Syrian
Scud Unveils Turk Vulnerabilities
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A
rocket is fired by Islamic State militants on November 6, 2014 from the
Syrian city of Kobane, near Turkey.
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ANKARA, Turkey — On the morning of March 25, a Russian-made Syrian
scud missile estimated to have been fired from a range of 180 kilometers
exploded near the Reyhanli district in Turkey's southernmost city of
Hatay, neighboring Syria.
The projectile left a 15-meter-wide crater in a stream bed, broke the
windows of the surrounding houses, caused the roof of a building in the
nearby military unit to collapse, damaged two military vehicles and
inflicted minor injuries on five Turkish civilians.
The Syrian scud luckily did not cause any casualties on Turkish soil
but left behind pressing questions: Why did the NATO Patriot systems
stationed in southern Turkey not intercept the Syrian missile? How
vulnerable is Turkey to tactical missile threats from its unstable
neighbors to the south?
The Turkish military headquarters said that Turkish howitzers
immediately retaliated and shelled unspecified Syrian targets. Military
officials told Defense News the Syrian missile was probably fired
from a Russian naval base in Tartus to target anti-regime rebels who have
been fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces since 2011.
Germany, the Netherlands and the United States currently provide two
Patriot batteries each, located in the provinces of Kahramanmaraş, Adana
and Gaziantep.
A Feb. 20, 2013, Defense News story
said the six Patriot anti-missile batteries deployed in Turkey ostensibly
to protect Turkish airspace from a potential missile strike from
neighboring Syria, in fact, had the primary purpose of protecting a radar
that would track Iranian missile launches, instead of protecting the
Turkish civilian population or military bases.
The story quoted officials and analysts as saying the mini missile
defense architecture actually provided the pretext to guard a US-owned,
NATO-assigned radar deployed since 2012 in Turkey in the event
hostilities break out with Iran. NATO officials vehemently denied the
story.
Slightly over two years later, a Turkish military official said the
Syrian scud was not intercepted because it fell in an area outside the
radar range of Patriot batteries in Turkey.
"Patriots cannot provide a blanket protection to vast lands in
their vicinity," the official said. "They can only protect
areas in their immediate vicinity."
Sitki Egeli, a missile defense expert, agrees. He said the Patriots
are not designed to protect large swathes of land; wherever they are
deployed, they can only protect areas in their near vicinity. And, Egeli
said, the X-band NATO radar in Kurecik (in eastern Turkey) is designed
not to intercept a Syrian scud coming from 180 kilometers away but
(probably) an Iranian ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers.
Turkey
successfully tested its domestically produced low-altitude Hisar-A air
defense missile in 2013.
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Aware of its vulnerability to such missile attacks, Turkey in 2007
designed a program to indigenously develop and produce short- and
medium-altitude air defense systems. Ankara chose a partnership of
military specialist Aselsan and missile maker Roketsan, both
government-controlled companies.
In October 2013, Aselsan completed the test launch of its first
domestically developed and manufactured low-altitude air defense missile,
Hisar-A, and set off to work on Hisar-O, the medium-altitude system.
Aselsan, the prime contractor, is developing all radar, fire control,
command, control and communication systems for the program while Roketsan
is acting as the executive subcontractor. Ideally, the Hisar-A system,
which will provide protection against all kinds of airborne targets
thanks to its vertical launch capability, will enter the Turkish military
inventory in 2017, but industry sources said the program faces delays due
to technical snags.
When combined and made interoperable, Hisar-A and Hisar-O will destroy
threats at low-medium altitude. The program involves the development and
production of two types of ground systems, self-propelled armored
vehicle-mounted air defense missile systems, and the missile.
Hisar-A is an air defense missile system mounted on a self-propelled
armored vehicle and can be fully autonomous by means of 3D radar,
electro-optic system, command, control and fire control.
Hisar-O is composed of one battalion headquarters and headquarters
company and three batteries, each of which has a sufficient amount of
launchers, missiles, radars, command, control and communication systems
and other support equipment.
Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is
a columnist for the Turkish daily Hürriyet and a fellow at the Middle East
Forum.
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