Syria Analysis: Dissecting the "Iran Arms to Damascus" Video & Narrative

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Joanna Paraszczuk and Scott Lucas write:

Earlier this week, amid escalating claims of direct Iranian involvement in Syrian fighting, the Brown Moses blog asserted that a 107mm rocket --- spotted in a video taken in Agraba in Damascus Province --- was conclusive "evidence" that Iran has supplied weapons to President Assad's forces.

The incident is a notable example of how analysis of potentially important information can give way to extrapolation for a more dramatic --- if possibly incomplete or misleading --- narrative.

Brown Moses drew his conclusion based on a single video, displaying the markings on an unexploded 107mm rocket. The insurgent in the clip claims the rocket was fired by regime forces and remained intact after impact.

The rocket, Brown Moses asserts, is a "perfect match" for Iranian rockets displayed on an Indian web forum.

The assertion deserves further research. However, is this single video enough to declare with certainty that Iran has supplied 107mm rockets directly to Damascus?

Consider --- if the video does show an unexploded regime rocket --- the other possibilities for its provenance.

Iran does have 107mm rockets, called the Haseb or Fajr-1, using a design which appears to be based on the Chinese Type-63 107mm rocket.

The Iranians, however, are far from exclusive in their ownership of these rockets. Hezbollah has had short-range, man-pack 107mm and 122mm rockets in its arsenal for years. The Lebanese group --- now fighting alongside Assad's troops in Syria --- used these rockets against Israel in the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

For example, among the 1,381 rocket strikes identified by the Israeli Police's Bomb Squad, one was a 107mm rocket manufactured by North Korea.

So Iran could have supplied the rocket in the Syrian video. Or it could have been supplied by Hezbollah, which is now fighting alongside Assad forces. Like the rocket that group previously fired on Israel, it could be of North Korean manufacture. Hezbollah could have obtained the weapons from Iran directly, or indirectly by technology transfer.

This episode points to both the potential and the risks of drawing open-source intelligence from videos. Clips such as these can give clues to political and military developments, but those clues can be diversionary or misleading --- if the aim is to provide "truth", rather than spin or wishful thinking --- without contexts.

Contexts in this case would include the relationship between Hezbollah and Iran as well as between the Lebanese organisation and Damascus, the state of the conflict in Damascus Province, and the interests of the insurgents who have put out the video.

And there are wider contexts beyond this. The supply of arms by Iran and Hezbollah to Syrian forces is not one-sided. It takes place in a larger arena in which the "West", Turkey, and Arab States provide their own weaponry --- some of which has been documented by Brown Moses --- to the insurgency.

Indeed, the issue of how much Western military equipment should be given to opposition fighters, seeking to topple Assad, is perhaps the key one at that moment. And in the debate over that issue, the spectre of "Iran" and its assistance to Syria plays a leading role.

None of this is to deny the need to assess the video that Brown Moses has highlighted. It is an argument to assess it properly.