here's some good news for a change, and from debka too:
DEBKAfile Exclusive: Three groups of experts - Russian, Iranian and Syrian – still at sea over why Syria’s two early warning stations failed to protect its skies or identify Israeli air force raiders on Sept. 6.
October 5, 2007, 9:59 AM (GMT+02:00)
The Russian air defense system which failed
This lapse was first revealed exclusively by DEBKAfile on Sept. 7:
The Israeli jets said to have penetrated Syrian airspace Wednesday night escaped by jamming Russian-made Pantsyr-S1 air defense missiles
DEBKAfile’s military experts conclude from the way Damascus described the episode that the electronic systems and radar of the Pantsyr-S1 air defense missiles were a letdown because they failed to down the intruders and therefore leave Syria and Iranian airspace vulnerable to hostile intrusion.
Such information on the Russian weapons systems sold to Syria and Iran is essential to any US calculations of whether to attack Iran.
Full article by DEBKAfile’s military sources of Sept. 7: HERE
These revelations were followed up on Sept. 21 by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 318 (for subscribers): Syria’s vulnerability
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources report that the Syrian early warning station, positioned at Marj as Sultan, 15 km east of Damascus and north of the Syrian air base at the international airport, is there to secure the Syrian capital and monitor Israeli air or missile activity on the Golan and from northern Israel.
The Shinshar station south of Homs, near the small Syrian air base of Al Qusayr Shayrat, is located opposite northern Lebanon. Its function is to sound the alarm if airplanes, missiles or warships approach Syria from Lebanese territory of from the eastern Mediterranean.
When the early warning stations in Syria were silenced, some communications systems, computers and cell phones were also knocked out in neighboring Lebanon – evidence that Syria had been bested in a cyber war against its electronic and radar systems.
DEBKAfile adds: Syrian war planners are at sea on several key points, such as:
1. When and from which did direction did the warplanes enter Syria airspace – the Mediterranean, Israel or Turkey?
2. Was the incursion a one-off or one of several which went unnoticed?
Until Israel released the bare information of the Sept. 6 air raid over Syria this week, neither Damascus nor Tehran knew for sure the identity of the air raiders, whether Israeli American or both. |
