An expended SA-16 missile tube in Idlib Governorate in late May. Rebels said this weapon had been used to destroy a Syrian Air Force attack jet.
Since the civil war in Syria erupted more than two years ago, one type of weapon has been a source of persistent fascination and dispute: heat-seeking, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. A potential menace to military and civilian aircraft alike, they are a modern version of the proverbial sword that cuts two ways — a weapon that in the particular context of Syria’s violence offers both tactical promise and grave security risk.
Depending on who uses them, these missile systems could either down a MIG attack jet on a bombing run or a passenger-laden Airbus during an airport approach. It is the second possibility that has made this class of weapons the focus of such concern. Reduced to simple terms, few weapons on earth could be used by one person to kill, with a press of a trigger, as many as several hundred people, and cause rippling disruptions to international travel and trade.
So as the war grinds through its third bloody year, and with the European Union’s arms embargo lifted and the United States reviewing how to provide military support to the opposition, At War is sharing a set of field and research notes examining questions that surround anti-aircraft missile proliferation in and near Syria, and the competing views about their roles in the war.
Q: How many portable anti-aircraft missiles are in Syria?
A: No one seems to have a solid public estimate of the number of these weapons in Syrian government stocks. And the exact count of the missiles in rebel possession is impossible to tally, in part because the means by which they change hands – capture and smuggling – do not lend themselves to accounting, but also because there is no reliable way to survey the far-flung and sometimes secretive rebel groups.
Then there is the problem of definitions. People often write or speak in shorthand when discussing this class of missiles. The limited publicly circulating estimates that do appear (like the reference in this very interesting Foreign Policy piece to the alleged recent smuggling of 120 SA-7s from Libya to Syria’s rebels) rarely differentiate between complete weapon systems and the missiles themselves. This is a difference that matters, because the missiles require at least one model-specific battery and a grip stock to be fired. Missiles and batteries are, in a word, consumable. The grip stock is reusable — the piece that pulls the entire system together.
To see the difference between complete and incomplete weapons, look at the photograph at top.
That is an SA-16 tube. What you do not see is a battery or grip stock, which are visible, below, in this image of rebels in Libya in 2011 with a captured SA-7.
C. J. Chivers/The New York Times
So, to cite the example from Foreign Policy, the movement of 120
missiles from Libya to Syria’s rebels would be significant, but less
significant than the movement of 120 missiles and, say, 90 batteries and
30 grip stocks, which would convert the missiles and batteries (think:
ammunition) into ground-to-air firepower. But from most available
references, and even information from many interviews with rebels, it is
not possible to scale the significance of any supposed transfers.Q: What types of missiles are circulating through the conflict?
A: A clearer picture is available of the models in circulation. Nic R. Jenzen-Jones, an independent arms and munitions researcher, noted that thus far arms spotters have principally documented the presence of SA-7s and SA-16s, along with a few SA-24s and FN-6s. The first three systems hail from Soviet and Russian design bureaus; the last system is Chinese-made. (Readers interested in seeing the different systems can subscribe to this YouTube list, which tracks many of the rebels’ social media video posts related to the missiles.)
As for the capabilities of these systems, the SA-7 is a Vietnam-era design. The SA-16 hails from the late Soviet period and is much more effective. The SA-24 is a state-of-the-art Russian system. The Chinese FN-6 is a recent design, too, though its debut in Syria has been accompanied by many reports of technical problems. More on that later.
Q. How many portable anti-aircraft missiles have been used?
A. At least several dozens (and perhaps many more) portable anti-aircraft missiles are known to have found their way to rebel possession, via a mix of battlefield capture and smuggling. This includes batches provided through Qatar’s shadowy arms-trafficking network, including of the missile seen in the video below in an attack on a Syrian Air Force helicopter.
Syrian military aircraft have been destroyed multiple times by rebel missiles, beginning with a strike last November. And the weapons have become something of a staple in opposition videos. There is even online instruction in the basics of these weapons’ use.
