2007 attack on Syrian Nuclear site

[MigBuster 2,884]

 

 

On Sept. 6, 2007 the Israeli Air Force (IAF) conducted a precision air strike, code-named Operation Orchard, against a Syrian nuclear installation.

 

Even if Israel has never publicly admitted that some of its aircraft destroyed the facility, some details about the mission have been either disclosed or leaked throughout the years.

Some of them are well described in the book The Sword of David – The Israeli Air Force at War, written by Donald McCarthy.

 

According to McCarthy, who served in the U.S. Air Force from 1964 to 1968 before becoming a respected and well informed historian, the information for Operation Orchard is alleged to have come from Ali Reza Asgari, an Iranian general disappeared in February 2007, who may have been the source of the intelligence required by the Syrian nuclear site attack.

 

After gathering the required details, the Israelis planned a secret mission that was launched on Sept. 6 2007, at night.

At least a four F-16I Sufa (Storm) jets and another four F-15I Ra’am (Thunder) aircraft crossed the Syrian border, in bound to the nuclear plant located near the city of Dir A-Zur, in eastern Syria.

 

McCarthy points out the fact that Syria as well as other Arab countries were equipped with advanced Russian air defense systems, such as the Pantsir-S1 (SA-22 Greyhound as reported by NATO designation), claimed to be immune to electronic jamming. At the time of Operation Orchard, Syria operated twenty nine of these advanced air defense systems, so it remains unclear how the IAF aircraft flew undetected into the night sky out over the Mediterranean Sea, across the Euphrates River and along their route to the nuclear facility.

 

As explained by McCarthy, according to the most widely accepted theory the strike force included one or more Gulfstream G550 aircraft, equipped with the IAI Elta EL/W-2085 radar system.

Indeed, the success of the operation was largely attributed to effectiveness of the Israeli Electronic Warfare platforms that supported the air strike and made the Syrian radars blind: some sources believe that Operation Orchard saw the baptism of fire of the Suter airborne network system against Syrian radar systems.

This system, combined with the F-15Is electronic warfare capabilities, shut down Syrian air defense systems, providing the other airplanes the cover they needed to hit and destroy the Dir A-Zur nuclear plant.

 

 

After the attack, the initial reports stated that the IAF aircraft had almost entirely destroyed the nuclear site, claims that were also confirmed by the comparison of pre and post-attack satellite imagery.

Even if the incident was shrouded in secrecy, Turkish media outlets reported that external fuel tanks were found on the ground not far away from the Syrian border: as reported by Shlomo Aloni & Zvi Avidror in their book Hammers Israel’s Long-Range Heavy Bomber Arm: The Story of 69 Squadron, these external fuel tanks were identified by foreign press as belonging to F-15 aircraft.

 

Operation Orchard showed the capabilities of the Israeli Air Force, capabilities that were most probably used to carry out an air strike on a weapons convoy and military complex near Damascus, at the beginning of 2013. As done in 2007, on the night between Jan. 29 and 30, 2013, Israeli bombers entered and egressed the Syrian airspace almost completely undetected by the Syrian air defenses: a sign that Syrian radars can do nothing against Israel’s Electronic Warfare systems, most probably further improved to embed the capability to inject malware from F-16s into enemy networks.

 

http://theaviationist.com/2014/09/06/operation-orchard-anniversary/

[Nesher 628]

it will take years for Israel to admit in this operation... but what a job! :)

[+Gepard 11,218]

On the other side the syrians stated, that they were ask by Iran do build a fake nuclear facility to give them a chance to study the israeli tactics during an precision strike. Maybe this leak was a fake too, but it could be possible.

[JediMaster 451]

LOL, yeah "oh, that wasn't a real site, we built a fake one to provoke an attack so we could watch it! Yeah! I built it with my wife, Morgan Fairchild, whom I've seen naked, that's the ticket!"

 

The US did the same thing at Pearl Harbor. We wanted to witness the tactics of the IJN first hand, so we sacrificed thousands of armed forces personnel and ships and planes to get to SEE IT first hand. Once we knew what they were capable of, THEN we declared war on them (after they fell for the "sneak attack us" ruse!) and kicked their asses in a brief 4 year war that only saw the death of thousands more and the loss of countless more ships and planes.

 

Anyway, it's widely believed this was enabled by a cyber attack against the networked SAM system, nothing as pedestrian as simple jamming. The Syrians didn't respond because they didn't know they were there. You don't need stealth if you can hack their air defense picture, only jets in the air would've seen them and without prior warning they wouldn't have any up at that time.

 

The fact that this story just tosses it in as an afterthought kind of validates that.

Edited September 7, 2014 by JediMaster

[Emp_Palpatine 501]

Impressive!

Now, please use these skills to kill some djihadists... 

[+Dave 2,322]

On the other side the syrians stated, that they were ask by Iran do build a fake nuclear facility to give them a chance to study the israeli tactics during an precision strike. Maybe this leak was a fake too, but it could be possible.

 

And if you believe that, I have some ocean front property in Arizona I'll sell you for a really great price.

[+Gepard 11,218]

I have read this in a book written by the old german journalist Peter Scholl-Latour, who died some days ago in the age of 90. He was a grandmaster of journalism here in Germany and a well respected person. Scholl-Latour had had access to sources in Iran, Iraq, both sides of the front in Syria and in Israel too. Very often he was blamed to have written wrong things, but finaly he was right in the very most cases. But sometimes he was wrong, thatswhy my statement "Maybe this leak was a fake too, but it could be possible."

Edited September 10, 2014 by Gepard