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Syria's Secretive Rocket Industry Spotlighted by Israeli Weapons Seizure
(Christian Science Monitor) Nicholas Blanford - Israel's seizure last week of the Klos C ship and its weapons cargo that included 40 Syrian-manufactured M-302 rockets has drawn attention to Syria's secretive rocket industry. "The Syrian rocket industry is quite capable. They can make up their own design. You see already in the civil war that they know their stuff," says Uzi Rubin, an Israeli expert on missile defense. Since 2000, Syria has become a major supplier of mid-range rockets such as 220-mm Urugans and the M-302s to Hizbullah, the Iranian-equipped Shiite militant group in Lebanon. During its 2006 war with Israel, Hizbullah fired mostly Syrian-made rockets into Israel. Its deepest penetration was a M-302 strike on the Israeli city of Hadera, 50 miles south of the border with Lebanon. After the 2006 war, Syria stepped up production of longer-range missiles, including the M600 rocket, a Syrian version of Iran's Fateh-110. The M600, which reportedly was transferred to Hizbullah in 2009, can carry a 1,100-pound warhead for 150 miles and is fitted with a guidance system that is accurate within 500 yards at maximum range.