Iran is openly talking about Syrian air defenses to help Damascus defend itself from continued Israeli airstrikes. However, as has been the case for a decade, Israel will undoubtedly take preemptive military action if Tehran takes serious steps to realize this stated goal.
On February 24, Iranian state television reported on Tehran’s goal of supplying Damascus with its advanced indigenous long-range air defense missile systems.
“Syria wants to rebuild its air defense network and wants precision bombs for its fighter jets,” the report says. “We will most likely see Iran supply radars and defense missiles, such as the Khordad 15 system, to Syria’s air defense. “
Any deployment of Khordad 15 would almost result in swift Israeli attacks. The original Iranian formula carries Sayyad-3 missiles with a supposed 120-mile diversity, which could potentially limit the Israeli air campaign in Syria if effectively deployed.
Interestingly, an anonymous intelligence source told Newsweek in January that Iran has been promoting a project for establishing air defenses in Syria over the past two years. As part of that project, Iran has helped Syria upgrade its radars. Tehran also reportedly has plans to deploy its Bavar-373 air defense system with new Sayyad 4B missiles, which have a purported 186-mile range. Iran has claimed this system is comparable to Russia’s advanced S-400 system.
The source hinted that one possible aim of this project is “enabling independent Iranian operation of the aerial defense systems from within parts of Syria.” This suggests that any deployment of the Khordad 15 or Bavar-373 systems would be controlled and operated exclusively by Iranian military personnel, if they are not immediately destroyed.
Such an agreement would therefore be similar to the “Syrian” S-300 formula deployed in Russia in 2018.
Moscow has also pledged to improve Syria’s air defense over the next decade. In a May 2018 interview with Russian state media, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad did not mention Iran when talking about Israeli airstrikes, instead arguing that Russian aid was the only way for its forces to reach its air defenses.
“Our air defense is much more powerful than before, thanks to Russian support,” he said at the time before acknowledging that a giant part of it had been destroyed by the civil war through rebels and rebels. Israeli attacks.
“The only option is our air defense, that’s the only thing we can do, and we are doing it,” he said.
In 2013, the same year that Israel introduced its air crusade against Iran and its allies in Syria, Russia raised the option of supplying Damascus with S-300s, but in the end did not do so due to strong American and Israeli objections. In the fall of 2018, Moscow delivered an S-300 formula after a much older Syrian S-200 missile accidentally shot down a Russian army ship while trying to intercept attacking Israeli fighter jets.
This “Syrian” S-300 has only been fired once against an Israeli airstrike in May 2022, but this launch does not appear to be a serious attempt to attack Israeli aircraft. In a further demonstration that the deployment of the battery is more symbolic than anything else, Russia removed it the following August, thus ending this farce.
While Iranian personnel will, most likely, similarly control any advanced system Tehran transfer to Syria, there would be a crucial difference regarding their rules of engagement.
Russia has maintained a communications mechanism with the Israeli military that was set up shortly after it militarily intervened in the Syrian Civil War in September 2015. Moscow did little to hinder or even protest the hundreds of Israeli strikes targeting Iranian forces and their allied militias, even though its forces had the most advanced long-range air defenses and fighter jets deployed in Syria and controlled much of its airspace.
On the other hand, Iran is a sworn enemy of Israel and there is little explanation why it would not try, unlike Russia, to use the air defenses it deploys in Syria against Israeli fighter jets. This is another explanation why Israel will indeed attack to the fullest any formula that Iran tries to implement.
There is already a precedent for this. In April 2018, an Israeli airstrike against the T-4 air base in central Syria destroyed a Tor short-range air defense system built by Iran and Russia, killing seven Iranian soldiers.
Israel’s aerial crusade continues unabated to this day. It carried out its “deadliest” attack on Damascus in February since the start of the civil war in 2011. The attack reportedly targeted a meeting of Syrian and Iranian drone manufacturing experts in the capital.
Syrian officials have requested that Tehran and its various militia proxies avoid using its territory for attacking Israel since it wants to avoid igniting a major war. Damascus has reason to fear any large-scale Israeli retaliation. In February 2018, Israel estimated it destroyed almost half of Syria’s entire air defenses following an escalation in clashes with Iranian forces. With Russia focused on Ukraine, Syria undoubtedly wants to avoid having a large-scale and destructive Iran-Israel confrontation fought on its soil.
Another attractive aspect discussed in the February 24 Iranian report is the Syrian Air Force’s need for precision-guided munitions. Like the country’s air defense, Syrian fighter jets are hopelessly obsolete. Even Syria’s most complex fighter jets, the MiG-29 Fulcrum, showed obvious signs of immense wear and tear. Russia claimed in mid-2020 to have delivered modern MiG-29s to help modernize that air force. However, this is just a ruse to hide the delivery of unmarked MiG-29s to Libya via the Russian air base in western Syria. With Russia now locked in a clash with Ukraine, the supply of new fighter jets to cash-strapped Damascus is less likely than ever.
Iran may use its experience modifying its older Russian-built Su-22s and Su-24s to carry long-range cruise missiles for upgrading Syria’s air force. Although it will unlikely prove capable of improving that aged air force to the extent that it could pose any substantial challenge to Israeli Air Force operations over Syria.
While the February 24 report is remarkable and demonstrates Iran’s ultimate purpose and intent in Syria, it remains highly unlikely that Tehran will prove capable of performing formidable air defense roles in the war-torn Arab state. war.
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