I Said It Just Yesterday, ''They Are Test Running Their New Weapons On ISIS! Russian Missiles Aimed At Syria Crashed In Iran, U.S. Officials Say

BRUSSELS — Cruise missiles fired by Russia from warships in the Caspian Sea at targets in Syria crashed in a rural area of Iran, senior United States officials said on Thursday. It was unclear exactly where in Iran the missiles had landed, or whether there were any casualties. The officials said the flight path of the Russian cruise missiles would have taken them across northern sections of Iran and Iraq on the way to Syria. But not all of them made it there, one official said.

 

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military intelligence. News of the crashes, which were reported by CNN, came as Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter sharply criticized what he called Russia’s “unprofessional” conduct in its incursion into Syria. Speaking at a NATO news conference in Brussels, Mr. Carter said that Moscow had fired the barrage of cruise missiles with no advance notice.

 

American officials also said that some sort of mishap was to be expected, since the missiles had never been fired in wartime. “This was the first operational test of these in operational conditions,” one official said of the Russian Kalibr missiles that were used.

 

Mr. Carter warned, “In coming days, the Russians will begin to suffer casualties.” An American defense official said it was something of a surprise that Russia had used cruise missiles to attack Syrian targets, given that those weapons are more commonly used in the face of heavy air defenses.

 

Russia is allied with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, so it would presumably not face any opposition from Syrian government forces, and the rebel groups there have no air defenses. American military officials speculated that Moscow may simply have wanted to demonstrate its cruise missile capability to the world.

 

The Iranian state news media made no immediate mention of the crashes on Thursday, but one semiofficial outlet, the Fars News Agency, noted the CNN report and called it an example of American propaganda against Russia. The agency also called it “psychological warfare.” Iranian Twitter and Facebook users did not immediately note any explosions in the area between the Caspian Sea and the Iraqi border. Source; New York Times