An Open Route to Iran

Photo Credit: IDF

IAF fighter pilot and navigator preparing to attack Iran on Operation Days of Repentance, Oct. 26, 2024

Military correspondent Doron Kadosh in an interesting update yesterday on the achievements of the IDF in destroying the latest capabilities of the Syrian army and the significance this has on a possible attack on Iran:

Open route to Iran: the Air Force is concluding the operation to destroy Assad’s army, and according to estimates – 86% of the Syrian air defense system has been destroyed. The meaning – Syria, which in the past posed a significant threat to Air Force planes that were severely restricted in flying over its territory due to the threats of anti-aircraft missiles, is now a much safer and more open airspace for flight.

Following the recent developments in the Middle East, the IDF believes that there is now an opportunity to attack the nuclear facilities in Iran.

The various security organizations – including the IDF – are now carrying out a preparation process between broad, intelligence and operational organizations, in order to present the political echelon with the capabilities and the option of choosing whether to carry out an attack on the nuclear facilities.

Within the Syrian air defense formation, which is considered to be the densest in the world and has fired hundreds of times in recent years at our planes, the Israeli Air Force put emphasis on the two most advanced systems, which managed to shoot down quite a few missiles that attacked Syria during the War Between the Wars – the SA-17 formation, which, according to estimates, 80% of which were destroyed, and the SA-22 array, 86% of which were destroyed.

In addition, 90% of the MiG-29 aircraft and approximately 80% of the Sukhoi-24 aircraft of the Assad army were also destroyed (a total of 61% damage to the Syrian Air Force).

In the Assad regime’s fire and missile array, the achievements are more modest: certain missile arrays were destroyed in high percentages (80-90%), but there are other arrays that were damaged in a much more limited way (20-30%), and therefore the IDF estimates that it is quite possible that they will fall into the hands of the rebels, who will have advanced weapons, missiles and other military capabilities, which Israel does not know about. The choice of what to attack from all of Assad’s army was made according to priority.

In total, in the operation to destroy the Assad army, the Air Force attacked about 500 targets, and used 1,800 weapons for this purpose, when until a few days before, such an operation was not planned at all and certainly not such an extensive use of weapons and bombs that were intended for other arenas.
Only on Thursday, two days before the fall of Assad, did the procedure for approving the plans go through with the commander of the Air Force – and until that night, between Saturday and Sunday, the debate continued as to when to implement the plan. On Sunday at 10:00 the signal was given, and the air force set off on the broad waves of attacks in Syria.