MOSCOW, Aug 17: Russia has begun delivery of modern air defence units to Syria while rejecting speculation that some of the weapons could be forwarded secretly to Iran, a newspaper reported on Friday.

“The first part of the delivery to Syria has started,” the centrist daily Nezavissimaya Gazeta reported, quoting information from a domestic military information agency.

A spokesman for Russia’s arms export agency Rosoboronexport, contacted by AFP, declined to comment on the newspaper report.

The report acknowledged that the delivery of the weapons, the Pantsyr-S1E self-propelled short-range missile air defence system, was particularly sensitive in light of Israeli claims last year that Russian arms sold to Syria had ended up in the hands of militant group Hezbollah.

Israel fought a brief war with Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon in July 2006 and afterwards accused Russia of indirectly supplying Hezbollah with relatively sophisticated anti-tank weapons, an accusation Moscow denied.

Nezavissimaya Gazeta quoted an official involved in Russian arms export policy as describing concerns that Russian air defence weapons could be re-exported to Iran as “silly rumours”.

“This is not possible,” Vitaly Shlykov, a member of the state committee on foreign and defence policy, was quoted.—AFP