The Syrian armed forces are today one of the most combat-ready in the entire Middle East. Naturally, they are inferior in many respects, for example, to the IDF. Syria is currently engulfed in the civil war. The armed forces of this country, fighting for two years, not only give hope for maintaining the rule of law, legitimate authority and security of millions of citizens, but also gain invaluable experience.
The Syrian Arab army was created in the forties of the last century. Since then, she has repeatedly participated in various armed conflicts. Among them, it is worth mentioning two major wars with Israel, the unrest in Lebanon, the Gulf War, the suppression of the uprising of the Muslim brothers and the current events in this country. Thus,
the Syrian
armed forces have considerable combat experience. Consider what they are at the moment.
In 2011, the Syrian armed forces totaled a total of 320 thousand people and about the same number of reservists. Naturally, some of them later joined the rebels. It is also worth considering the gendarmerie - about eight thousand people, and the pro-government militia "Sabiha". Ground forces - twelve divisions, of which seven are armored, three are motorized, one is special forces and one is the Republican Guard. The latter is the most combat-ready part.
The Syrian Arab army is armed with more than five thousand tanks. About two thousand of them are obsolete T-54 and T-55 models, some are in storage. The main combat vehicle is T-72, T-62 are also used. The Syrian armed forces have an outdated tank fleet, since the vast majority of models were delivered long ago from the USSR. However, a lot of effort is being made to modernize it. In particular, back in 1995, two hundred T-55s were sent to Ukraine to strengthen armor and install dynamic protection. The T-72 tanks used by the Republican Guard have also been modernized. The artillery regiments of mechanized divisions are armed with M-46 guns and D-30 howitzers. The purpose of the infantry brigades is to act on minor sectors of the front. The Syrian armed forces have up to 2600 infantry fighting vehicles and about 1,500 armored personnel carriers.
About forty thousand people serve in the Syrian Air Force . The air force as a whole is obsolete. The most combat-ready aircraft model is the Mig-29. There are about fifty of them; they were modernized by Russian specialists until the early 2000s. Mig-21 aircraft, which are still in service with the Syrians in the amount of 150, are hopelessly outdated. They can not be compared, for example, with modern Israeli fighters. It is worth mentioning about the Su-24 models, which can move at extremely low altitudes.
The proximity of the Syrian Arab Republic with such a rather aggressive state as Israel makes us pay attention to air defense. However, its air defense systems are already morally obsolete, although efforts are being made to modernize them. In particular, this circumstance has caused several successful Israeli air attacks on military and research facilities of the Arab Republic, undertaken in recent years.
The armed forces of the world are constantly acquiring new equipment. Syria is no exception to this rule. Russia is constantly exporting weapons to the Arab Republic. In 1998, Damascus entered into an agreement with Moscow on the supply of thousands of anti-tank Kornets and Metis-M systems. In particular, at the moment, contracts for the supply of Yak-130 fighters and S-300 systems are being gradually implemented, despite the opposition of a number of Western forces.