Total Manpower Strength 46,000

OPERATIONAL NOTES

After the U.S. air attack on Libya in April 1986, Libya retaliated by launching two Scud-Bs at the U.S. Navy's navigation station on Lampedusa Island in the Mediterranean. Both missiles fell short.

In August 1991, Afghan rebel leader Jalaluddin al-Haqqani claimed that approximately 3,000 Scuds had been fired against anti-government mujahadeen forces since 1979.

Fixed Scud missile sites in western Iraq were among the first targets attacked by U.S. and allied air forces initiating Operation Desert Storm on Jan. 17, 1991. Pre-war estimates of the number of Iraqi missiles proved too low and these attacks did not prevent Iraq from launching a total of 81 missi les against targets in Israel and Saudi Arabia over the next several weeks. Forty-three of these fell on Saudi Arabia and 38 on Israel. Most or all of these missiles were believed to be Al-Hussein or Al-Abbas modifications of the original missile. Except for a few that may have had concrete warhead s, all were conventionally armed; no chemical or biological warheads were used.

U.S. MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missiles were at first credited with hitting virtually all of the missiles launched. By April 1992, however, the number of "confirmed" Scud "kills" was reduced to 10, with another 14 listed as possible; additional missiles were claimed to have been diverted from their targets and classed as "mission kills." Many of the modified Al-Hussein or Al Abbas missiles broke up during flight because the stresses on the missiles were much greater than the original system had been designed to withstand. As a result, the missiles were even more inaccurate than the orig inal design.

The military effects of the missile bombardment were negligible in either Saudi Arabia or Israel, except for one hit on a warehouse in Dhahran that killed 28 Americans and wounded 100. Otherwise, damage in Saudi Arabia was insignificant, with many Scuds landed in unpopulated areas. In Israel, there were about 9,700 apartments damaged. Two Israelis died in direct hits, four from suffocation in gas masks and 68 from heart attacks as a result of Scud attacks, according to the Jerusalem Postfor Jan. 17, 1992. Another 289 people were reported to have been wounded.

On Feb. 26, 1991, U.S. special operations forces and Air Force aircraft destroyed 29 Scud missiles on mobile launchers in western Iraq. These launchers were believed to be preparing a barrage launch against Israel, according to Armed Forces Journal Internationalfor July 1991.

Reports indicate that all Iraqi Scud-Bs were disposed of by December 2002. However, a full accounting by the-then Iraqi government was not made.

The U.S. purchased approximately 30 SCUD-Bs and four TELs in 1995, with the missiles converted into targets by Lockheed Martin as part of the Willow Sand program. First Scud-B target missiles test-fired in 1997. There were also test-firings at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., in November 2002.

The U.S. Navy has allocated $30 million to study how to modify the RIM-67 Standard Missile 2 (Block 4) to intercept SRBMs such as the Scud-B/Scud-C and SS-21.

Syria has introduced major improvements in its Scud-Ds, improving guidance capability and accuracy, according to Jane's Missiles & Rockets (U.K.) dated Jan. 1, 2006. This determination was arrived at in part by an analysis of a Syrian Scud-D that broke up over Turkey's Hatay province on Ma y 27, 2005.

North Korea has displayed an improved, 621.4-mi (1,000-km) range version of the Scud-C, according to Jane's Missiles & Rockets(U.K.) date June 1, 2007.

LATEST UPDATE: 1 November 2010

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