By Jaime Ortega.
In high alert status of the imminence of a possible U.S. attack on its military , the Syrian regime has shifted in the last hours a lot of troops and weapons to strategic locations.
Syria is also evicting several central commands in Damascus , the capital, and elsewhere in the country. Knowing that a possible Pentagon intervention would directly aim at their chemical weapons and by the risk of its spread, Bashar al-Assad has focused on disseminating and hide their military resources , and above all , rearrange the network tracing its anti-aircraft missiles .
Opponents , meanwhile, speak of a situation of great tension within the Syrian army , with numerous defections in recent days .
In the early hours of Friday , the regime moved several Scud ballistic missile batteries from which to date have been based on top of Mount Calamún, north of Damascus.
Israeli military intelligence perceived this movement , as various opponents and activists who reported the regimes displacement to the United States. From that hill they’ve been released in numerous times Scuds , with a range of 300 kilometers , to attack rebel positions . Clashes between Syrian troops and rebels around Damascus has hampered , the movement of those missiles and prevented the regimes secretly move .
The Syrian regime today described as ” false ” the evidence presented by the United States on the use of chemical weapons in Syria and said that’s based only on data from activists and the liying opposition.
In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said that the prosecution discharged by the Secretary of State , John Kerry , is “null and void ” and challenged Washington to provide ” a real test.”
For the Syrian government , these claims are used by ” those who pave the way for an assault against the Syrian people that would cause the deaths of hundreds of civilian casualties.”
According to Israeli intelligence , ground missiles of the Syrian regime are on alert and ready for use . With the intention of creating confusion in the hours or days before the attack , Assad has moved much of its surface to air missiles . The latter, as Russian-made models SA -22 and SA -26 systems are one of the most sophisticated air defense, robust and effective within Arab countries in the area.
Only one battalion launchers with radars and missiles SA -17 , which also features Assad , can attack air targets simultaneously up to four different parameters.
Most military installations have been evacuated in Damascus , many soldiers and government officials sheltered in schools and hospitals. Free Syrian Army sources confirmed Friday to vacate the Central Command headquarters Joint Force and nearby area in Umayyad Square in the capital. This Friday , the Local Coordination Committees , a network opposition , reported the evacuation of inside the military airport of Palmyra. “More than 40 vehicles loaded with rockets have been seen leaving the airfield ,” said a spokesman.
The Syrian National Coalition , the main opposition group , said Friday that in the past few days there have been numerous defections within Syrian armed forces . His spokesman , Khaled Saleh , said many of these defectors ” have left the country in civilian clothes ” , mainly across Lebanon and Jordan . Since its inception in March 2011, the conflict has forced 1.9 million to flee to refugee and has claimed the lives of at least 100,000 people , according to the latest estimate from the United Nations .
The Syrian regime has indications of what may be the targets of the U.S. attacks . The president of the Syrian National Coalition, Ahmad Jarba , handed in Turkey August 27 to group of representatives called the Friends of Syria , a list of 10 potential military targets.
Among them, subsequently revealed to the media, includes the Mezze military airport , Cutaifa missile base and the headquarters of the Fourth Mechanized Division an elite unit led by Maher Al-Assad, the president’s brother .
The truth is that Assad already has an action plan drawn up by the Pentagon. In a unclassified letter sent in July, to the Senate , the head of U.S. Joint Chiefs , Gen. Martin Dempsey , contemplated several options for military intervention in Syria.
One was the attack against ” high value targets for the regime against air defense forces , air, land , and naval missile , in addition to military installations and commands support.” The goal is the “significant degradation of the system and its capabilities and increased attrition.”
