Word: 5s
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Since 1983, Honduran military officials have pressed Washington to provide them with sophisticated jet fighters. The Reagan Administration has now decided to honor that request, despite its previous refusals to supply Honduras with advanced warplanes. Instead of the U.S. F-5s that they originally requested, however, the Hondurans have opted to use U.S. military aid to buy 18 Israeli Kfir jets. "We saw problems from the American Congress in getting the F-5s," said a Honduran official...
Against this array, the Libyans fired the SA-5s, the Soviets' chief long- range surface-to-air missiles. Weighing about five tons apiece, the 54- ft.- long weapons are designed primarily to engage slow-moving targets like B-52 bombers. But Moscow was doubtless unhappy to note that speedy U.S. fighters could not only outmaneuver the SA-5s but also, evidently, divert them...
...credentials to be Arab standardbearer. Though the terms of the 1980 Soviet pact with Damascus have never been revealed, officials in Moscow have hinted that Soviet troops would enter the fray only if Syrian territory were invaded. According to British intelligence officials, Moscow would unleash the Soviet-manned SA-5s to counter a full-scale Israeli move against Syrianheld Lebanon, but it would hold its fire in the face of a U.S. offensive, leaving it to the Syrians to retaliate. Administration officials believe that the Syrian attacks on U.S. reconnaissance planes were not an invitation to war but a probinig...
...Soviet technicians and advisers on Syrian soil, representing an increase of some 2,000 since the war. Also, for the first time, Moscow has installed its advanced SA-5 surface-to-air missiles outside the Soviet Union. The two batteries of SA-5s, located near the Syrian towns of Dumar and Shimshar and manned by So viet technicians, are in a position to strike aircraft in northern Israel...
Located near the towns of Dumeir and Shimshar, the sites consist of two batteries of 12 launchers each. Spare missiles bring the total number of SA-5s to about 50. The complex early warning and tracking radars, plus the communications systems and defenses made up of less advanced batteries, are all manned and operated by Soviets. Even though the SA-5s are integrated into a Syrian-controlled air-defense network, the Kremlin has a veto over their use. So tight is Soviet control, in fact, that the Syrian Defense Minister has never been allowed to enter the bases...