Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said today that Israel has information that Soviet ground-to-air missiles of the SAM-2 type are presently deployed in Syria. Gen. Dayan spoke in the Knesset where he delivered a prepared reply to questions on security matters submitted earlier by Shmuel Tamir of the Free Centre faction. Dayan said that intelligence indicated that there are at present 10,000 Soviet military personnel in Egypt serving as advisors are instructors to the Egyptian Army. Navy and Air Force. Dayan said that units of Russian soldiers are operating SAM-3 missiles and are guarding the missile sites. He said that in addition, there are several operational squadrons of MIG-21s in Egypt piloted by Russians. Gen. Dayan did not elaborate on the presence of SAM missiles in Syria. His disclosure was the first by a top Israeli official that SAM missiles are located beyond Israel’s northern borders as well as in the Suez Canal zone.
Gen. Dayan also disclosed that 182 Israeli soldiers were killed by enemy action during 1970 and 639 were wounded, He observed that in the same period, 43 Israeli soldiers were killed in traffic accidents and 661 were injured. Dayan said that between 1967-70 132 residents of the Gaza Strip were killed by terrorists, including 21 children and 33 women. A total of 979 Gaza residents were wounded by terrorists in the same period, among them 216 children and 107 women, Dayan said that since the six-Day War, 1828 terrorists have been killed in incidents along the borders.
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