In May, several new missiles were flown from North Korea and Iran to the Damascus military airfield and thence to Syria's southeastern missile-testing site at Jebel Druze near the small town of Salakhand.

After two weeks' preparation, two of the new projectiles had their first trial-launch - and failed with disastrous results.

DEBKAfile's sources report that they targeted an uninhabited desert area in the North, 500 kilometers away, just south of Ayn Diwar and east of Al Qamishli not far from the Syrian-Turkish-Iraqi border intersection.

(It was here that Syria and Iraq, with Russian help, interred Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction in 2001.)

However, one of the missiles strayed 350-400 km west of its projected course, indicating a problem with its guidance system. It exploded in the center of the small town of Manbij north of Aleppo near the Turkish border, killing at least 20 people, injuring 60 and badly damaging the market town.

The second missile exploded in mid-course in the South, over the north of the town of Abu Kamal and 200 kilometers from its launching site. Syrian military authorities closed the area around the stricken town of Manbij for more than a month, attributing the disaster to a gas explosion.

Japanese intelligence sources, who are anxiously tracking the growing missile collaboration between North Korea, Iran and Syria, do not name the failed new missile, but DEBKAfile's military sources suggest it was a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) propelled by solid fuel with a range of 800-1,000 kilometers and fitted with a warhead containing between 800 kilos and one ton of explosives.

This would be an improvement on most of the three nations' short-range missiles which are powered with liquid fuel.