SIS Shows Off MASSIVE SCUD Missile in Military Parade

The Islamic State on Monday appeared to parade a captured Scud missile and T-55 tanks through the streets of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the capital of its proclaimed Sunni caliphate.

Photographs circulating on social media showed masked fighters driving the missile through the streets on the back of a lorry as a crowd looked on.

Twitter accounts associated with the Islamic State, formerly known as Isis, declared that it was a Scud.

But a number of experts said the missile was likely inoperable and did not pose a threat to Iraqi government forces or nearby Israel.

Here’s Eliot Nelson, a British blogger who tracks munitions being used in Syria:

Charles Lister, a Syria expert at the Brookings Doha Center, described the Scud as “99pc useless”.

It is not clear how the jihadists obtained the Soviet-built missile although reports suggested it may have been captured from a Syrian government military base in the Deir ez-Zor region in September last year. Others suggested it could have been recently captured from Iraq.

The missile was first shown in the hands of the Free Syrian Army, the moderate opposition backed by the West, in 2013. It appears to have since fallen into the hands of jihadist groups.

If it was taken from Iraq, as some believe, questions were being asked as to how it could have been hidden from weapons inspectors, both after the Gulf War of 1991 and before the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Telegraph