An Israeli Truck Reportedly Captured From The Syrian Opposition Reappears in Qusayr

Late last month there were a number of reports from Lebanese and Syria television of a truck reportedly captured from opposition forces around Qusayr that was claimed to be Israeli in origin, shown in the below video

The trucks were marked with the initials of the Israeli prison service, as seen below

An Israel Defense Forces spokesman told the Times of Israel that "based on the identification number seen in footage of the vehicle, the jeep had belonged to the now-defunct South Lebanon Army, and had been out of commission for more than a decade," adding the report was "crude propaganda."

Looking through images from the recently captured Qusayr one stood out, captioned "Forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad ride on a truck in Qusair, after the Syrian army took control of the city from rebel fighters, June 5, 2013. Syrian government forces and their Lebanese Hezbollah allies seized control of the border town of Qusair on Wednesday, a severe setback to rebel fighters battling to overthrow Assad."

To me this appeared to be the same type of truck reportedly captured by the Syrian Army back in May, but I then discovered something else.  Here's the number plate on the above photo

Here's the number plate of the truck captured in May

It seems pretty clear both number plates read 669491, so it's seems it's the same vehicle, and again begs the question of whether this truck was actually seized by Hezbollah from the South Lebanon Army and used for propaganda purposes.  This is also important when footage shown on Syrian and Lebanon TV claims to show Israeli weapons supposedly captured in Qusayr.

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You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

A Collection Of Some Unusual Syria Videos From The Past Week

Now I'm back from my Christmas break I'd thought I'd take a quick look at some of the more unusual videos sent to me by various people over the last week or so.  First of all we have a reappearance of another air dropped sea mine that made a much derided appearance earlier in December:

This video was posted online with claims that this was an Israeli provided weapon used by Assad's forces, proving Israeli support for the Syrian government.  Rather being Israeli in origin Nic R. Jenzen-Jones of the excellent Rogue Adventurer blog noted that it was a Bulgarian ZH-40 propelling charge, and the star was likely a factory mark

The below video had people scratching their heads, and after some research I managed to identify this as the tail end of a AT-2 Swatter/3M11 Fleyta anti-tank missile, capable of being launched from the ground and from aircraft.  While it's impossible to draw reliable conclusion from one example, it is interesting to see this missile around the same time the Syrian opposition is beginning to use heavy armour more widely

This next video shows the first example of the AT-5 Spandrel/9M113 Konkurs wire-guided anti-tank missile I've seen in the conflict.  The AT-5 is an 1960's predecessor to the more commonly spotted AT-13 Saxhorn-2/9K115-2 Metis-M, numerous examples of which have been recorded in the hands of the Syrian opposition

I also received a number of queries about this video, which with the help of Nic R. Jenzen-Jones and others I've managed to identify as part of a cluster bomb, with the red markings possibly indicating it's from an incendiary cluster bomb

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You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

Failed Russian Missile Test Spotted Across The Middle East

UPDATE 4 - MSNBC's Cosmic Log noted this about the spiral pattern

At the time, NBC News space analyst James Oberg said he had indications that the Topol's "third-stage spin is a 'feature,' not a malfunction, and may be associated with guidance, or decoy deploy, or enhancing hardness against U.S. boost-phase antimissile weapons."

UPDATE 3 - The Russian's have declared the launch a great success

The Strategic Missile Forces of the Russian Federation have conducted another successful test of the “Topol” Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, this time from the firing ground at "Kapustin Yar" in Astrakhan in Southern Russia.

The exercise saw the missile accurately hit its target on the firing range "Sary-Shagan" in Kazakhstan.

The test was conducted to confirm the stability of the basic performance characteristics of this class of missile reported the Ministry of Defense.

The ministry representatives added that all of the objectives of the test launch were met in full. In particular, it was possible to obtain information that will be used in the future to develop the means to overcome missile defense systems.

UPDATE 2 - It seems like the path of the missile started in southwest Russia, and headed southwest towards Israel and Jodran, with reports of it being spotted in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Israel and Jordan.  It seems likely it would have been spotted in northern Iraq as  well, but no reports of that as yet.  It was reported in January that Russia would be testing "70 new missile systems" in 2012 at the Kapustin Yar Missile Test Range in southwest Russia. 

UPDATE - Ynet has reported the following

Russia's Defense Ministry says the Russian army successfully test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The Topol missile was fired at 9:39 Moscow time, according to a statement published by the Novosti news agency. (Ynet) 

Around 7pm BST reports started to come in from Syria that helicopters had started spraying white smoke/chemicals across cities in Syria, with activists posting videos from across Syria:

 

Then to add to the confusion Israelis began to call in UFO sightings

Hundreds of Israelis nationwide flooded police hotlines Thursday evening with reports about seeing an unidentified flying object in the nation's skies.

A prominent Israeli astronomer said the object flew above Lebanese territory and is not a meteor. The UFO was also clearly visible in Palestinian territories. A similar sighting in Norway three years ago turned out to be a failed missile test.

This video shows the above mentioned sighting over Norway

This video of tonight's event also shows a spiraling pattern at around 24 seconds in

So it seems like it could be a missile test.  It's also interesting to note it's been reported as being spotted far and wide, with this video apparently from Azerbaijan:

And the same spiral pattern filmed in Armenia:

And another from Armenia

If you've spotted any other videos from countries around that region let me know on Twitter @brown_moses