4 Israeli Air Force F-15I medium bombers, a variant of the F-15E, planes like these participated in the raid of September 6.

     The Isareli Air Force raid into Syria on the sixth has become a much more intriguing story over the last 48 hours. While originally billed as a strike at weapons bound for Hezbolah, it is clear now that the raid was aimed at a high prioity, time sensitive target that had to be destroyed and destroyed right away.  The strike was deep into eastern Syria, only 50 miles from the Iraqi border along the Euphrates river, proving to the world, and in particular Iran that the IAF is more than capable of deeply penetrating a modern intergrated air defense network.  What the actual target was is not yet entirely clear to us but the Israelis thought valuable enough to send in a commando team to recon the target and paint it with a laser designator for LGB's, rather than using JDAMs in a standoff strike.  LGBs are used when only true pinpoint accuracy will do.  While infiltarting Syrian airspace with 8 or 9 jets is impressive the helo carrying the commandos would have been hard pressed to cross from northern Israel that deeply into Syria without being detected and would have been in need of fuel even with auxiallary tanks to make the return trip.  Someone helped set this up for the Israelis, giving them a forward base to launch the ground ellement of the attack.  The most likely nation to provide that help is Turkey, given the short distances involved and the close military relationship between the two middle eastern democracies.  The other possibility is that the US allowed Israel to use a base in western Iraq as a staging point, but the needs of US policy in the region make this rather unlikely, however the Israelis would most likely have been given the OK to use one of the US held airbases in western Iraq as a divert field for any aircraft damaged in the raid. 

     So what was all this effort after, what was worthy of taking the risks and calling favors to pull this off?  While most people point to nuclear manufacturing facillities the time sensative nature of the strike makes me believe that the cash strapped North Koreans may be selling more than nuclear know how, but rather nuclear warheads.  This chilling thought is reinforced by the need for absolute precision, a uranium enrichment facillity or similar manufacturing facillities tend to be rather large and conspicous targets easily destroyed by high accuracy weapons like JDAM.  The reports we have gotten so far seem to suggest that the target was small and highly protected.  But what if all of this is just smoke and mirrors to cover up the real operation.  If the Israelis believed that the North Koreans had moved a viable nuclear weapon to Syria for use against them or transhipment to Iran attacking from the air would not be enough, there would always be the chance that weapon was merely damaged rather than destroyed.  It is my personal belief that the comandos actually went in and seized something and the IAF followed up to destroy evidence of that seizure and to provide a credible and for the Syrians and North Koreans unassailable cover story unless the come completely clean with what was going on there, which is more than highly unlikely.

An Israeli AF F-16C, F-16s likely provided cover for the F-15Is and provided SEAD* support for the raid.

*SEAD=Supression of Enemy Air Defenses

Posted by: raging tachikoma at 11:03 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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