MOSCOW. April 16 (Interfax-AVN) - The U.S. military force in the Middle East is not ready to start a new military campaign in the region in the near future, Major General Soltan Kabolov, former USSR deputy chief military advisor in Syria, told Interfax- Military News Agency on Wednesday.
"In order to start a new military campaign in the region, for instance, against Syria to which Americans have the same claims as to Iraq, the Pentagon needs to deploy several more divisions to the Middle East. It will take several weeks or several months," Kabolov said.
"The Syrian territory is very well prepared in the engineering sphere for offensive and defensive battles, and the Syrian army is one of the most combat-ready ones in the region," he noted.
"I personally saw it when I was working as deputy chief main military advisor in Syria. I happened to be there during U.S. Operation Desert Storm in Iraq," Kabolov stressed.
"For example, at that time the Syrian Air Force had a large number of first-class pilots ready to fly combat sorties round the clock in any weather conditions, crews of SAM systems would successfully hit targets including at low altitudes, and the level of discipline in troops was very high, which is very important," Kabolov said.
He noted that during the Gulf War the Syrian leadership carefully analyzed actions of the U.S. troops and made changes in the training of its own troops. "I know that Syria was not idling in the next few years, it purchased new equipment and armament," Kabolov went on.
According to London International Strategic Research Institute, the Syrian army has 4,700 MBTs (2,000 - T-55, 1,000 - T-62, and 1,700 - T-72/72M), 1,200 of them stationary. The Air Force has 90 SU-22 Fitters, 20 SU-24 Fencers, 44 MIG-23BN Floggers, 170 MIG-21 Mongols, 30 MIG-25 Foxbats, and 22 MIG-29A Fulcrums. The air defenses include 600 S-75 and S-125 launchers, 200 Kub missiles, 60 Osa, and 48 S-200 systems. Moreover, Syria procured from Russia Kornet-E and Metis-M antitank missile systems under two contracts worth USD150m.
"Of course, the U.S. troops are much stronger than the Syrian ones as far as technologies, the number of arms and military hardware pieces are concerned, and the U.S. will eventually break the Syrian resistance, but if Washington decides to start a war with Syria it should be ready for much serious fights than those in Iraq," Kabolov added.