Assad. Defense systems failed?
Photo: AP
Report: Israel 'blinded' Syrian radar
After Israeli missile strike on Syria confirmed by both sides, the question remains – how did Israel's non-stealth jets infiltrate Syrian airspace undetected? US aerospace experts tell Aviation Week magazine that Israel used new US-developed technology that lets users invade and manipulate enemy communication networks
After Syrian President Bashar Assad admitted that Israeli planes carried out a missile strike in Syria
and after the media blackout on the incident was lifted
in Israel, many unanswered questions still remain regarding how IAF jets managed to infiltrate Syrian security.
An article published this week on the aerospace magazine Aviation Week & Space Technology's website offers the theory of experts in the field on how the Israeli F15 and F16 jets – which are not stealth fighters – managed to evade detection by Syrian air defense radar.
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US aerospace industry and former US Air Force officials told Aviation Week's Senior Military Editor David A. Fulghum that Israel must have used "a technology like the US-developed 'Suter' airborne network attack system".
The cutting-edge technology allows users to invade enemy communication networks, to "see what enemy sensors see and even take over as systems administrator so sensors can be manipulated into positions so that approaching aircraft can't be seen", experts said.
In effect, the technology infiltrates and tricks enemy sensors by "directing data streams into them that can include false targets and misleading messages algorithms that allow a number of activities including control," the article explains.
The US system was recently tested successfully in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, officials told Aviation Week.
Iran worried?
According to the article, a Kuwaiti newspaper recently reported that "Russian experts are studying why the two state-of-the art Russian-built radar systems in Syria did not detect the Israeli jets entering Syrian territory. Iran reportedly has asked the same question,
since it is buying the same systems and might have paid for the Syrian acquisitions."
The system is the new Tor-M1 launcher, and the Iranians bought 29 of them from Russia for $750 million to guard their nuclear sites. The Tor launchers were delivered in January, according to Agency France-Press and ITAR-TASS.
It is not confirmed that the Tor system was in fact the system guarding the Syrian site.
