Rebels Have Anti Tank Missile

By Micah Halpern

I'm Predicting:

If there is one thing for certain it is that both sides in the Syrian battle have staying power.

And it looks as if, barring some colossal military maneuvering, the battle will continue to be waged. Game changers would be Assad becoming even more brutal and using more of his heavy weapons or the rebels getting access to more and better weapons.

Over the past few weeks the rebel forces have shown us that they do have a handful of very accurate and extremely potent anti tank weapons. They have the ATGM, the anti tank guided missile. That was their weapon of choice in fights around Damascus.

The ATGM has the potential to change the balance of the Syrian battle and even the outcome of the conflict. The guided missile is a point-and-shoot, error proof system. And it destroys tanks.

Part of Assad's strength until now has been that his tanks, helicopters and fighter jets advance at free will.
There was no real response to them. That has changed. Now Assad's tanks cannot move at will. And when stationary, they are sitting ducks and easy targets for the ATGM.

There's more. Because the rebels have the ATGM Assad cannot relocate his tanks to other locations where they might be needed. On the open road or flatbeds they can be picked off with apparent ease.

But here's the problem for the rebels. It seems that they only have a handful of ATGMs. If they had more, they would use them.

The ATGM weapons are made by the Russians and by the United States. It is unlikely that the Russians gave them to the rebels. But the rebels could have bought them from a secondary source. The Americans cannot sell them to the rebels but it s possible that the CIA gave them to a group who gave them to the rebels as an experiment.

Either way, if more ATGMs appear in the battle field expect Assad to respond with even greater and more brutal force.

Micah@MicahHalpern.com 

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