Q. What is the argument for keeping them out of rebels’ hands?
A. The dark view, rooted in fears about future terrorism, gets most of the attention, as it should. It goes like this: As the war began in Syria in 2011, President Bashar al-Assad’s military had been suspected of holding large stocks. When fighting intensified and government forces began to suffer defeats, arms-trafficking analysts warned that as Mr. Assad’s military ceded control of territory and his soldiers defected, many of these weapons would move from secure storage into black markets. From there, the reasoning followed, it would be only a matter of time before missiles and their shoulder-held launchers would reach terrorist hands.
In aviation security circles, the idea of terrorists with weapons of the so-called Stinger class presents an especially frightening risk. Unlike the security measures used to prevent terrorists from sneaking bombs aboard planes or hijacking aircraft, missiles cannot be deterred by passenger or luggage screening, locked cabins, or with security in flight. And several social media posts this year, including the video below, have shown the missiles in jihadist hands.
Governments, aviation officials and arms-trade researchers worry that such fighters could have intentions of moving the missiles away from Syria for an attack near airports elsewhere — Tel Aviv, Baghdad, Paris, you name it.
Q: What is the argument in favor of arming rebels with these missiles?
A: There has been a rival perspective – that in the circumstances of Syria’s civil war, these weapons could hasten the end of brutal tactics in which civilians are sometimes the targets, and thereby, in the tricky calculus of measuring human suffering, be considered legitimate weapons for rebels to possess. This is because since mid-2012 Mr. Assad’s helicopters and jets have taken the rather extraordinary step of repeatedly attacking Syrian residential neighborhoods, typically in predominantly Sunni areas, including this cluster-munitions strike in Maara late last year.
Attacks from the air are not the principle cause of injuries and death in Syria; small arms, artillery and mortars cause far more wounds. But air power gives the Syrian military lethal reach where its ground forces can no longer venture, and has displaced civilians from areas that otherwise might be much more secure, thereby compounding the humanitarian crisis and increasing the number of refugees. It has also allowed the government to mass firepower when on the offensive or when countering rebel attacks. And the Syrian helicopter fleet is a lifeline to remote army outposts. In these ways, the Syrian Air Force’s tactical significance is outsized.
Q: Who provided portable missiles to the Syrian armed forces?
A: Because some missiles that were designed in the Soviet Union have later been manufactured by multiple countries, it is not fully clear yet who provided missiles from the former Eastern bloc. The Soviet Union and Russia were known suppliers, perhaps the main providers. Where Qatar procured the Chinese FN-6s is also unclear. But taken in sum, the insights available thus far do align with general trends in portable missile proliferation worldwide – Russian and Chinese systems are more commonly seen than others.
Q: What are ratios of grip stocks to missiles in the missiles in rebel hands?
A: This blog also knows of no data on grip stock density relative to the missiles. For the Eastern bloc systems (SA-16s, SA-7s and SA-24s), however, grip stocks seem scarce in the limited views available on social media, in photographs by journalists, etc.
Q: What did the systems cost the Syrian government, and what is the black market price for missiles out of state hands and sought after by rebels?
A: This blog knows of no comprehensive public data on the pricing of Manpads (an acronym for Man-Portable Air Defense System), much less by component, provenance, condition or type.
Q: How effective have the systems been?
A: Less effective than what many people might expect, and certainly less effective than rebels had hoped. Rebels say their portable missiles to date have been plagued with technical difficulties. Sometimes the batteries fail to power the missiles, and do not allow the operator to acquire a target. Other times the missiles’ propellant does not ignite and they fall quickly to the ground.
The video, here, shows an apparent miss.
There are many other examples. Mithqal Abdullah, a field commander in Ahfad al-Rasul, one of Syria’s prominent fighting groups, said his fighters had received four FN-6 missiles that did not fire. He was not sure why. A member of the North Storm brigade, which operates in and near Aleppo, said the brigade received seven FN-6s. The first two shot from the tube but flew only a short distance. Another field commander in the Idlib and Hama countrysides for Ahfad al-Rasul said his fighters had captured as many as 50 SA-7s at Base 46, a government stronghold near Aleppo that rebels seized in late 2012, but almost none of them have worked. They have had better success, he said, with captured SA-16s, with which they have shot down at least one MiG and a helicopter near the Abu ad Duhur air base. But they also had four SA-16s, he said, that failed to fire before the fifth one launched and struck an aircraft.
