Photos surfaced on the Internet recently that showed what appeared to be weapons seized by Islamic State group fighters near the city of Deir-ez-Sor in Syria — and judging from the photos, the violence there may be about to get a whole lot worse.
This region of Syria has seen intense and bloody fighting over the last several weeks. The Islamic State group launched a counteroffensive in mid-January, and the militants were able to overrun a Syrian Arab Army air defense unit garrison and capture weapons.
At least one 2P25 launch vehicle of the 2K12 Kvadrat air defense systems, a 1S91 self-propelled surveillance and tracking unit, and several 3M9 missiles are all believed to be in the terrorists’ hands, according to the intelligence and analysis group, South Front.
At least one of the weapons appeared to be operational at the time of its seizure. For those who don’t understand the technical jargon of the weapons captured by the Islamic State group, they now have a surface-to-air- missile launching vehicle, a radar tracking missile launcher, and several missiles.
A Russian writer, J. Hawk, commented on the story saying: “There are several possible interpretations to this story. One is that ISIS does not, in fact, have an operational air defense system at its disposal but is rather bluffing, hoping to dissuade Russian aircraft from operating over the territory it holds.”
staff