Some military analysts are comparing Iran’s attempt to bomb Israel this weekend with Russian tactics in Ukraine.
On Saturday, Iran launched more than 300 drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles at Israel in a massive attack that, according to the Israel Defense Forceswas intercepted 99% before reaching its targets.
“The strike program was modeled after those the Russians used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect,” wrote Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan, both defense experts for the Critical Threats Project. the American Enterprise Institute.
The Israeli military estimates that the attack used 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles.
“The drones were launched well before the ballistic missiles were fired, most likely in the hope that they would arrive within Israel’s air defense window around the same time as the cruise missiles and drones,” they said. analysts said.
The slower drones and cruise missiles were intended to overwhelm Israeli air defense systems, allowing harder-to-target ballistic missiles to break through, they said, adding that: “The Russians used such an approach repeatedly against Ukraine.
But “the Iranians underestimated the enormous advantages Israel has in defending itself against such strikes compared to Ukraine,” they said.
Unlike Ukraine, other countries also contributed to the withdrawal of some of the missiles and drones. Both the United States and the United Kingdom said they helped repel the attack.
But not everyone agrees that Iran was copying Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Fabian Hinz, defense researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, written the that Iran had launched combined missile attacks aimed at overwhelming air defenses well before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
He cited the 2019 Iranian attack on two major Saudi oil refineries, which also allegedly used drones combined with cruise missiles.
U.S. officials also estimate that about half of the ballistic missiles fired by Iran in the recent attack failed, CBS reported.
The exact intent of the weekend attack is also still debated, with Hinz agreeing with Carter and Kagan in their assessment that “the attack was designed to succeed, not to fail.”
Iran was considering “significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response,” they wrote.
Some analysts have suggested that Iran planned the weekend attack more as a warning than a surefire strike.
“This attack was aimed at restoring Iran’s deterrence,” Rodger Shanahan, a fellow at the Australian think tank Lowy Institute, told ABC News Australia.
“Iran also understands that it is in no one’s interest – and certainly not its own – to attract direct intervention by other countries into Iranian territory, and this response has therefore been calibrated,” he said. he declared.
Israel had advance warning of the attack, Shanahan added, allowing it to have a much more robust defense.
Iran’s armed forces said the attack was in retaliation for Israel’s attack on its embassy compound in Damascus, Syria, in early April.
businessinsider
