Iran has signed an agreement to improve Syria’s largely antiquated and ineffective air defenses. However, any substantial effort by Tehran will likely be foiled by Israel, which is resolute in its determination to remove Iran’s military presence from its northern neighbor.

In a July meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s military chief of staff General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri signed an agreement pledging to improve Syria’s air defense systems.

The agreement “will improve the determination of the two nations to confront U.S. pressures,” Bagheri claimed.

After almost a decade of civil war, Syria’s already antiquated air defenses have been severely weakened and proven ineffective against Israeli airstrikes and unwelcome incursions into Syrian airspace by other foreign air forces.

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes against targets related to Iran and the Shiite Hezbollah militia across Syria over the past seven years.

Syria and Iran invariably argue that the only foreign armed forces in Syria legitimately are those welcomed by Damascus, namely Iran and Russia. Moscow maintains the most sophisticated air defenses in all of Syria, its high-altitude S-400 air defense missiles.

Israel and Russia have maintained a deconfliction arrangement since the latter intervened in the Syrian conflict in September 2015. As a result, Russia doesn’t attempt to halt Israeli airstrikes in Syria with its powerful S-400s.

Moscow did supply Damascus with formidable S-300 high-altitude air defense missiles in late 2018 after a Syrian S-200 missile shot down a Russian Il-20 plane, killing the entire crew, while targeting attacking Israeli warplanes. Russia blamed Israel for the incident, insisting the Israeli warplanes knowingly used the Russian plane for cover.

The Syrian S-300s, by far the most advanced missiles in Syria’s air defense arsenal, haven’t been fired at Israeli warplanes to date. This is likely because Russian military operators are reportedly still in charge of how those systems are used and don’t want to violate Russia’s deconfliction arrangement with Israel.

Moscow also seems to have some say over how Damascus uses its other much older air defenses.

In late 2016, Syrian air defenses reportedly threatened Turkish Air Force jets operating over northwest Syria during Ankara’s Euphrates Shield operation against the Islamic State (ISIS) and the Kurdish YPG. Ankara stopped airstrikes for a fortnight until consulting with the Russian military, which reassured it that it was safe to resume that campaign.

When Turkey launched its invasion of the northwestern Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin in early 2018, Damascus once again threatened to shoot down Turkish jets. However, on that occasion, Turkey ignored the threat, likely confident that Syria was bluffing and had little to no means of downing its fighter jets.

Also, Russia chose not to shut the airspace it controls over northwest Syria to Turkish jets, something it demonstrated it was well capable of doing later in that Turkish operation against the YPG.

Similarly, with no Russian air defense support, Syria’s limited air defenses were unable to defend ground forces against a series of devastating Turkish drones strikes in Idlib province that killed hundreds of Syrian troops and destroyed several Syrian tanks and other military equipment, during an unprecedented escalation in February-March 2020.

Since then, Turkey has even deployed some of its own medium-altitude air defenses in parts of Idlib it controls.

Assad also opposes U.S.-led coalition warplanes using Syrian airspace but is powerless to do anything about it. The U.S. military has focused on targeting ISIS in eastern Syria since beginning its air campaign over that country back in September 2014.

During its first airstrikes over Syria, U.S. warplanes notably carried High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) missiles, which are used to destroy air defense radars, in case Syrian air defenses targeted them.

That never happened, and U.S. jets have carried out thousands of airstrikes against ISIS since.

Assad has vowed several times to improve Syria’s air defenses to counter Israeli airstrikes and deter U.S. overflights over the years. This latest agreement with Iran probably won’t amount to much since Israel, if its record over the past seven years is any indication, will go to great lengths to forcibly prevent Iran from strengthening Syria’s air defenses.

In April 2018, Israeli jets targeted the Tiyas (T-4) airbase in Syria’s Homs province, killing a senior Iranian officer and seven troops. The target of that strike was a Russian-built Tor short-range air defense system, which the Israeli jets destroyed before the Iranians could even set it up.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) paramilitary maintains a presence in Syria that Israel deeply opposes and is determined to remove.

Given the IRGC’s lack of air defenses in Syria, or adequate Syrian air defenses to defend its positions there, its forces are vulnerable to Israeli airstrikes. Israeli airstrikes have already killed several IRGC troops in Syria in recent years as part of Israel’s broader goal of preventing Iran from establishing a permanent military presence in Syria and transferring advanced weapons to its Hezbollah proxy.

