The Russian defense ministry said Monday that President Vladimir Putin will outfit the Syrian military with its sophisticated S-300 air defense system and jam radars of military planes striking from off the coast of the Mediterranean, in the wake of the downing of a Russian spy plane by Syrian air defenses during an Israeli strike last week.
“This has pushed us to adopt adequate response measures directed at boosting the security of Russian troops” in Syria, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a televised statement.
“(Russia will) transfer the modern S-300 air defense system to the Syrian armed forces within two weeks.”
Putin has ordered the defense ministry to take several measures in response to the incident, the defense ministry said.
“In regions near Syria over the Mediterranean Sea, there will be radio-electronic suppression of satellite navigation, on-board radar systems and communication systems of military aviation attacking objects on Syrian territory.”
Russia had originally agreed to sell the system to Syria in 2010, but scrapped the plan at Israel’s behest. However, the Syrian military has already received training to use the system.
“We are certain that the realization of these measures will cool the ‘hot heads’ and will keep them from poorly thought-out actions which threaten our servicemen,” Shoigu said.
Israeli fighter jets conducted the airstrike last Monday night on a weapons facility in the coastal city of Latakia that the IDF said was going to provide weapons to the Hezbollah terror group and other Iranian proxies. During a Syrian air defenses counterattack, the Russian spy plane was shot down by an S-200 anti-aircraft missile and its 15 crew members were killed.
Russia already has its own S-300 air defense system in Syria, along with the more advanced S-400 system.
The deputy head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Monday warned Israel and the US that they can expect a “devastating” response from Iran, repeating accusations of their involvement in Saturday’s attack on a military parade despite competing claims of responsibility from Islamic State and an Arab separatist group.
“You have seen our revenge before … You will see that our response will be crushing and devastating and you will regret what you have done,” Hossein Salami said in a speech shown on state television, Reuters reported.
Threatening what he called the “triangle” of Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United States, Salami said: “You are responsible for these actions; you will face the repercussions… We warn all of those behind the story, we will take revenge.”
Salami was speaking during a live broadcast ahead of the funerals of some of those killed Saturday when gunmen disguised as soldiers attacked an annual military parade marking the anniversary of the start of its 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Thousands gathered at the Sarallah Mosque at the city’s Taleghani junction, carrying caskets in the sweltering heat. Of the 25 people killed at Saturday’s parade, 12 were from Ahvaz and the rest from elsewhere in Khuzestan province.
The attack saw gunfire sprayed into a crowd of marching soldiers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, bystanders, and government officials watching from a nearby riser.
Intelligence minister Mahmoud Alavi announced the arrest of a large network of suspects, the judiciary’s news agency Mizan reported according to Reuters.
A news agency affiliated with the Islamic State terrorist group released a video Sunday which purported to show the perpetrators of a shooting attack at a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz which left at least 29 people dead, including women and children, and wounded dozens more, some of them critically.
In a further claim, Yaghub Hur Totsari, a spokesman for the Arab Struggle Movement to Liberate Ahvaz, told Reuters the Ahvaz National Resistance umbrella organization of Arab anti-government armed movements was behind the attack, but did not specify which particular group carried it out.
Iranian officials blamed a number of different targets, including Israel, the US, and regional-arch enemy Saudi Arabia, while two groups — the Islamic State and an anti-government Arab group — claimed responsibility.
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