Israeli Experts: Syria Has Secret Underground 'Missile City' *

Ya Libnan

Beirut & Damascus - Syria has built a fortified complex buried deep
underground and cloaked in secrecy to manufacture and store ballistic
missiles capable of striking Israel, an Israeli newspaper said on Monday.

The complex includes 30 reinforced concrete bunkers, production
facilities, development laboratories and command posts, the mass-selling
Yediot Aharonot quoted "foreign experts" as saying, without specifying
its location.

The "missile city" houses mainly Scud missiles capable of reaching
anywhere in Israel. Given its weak air power, Damascus is boosting its
arsenal of surface-to-surface missiles and protecting them in the
complex, Yediot said.

According to the paper, Syria has 200 Scud-B missiles, 60 Scud-C and a
certain number of North Korean Scud-D missiles with a range of 700
kilometres (434 miles), and has developed chemical warheads for all its
Scuds.

The chemical warfare agents are stored in a separate facility, Yediot
quoted the foreign experts as saying.

It also said that Iran recently supplied Syria with around 100 Chinese
shore-to-sea C-802 missiles -- the same missile that Hezbollah used to
hit an Israeli warship during last year's Lebanon war.

In March, military and government sources told AFP that Syria had
positioned thousands of rockets on its border with Israel, as part of
indications that Damascus may be preparing for future "low-intensity
warfare."

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has made peace overtures in recent
months to Israel but the Jewish state rejected them, saying Damascus
must first stop supporting Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon and Hamas
in the Gaza Strip.

Peace talks between Israel and Syria collapsed in 2000, mainly because
of deadlock over the return of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured
from Syria in 1967 and unilaterally annexed in 1981.

There were secret peace talks between a Syrian American businessman (
Ibrahim Suleiman) and Israeli representative , but these were
interrupted last year because of the war in Lebanon.

Picture: A Syrian soldier mans an anti-aircraft SAM-7 shoulder missile
in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley in 2005. Syria has built a fortified complex
buried deep underground and cloaked in secrecy to manufacture and store
ballistic missiles capable of striking Israel, an Israeli newspaper has
said.