re: #1 ckkatz

The military implications are quite ‘interesting’. Missiles like the Scud are used when it is too difficult or dangerous to send in aircraft.

This implies that there are certain areas that are being denied to Syrian air-power. There have been a number of videos on youtube showing the downing of Syrian helicopters and jets.

And that in turn implies that the Syrian rebels are beginning to have effective anti-aircraft capability. Most likely man-portable air defense (‘manpads’) missiles, either looted from Syrian or Libyan military facilities.

Which also may mean that these missiles are becoming more widely available throughout the Middle and Near East, and Africa. The US has reportedly spent many millions of dollars to remove them from the black market.

What you wrote makes little sense. Cheaper mortars could do the job a lot more cheaply than scuds and just as safely.

If this report is true (we could be lied to) then this just proves the Syrian military is incompetent and that the Ba’athists promoted people in the army based on connections rather than military prowess.