SYRIA HAS UNDERGROUND MISSILE CITY

Syria has underground 'missile city': Israeli report (AFP)
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."