The Syrian Qassam Part III: The Lion's of Allah Sham Freedom Missile Accuracy and Geolocating Targets

Accuracy: CEP and Target Size

To verify the unqualified statement that the Sham Freedom missile strikes targets with “80% accuracy,” we need at least two bits of information:

First, missile accuracy is generally expressed in terms of Circular Error Probable (CEP), or the radius of a circle in which 50% of the missiles are expected to fall. 

Second, we need the dimensions of likely Sham Freedom missile targets: Are we talking about a facility, or an artillery position? 

As we have no information on Sham Freedom missile CEP, we may consider other weapons with known CEP, like the Iranian Fateh A-110. This would yield a respectable CEP of only a 100 m, establishing an upper performance bound.

The video title in Part I gives us a target: The Army Chief of Staff building in Damascus.

An initial Google image search yields the following first interesting frame associated with an attack on the Army Chief of Staff building, the Arabic in red reading “the targeted building” (top), and the “Dedeman” (bottom).

Opening Google Earth, we quickly locate the Dedeman Hotel in Damascus, precisely matching the first returned image.

Searching further, we find that the Dedeman Hotel has been renamed the “Dama Rose” hotel, with the Haaretz confirming an attack on the Dama Rose in November of 2012. The article also notes the blast only occurred near, rather than struck the Army Chief of Staff building, approximately 500 m away.

Turning to social media, a forum post on November 6, 2013 puts the Army Chief of Staff building slightly west, near al-Amaween square, this time directly mentioning an FSA rocket attack, coinciding approximately with the date of the Sham Freedom missile taped launch analyzed in this article.

The back of which is about 500 m from the Dama Rose Hotel blast, as reported by Haaretz.

Other media notes the Army Chief of Staff building has been targeted and struck multiple times, since at least September of 2012. Here, we see what looks like the building identified in Google Earth as the Army Chief of Staff building, with flames and smoke pouring out of its windows, photographed from across al-Amaween square:

And although media from as late as mid this year report mortar fire in the vicinity of the Army Chief of Staff building, report photographs capture the remains of what look like a locally manufactured missile, reported to have killed two civilians and injured others:

But just how likely is it that the FSA and related brigades like the Lions of Allah are targeting and striking facility sized targets with locally manufactured missiles?