US must think twice before attacking Syria: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Hisham Jaber, a retired army general from Beirut, to further talk about the Russian military experts’ comments regarding the capabilities of the Syrian air defense system.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Mr. Jaber, I do not know how much information you do have on Syria’s military capabilities but what can you tell us about the amount of power and the amount of defense that Syria has in case missiles are launched against it?

Jaber: First of all, the most important capability in Syria, the military capability, is the air defense system. We were talking about this since the beginning and Mrs. Susan Rice did recognize this and said Syria has a very sophisticated air defense system.

And in my opinion, it was the first reason for not creating a no-fly zone. Syria has 60 thousand officers and soldiers working in the air defense system. It has thousands of missiles, you know air defense missiles. The most important of them has 21 brigades.

It has different kinds of missiles from the SAM family: SAM-8 and SAM-5 and SAM-9 and also thousands of individual missiles like SAM-7.

The most important in the air defense system in Syria is S-20 which can intercept missiles; also S-200 and of course Syria did ask and was waiting to have S-300. Up to my knowledge, the Russians have not delivered S-300 yet but all Syria has now, as we say, air defense system has 520 positions in Syria for air defense system.

Syria, it is considered, this defense system came after China and North Korea. Everybody knows this. This is the potential. As to how Syria can intercept any attack: so far, we do understand that the attack may come from the sea. There is no airstrike but from the sea, looking at the Mediterranean Sea, we see five American warships.

They do have, every one of them, 90 Tomahawk cruises. We are talking about 450 at least beside the other warships. When they will launch the first attack, in my opinion, they will not launch more than 30 Tomahawk cruises.

The question is, first of all, will Syria defend itself? The answer is yes. Syria will use air defense system like S-200 to intercept this kind of Tomahawk. And second, the most important thing is that Syria has or probably it has 72 Yakhont missiles which is land to sea.

If Syria is going to use this as a reply, of course it will. This is the question. You know, it gives Syria a kind of deterrence but at the same time, if Syria will hit the American personnel after this limited and narrow and quick strike like Mr. Obama said, if Syria kills American personnel, the risk is that the military operation and the second strike will be bigger and will hit others.

Yes, that is the risk now. It is up to the Americans to know. I think the Americans have to think before they will start a war that they may know when it will start but the Americans cannot put any limit to this war.