Israel Says 1/3 of Syrian Air Defenses Destroyed in Past Two Years

IAF says strikes likely to slow down as tensions rise elsewhere

The Israeli Air Force has offered new details on strikes against Syria, saying they have in the past two years destroyed roughly a third of all Syrian air defense systems. Syria has fired 844 surface-to-air missiles.

This is a lot of firing and destruction, resulting from regular Israeli airstrikes inside Syria. The Israeli Air Force does, however, predict that they will dial back the number of strikes in Syria going forward.

That’s because despite the destruction, Syria has installed better, more powerful air defenses from Russia, making such incursions a lot more dangerous. Syria has previously prefeerred to use S-200 systems for interceptions, an older system, but the S-300s are available and probably going to be deployed as the S-200s run out.

Israel has spent decades claiming they have technology to beat the Russian-made S-300s, and while Russia has doubted this, Israel seems not to want to test it directly if they can avoid it. Between this and tensions with Hezbollah they’re likely to shift focus elsewhere.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.