' in supplying arms to the Iranian-aligned militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.
A department statement announcing the complaint was imprecise about the alleged arms deals by the Syrians. It alluded to the transfer to Hezbollah of Scud ballistic missiles but did not say explicitly that Syria was behind such a deal.
Israel's President Shimon Peres last week directly accused Damascus of providing the missiles, which can carry a warhead of up to one ton, making them far larger than the biggest rockets previously in Hezbollah's arsenal. They are also more accurate.
Now a SCUD is a big weapon, so they can be struck if found, but a larger question is what will Israel do to Syria if in fact some type of conflict breaks out. As for Hezbollah , they have admitted as much but claim the weapons are junk:
Hizbullah sources confirmed on Thursday that the group had received a shipment of Scud missiles from Syria, the Kuwaiti paper Al-Rai reported.
But the missiles were old and unusable, according to the sources. Hizbullah also accused Israel of blowing the incident out of proportion to provoke a media ruckus.
“Our organization has many surface-to-surface missiles spread across all of Lebanon, in case Israel attacks the country again,” the Hizbullah sources said.
Despite this confirmation of what Jerusalem has been saying for days, the Syrian Foreign Ministry denied the reports, saying Israel was trying to stoke tensions in the region and could be setting the stage for an Israeli “aggression” to avoid Middle East peace requirements.
For more on the technical capabilities of the scud check here.
Here is a clyp of a scud on a mover, I am unsure if it is a launcher though:
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