If Israel would immediately scramble to prevent the IRGC from establishing a short-range Tor missile system to defend against attacks on T-4, then it would undoubtedly go to even greater lengths to prevent Iran from supplying Damascus with more formidable air defenses that could target its warplanes.

Iran received S-300s from Russia in 2016. It has also built similarly formidable systems of its own — such as the Bavar-373, Khordad 15, and 3rd Khordad systems — in recent years. A missile fired from a 3rd Khordad system successfully shot down a U.S. RQ-4 surveillance drone flying at high altitude over the Strait of Hormuz in June 2019.

If the IRGC could deploy such missiles in Syria, they might pose the most significant challenge the Israeli Air Force has faced in the region in decades.

Israeli warplanes have trained against Greek S-300s in recent years in preparation for such contingencies. Israeli warplanes hitting targets in Syria often use Popeye air-to-surface cruise missiles and sometimes don’t even leave Lebanese airspace when hitting fixed targets in western Syria.

The Israeli Air Force has also modified its U.S.-built fifth-generation stealthy F-35 Lightning II jets with domestically-built systems that are purportedly better than those in other F-35s. These hi-tech jets are likely capable of swiftly destroying any air defense missiles Iran manages to deploy in Syria or supply to Damascus.

The Israelis aren’t likely even going to let things reach that stage. They will most likely dash to take out any such missiles before they’re even set up, as they did in the T-4 strike in April 2018.

For now, it’s business as usual for the Israeli Air Force over Syria, where it will likely retain its dominance over that weakly defended airspace for the foreseeable future.





https://www.forbes.com/sites/pauliddon/2020/07/10/israel-will-never-let-iran-upgrade-syrias-decrepit-air-defenses/#26f9efd1357d

They will never let Iran improve Syria's air defenses? But they have F-35 or is F-35 not capable anymore? They have nothing to fear if truly their F-35 can penetrate modern air defense systems.

That is what we about to see, got a new tv yesterday with popcorn machine.

Something deep down tells me Moscow was behind this move. Since they can't down Israeli jets with the S-400 and the IAF reportedly sees these QUDS proxies as terrorists. Moscow did the next best thing; invite Iran with their Air defense system so even though S300 from Iran gets deployed to Syria it's still not Mother Bear's doing.

Since the IAF only fires from Lebanon all they got do is overwhelm the system with a barage of missiles.

If the F-35s is a ghost as they preach let them enter sha. Nothing will happen

pacino26:
Something deep down tells me Moscow was behind this move. Since they can't down Israeli jets with the S-400 and the IAF reportedly sees these QUDS proxies as terrorists. Moscow did the next best thing; invite Iran with their Air defense system so even though S300 from Iran gets deployed to Syria it's still not Mother Bear's doing.

Since the IAF only fires from Lebanon all they got do is overwhelm the system with a barage of missiles.

If the F-35s is a ghost as they preach let them enter sha. Nothing will happen

Excellent analysis, the russians do everything to maintain their isreali relation thereby limiting their syrian defenses. They however could have instructed the iranians to do the dirty work for them.

Lets hope the israelis who use every tactic including human shield to survive will not invoke amalgedom.

Israel says they will not tolerate iranian air defense in syria so they either destroy it before delivery or bombard it after installation.

Kai telling someone I cannot allow u to defend yourself or close your gate.

If the Iranian Air defense system is successfully installed, it would definitely be end of game for Israel in Syria

Olominira:
If the Iranian Air defense system is successfully installed, it would definitely be end of game for Israel in Syria

It can be taken out.

illitrate:



Excellent analysis, the russians do everything to maintain their isreali relation thereby limiting their syrian defenses. They however could have instructed the iranians to do the dirty work for them.

Lets hope the israelis who use every tactic including human shield to survive will not invoke amalgedom.

Israel says they will not tolerate iranian air defense in syria so they either destroy it before delivery or bombard it after installation.

Kai telling someone I cannot allow u to defend yourself or close your gate.

Expect the Russians to use their transport Aircraft Antonov to lift those systems from Iran. The S-300 & S-400 have carved a niche for aerospace defense. Russia is not ready to compromise that.

So the IAF is gonna have to bomb the Antonov in that case.

Olominira:
If the Iranian Air defense system is successfully installed, it would definitely be end of game for Israel in Syria

Zohariel said more than this when Russia supplied the s300 to Syria and after the installation we all saw how the isreali pilots where still cruising the Syrian airspace abi s300 no dey effective again ni?. The earlier you no that a surface to missile system presently can not really protect a large expanse of land and just only selected areas the better for you. Any human system can be circumvented and it seems the isreali has answer to Russian systems now.