It is impossible to extrapolate from the data available and offer a percentage of malfunctions (the more so because malfunctions could be tied to specific lots of missiles or batteries, and also because fighting groups who had had higher rates of success with their missiles would be less likely to complain). But there is no question that gripes about missile reliability have been a recurring feature of conversations with rebels about their portable missile supply.
This is one reason some rebels are willing to share data and other information about their missiles; some worry that Qatar has been procuring weapons that do not work and say the Qataris need to change or challenge their suppliers. Rebel suspicions about the missiles’ uneven performance fit a well-established pattern. Arms smuggling is a dirty business. In the case of the FN-6s, Qatar may have been sold bad goods.
Q: How can a clearer understanding of the quantities and sources of missiles be gained?
A: Generally, absent honest public declarations by manufacturers or the discovery of sales, shipping or inventory sheets, the primary way for arms-trafficking researchers to gather data is to build the data themselves.
C. J. Chivers/The New York Times
Above is a sample of how data can be assembled, point by point. It is
a close-up photograph of the expended SA-16 tube seen at the top of
this post. It shows the serial number and production period of the
missile, which tells us something of how SA-16s may have found their way
to Syria. These kinds of images are important for arms-trade
accountability and when trying to assess the relative effectiveness of
different weapons. (This particular tube had worked, its owners said,
and had been used to down a Syrian Air Force attack jet.)At War showed photographs of this tube to Matthew Schroeder, an analyst covering missile proliferation at the Federation of American Scientists. He sent this reply:
“The markings in these photos appear to confirm that they are indeed Russian/Soviet SA-16s, and that they were manufactured in 1990. The markings also include serial numbers and other information that, when combined with other sources of information, could help us to determine the proximate source of these and other SA-16 Manpads in Syria.”In a follow-up note, Mr. Schroeder wrote that he could not be certain that the missile had not been made in Bulgaria; the scarcity of publicly available photographs and identification keys, he cautioned, make precise identification difficult.
Remember: Outside of the disorder of collapsing states, these weapons are almost never seen or inventoried by researchers. Given how rarely SA-16s and other Manpads surface in circulation, any information from almost any specimen is potentially valuable for those seeking to establish accountability in the global arms trade. The weapons are not the only source of information. Data can also be assembled from stenciling and markings on shipping crates, and from documents sometimes found within. More on thathere .
Q: What is the likelihood that the United States will approve transfers of this class of weapons to the rebels?
A: These kinds of questions are usually hard to answer. The United States often takes strong public stands against conventional weapons proliferation, and has taken especially strong stands against the proliferation of portable anti-aircraft missiles. But the United States also has a history of extensive weapon handouts to proxies and perceived allies, and often has done so quietly, via middlemen, or in distributions that have had scant accountability, and would not appear to make clear sense or align with the United States’ interests.
(The repeated shipments of anti-armor projectiles for RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades and SPG-9 recoilless rifles into Afghanistan offer a case in point. The only armor in Afghanistan belongs to NATO or Afghan government forces. And yet the United States has flooded the country with anti-armor weapons. American service members in convoys or guard towers that are attacked by these weapons understandably wonder what the International Security Assistance Force’s arms-procurement officers are thinking.)
Thus far the dominant voices in American government appear to have been strongly against providing heat-seeking missiles to rebels. But officials, speaking privately, say there is a contingent that has been exploring ways to introduce this kind of missile into the conflict in a fashion intended to reduce the risks of some of the missiles getting loose and being fired at civilian aircraft later.
One idea under discussion includes embedding small teams of foreign special forces soldiers (perhaps from Jordan or another Arab nation) with these weapons in rebel units. Another includes developing programs that would issue a small number of missile systems to vetted and trained rebel teams, who would not be provided fresh missiles and batteries for their launchers unless they returned each expended tube and battery, along with evidence showing how the last missiles had been fired. The odds of such ideas developing into programs are hard to draw up. But virtually all the arms-trade researchers this blog has talked with expected to see more missiles in the conflict, and the possibility of Western sources for future missiles will be a possibility to watch for, and to try to track.
Follow C.J. Chivers on Facebook, on Twitter at @cjchivers or on his personal blog, cjchivers.com, where many posts from At War are supplemented with more photographs and further information.
(The New York Times)
(The New York Times)