NATO AIR DEFENCE

"I don't think you will see a missile coming through here. We have a small military but with the patriots we are playing in the Premier League. It's an improved system that's been tested more than once. I have 100% confidence in our systems."
Col. Martin Buis

"This represents a big opportunity and a big responsibility. To intercept a high velocity TBM is a great achievement. 
"Within one metre of launch our response is traveling at half the speed of sound. The newest Patriot -- the PAC-3 -- is like a bullet hitting a bullet. It destroys the target without using any explosives. It obliterates it with kinetic energy."
1st Lt. Arnd de Ruiter

This is the fall-out of the Syrian conflict. A Netherlands military group now stationed inside the border of Turkey with a Dutch Patriot battery, prepared to launch anti-missile strikes such as a Scud missile that might be fired from Syria over the border. Turkey has called in its NATO membership privileges to ensure that it has protection against any Syrian regime strikes meant to offer payback for its censure against the regime's airstrikes against its own people.

Adana, 140 kilometres from the Syrian border, is now supplied with a defence. The city is one of over two million population. Struck by a rocket capable of carrying chemical weapons, such a scenario would be utterly devastating. But Syrian President al Assad is increasingly seen as unpredictable, and the potential of striking out in rage against Turkey, once a collegial asset to Syria, now harbouring hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, remains a threat.

"I do not have eyes on the ground in Syria to report on things but, every time there is a victim, that is bad enough for me. We can see all the TBMs in Syria from their point of origin to their point of impact. When I see a Scud launch and it is a red dot on the scope, I realize that it is going to kill people. It helps us to realize what we are doing by defending the people of Adana. Protecting two million people here is motivation enough for us", explained Col. Buis, Dutch commander of the NATO anti-ballistic mission in Turkey.