🔸On October 21, the Air Force of the Defense Forces of Israel (IDF) carried out an air strike with cruise missiles and guided bombs near the Al-Dimas airport in the west of Rif-Damascus province in Syria. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a direct hit by Israeli missiles destroyed the YLC-6M radar station of the Syrian forces, the airport runway, and equipment and components used to assemble Iranian-made drones.
🔸During the strike, the fighters of “Hezbollah” – the Lebanese fighting party, were also eliminated. They are fighting in Syria for Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which is kept in power thanks to putin.
❗️According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Iran and its supported Hezbollah militant group have recently been in almost complete control of the Dimas military airport in southeastern Syria and have set up mines near the airfield to store Iranian weapons. Destroyed at the airport, the assembly center for Iranian drones near this airport began to operate from January to February 2022, when components for Iranian UAVs and ammunition arrived from Iran. Iran used it as a site for storing components and additional components for the collection of drones, which were secretly delivered to the Syrian territory in disassembled form for further adjustment at local enterprises. Despite Iran’s repeated statements that it did not supply such weapons to russia, Israeli journalist Max Lurie claims that the drones were being prepared to be sent to the russian federation to be used in the war against Ukraine. About a week before that, foreign media reported on another strike, after which the Israeli air force also “landed” a large batch of drones intended for transfer to the russian federation.
☝️It is worth reminding that there is still no peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon, as well as an unmarked sea border, where the powerful Karish gas field was recently discovered. It was Hezbollah fighters who launched three Iranian drones in the direction of the Karish gas platform at the end of July. Then Israel shot them down with an F-16 and a Barak 8 air defense system from aboard a Saar 5-class ship. After destroying these drones, Israel officially announced that Israel considers Iranian UAVs in the hands of Hezbollah to be one of its security threats. As of 2021, this group has accumulated more than 2,000 Iranian Karrar and Shahed drones.
‼️In other words, Israel mostly solves its security problems by striking Syria by limiting Iran’s ability to transfer weapons to Syria, produce weapons on the territory of this country, and create a base for pro-Iranian forces there.
🔸However, given that Israel’s high-precision strike completely destroyed the assembly line of Iranian drones and disrupted Iran’s supply chain, the process of restoring them will take some time. This will create obstacles to Iran’s plans to provide russia with surface-to-surface ballistic missiles with increased accuracy (namely Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar) and additional Mohajer-6 and Shahed-136 drones.
That is, the development of events in Syria gives reason to predict a certain decrease in the effectiveness of the use of Iranian drones during russian airstrikes in Ukraine.
In addition, the mentioned situation will be another argument in favor of the call of the UN to investigate allegations of russia’s use of drones of Iranian origin to attack Ukraine.
