Tehran and Damascus emphasize the importance of withdrawing all illegal foreign troops from Syria
14 July is celebrated 5 years from the date of signing in 2015 Year of the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan (SVPD) on Iran’s nuclear program between Iran and a group of states, known as "5 + 1" (five permanent members of the UN Security Council - USA, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France - plus Germany). Despite, that under trump, the USA withdrew from this agreement, other participants in the transaction adhere to its terms. Respectively, deadlines for lifting financial and economic sanctions and arms embargo from Iran come into force. USA strongly opposed to this, but Israel is especially concerned about this.
Recently, Israel is increasing the number of air strikes on Iranian military facilities in Syria. Shortly before his resignation in December 2019 g. Chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Army Gadi Eisenkot said, what "Israel has destroyed thousands of military targets in Syria". However, if earlier the Israelis were hunting for any Iranian targets, now new threats have appeared on their part.
As stated by the new chief of the General Staff of the Israeli army Aviv Kokhavi, Israel’s main concern is high precision Iranian guided missiles. The appearance of these missiles on the borders with Israel is qualitatively changing the military situation.. Until recently, Israel felt relatively calm under the shelling of unguided and low-effective Hassan missiles., which were fired by Hezbollah and Hamas militants from border areas. AT 2011 g. Israel launches missile defense system Iron Dome ("Iron Dome"), successfully intercepting unguided missiles.
However, Iran has made efforts to increase the effectiveness of missiles, with which the Palestinians shell Israel. Iranians began to deliver high-precision missiles or equipment to Syria via Lebanon, capable of improving unguided missiles, to overcome the Iron Dome missile defense.
Iranian Khoramshahr rocket
In recent years, Iran has shown success in creating rocket technology.. AT 1985 g. Tehran received the first Soviet-made Scuds from Muammar Gaddafi, then began to develop its own systems with the help of the DPRK, China and Pakistan. And in 2019 g. Iranians demonstrated modernized ballistic missiles Khorramshahr with a smart warhead, capable, according to the Iranians, reach the territory of Israel and the Gulf countries. An Iranian cruise missile was also announced. Hoveyzeh with flight range over 1350 km, able to go at extremely low altitude and having high accuracy.
Iranian Hoveyzeh cruise missile
Israel’s even greater concern was the emergence in Iran of a new short-range operational tactical missile Raad-500. If long-range missiles are considered weapons of the "big war" and are primarily of political importance, then short-range missiles pose an urgent military threat.
Iranian Raad-500 rocket
Raad 500 capable of overcoming Israeli missile defense, have a range 300 km and accuracy in radius 3-5 m. Israel is now blocking the supply of these missiles to Iran’s allies in the Middle East. Therefore, Iran stopped the export of finished missiles and switched to the conversion of existing unguided missiles into guided ones., transferring components to Hezbollah via Syria to Lebanon - navigation, wings, control equipment. For this, smuggling channels by sea are used., land and air.
Last year, Prime Minister Netanyahu exposed the illegal production of these missiles in Lebanon and the plant was closed. However, Israeli intelligence reports, that Iran is developing new capacities. Israel has no powerful partners right now, capable of joint efforts to force Iran to stop the distribution of these missiles in the region, therefore Israel’s formidable warnings are getting louder.
In response, Tehran and Damascus signed an agreement, by which Iran was able to deploy modern air defense systems in Syria. These are the new Bavar-373 and Horad-3 anti-aircraft missile systems.
SAM Bavaria-373
Bavar-373 system, according to Iranian media, capable of hitting targets at height 27 kilometers and distance 200 km, detecting them at a distance of more 300 km. According to its characteristics, the Bavar-373 is close to the Russian anti-aircraft missile system S-300. "Horad-3" has a range of up to 75 km and has already been used in the fight against UAVs. In June 2019 g. this air defense system shot down an american strategic reconnaissance drone Global Hawk.
Beirut Newspaper Al-Akhbar reported, that the signing of the Iran-Syrian air defense agreement emphasized the importance of withdrawing from the territory of Syria all foreign troops illegally there and countering Israeli raids. This message to the United States and Israel is about, that Iran and Syria decided to change the rules of the game in airspace over the ATS.
The title photo: Israeli Air Defense System Iron Dome
Dmitri Sedov
