German and Dutch Patriot missiles have arrived in Turkey as part of a NATO mission to bolster Turkish air defenses against a possible missile attack from Syria. This follows the arrival of US Patriot missiles in January, and the integrated deployment under NATO’s command is expected to be up and running by early February.

The fear in Ankara has been that the Syrian regime may arm its long-range Russian-made Scud missiles with chemical warheads and set them on Turkey in a final, desperate act. Turkish President Abdullah Gul was the first to warn against this possibility in an interview with the Financial Times in November.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said he would never use chemical weapons against his people, but has not discounted their use against foreign invaders, thus indirectly confirming that Damascus has these weapons.

The fact that the Syrian regime started using missiles against opposition forces, however, added to Western concerns and expedited NATO’s decision in December to grant Ankara’s request for Patriot missiles. Turkey had placed that request in November after ordinance fired either mistakenly or intentionally from across the Syrian border killed a number of Turkish citizens.