Not even sure that this is worth a breaking, since it’s drones rather than missiles or planes, but Iran just launched a drone attack at Israel.
Iran launched a massive drone attack toward Israel Saturday night into Sunday morning local time, following through on its vow to retaliate against the Jewish state after several top Iranian commanders were killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Damascus earlier this month.
The Israeli military estimates that the attack involves over 100 drones, which won’t arrive in Israel for another few hours. Some reports indicate that the airborne operation will also include missiles. This would mark the first direct Iranian attack on Israeli soil.
On Friday, President Joe Biden said that Iran’s retaliatory attack against Israel was imminent and warned Tehran against carrying out the attack. “Don’t,” he said. U.S. officials believe the attack, once it hits Israel, will lead to a wider regional conflict that extends beyond Israel and Iranian proxies such as Hamas or Hezbollah.
Airspace in Israel, Iraq, and Jordan have been closed as the attack unfolds. U.S. and Israeli officials said they plan on intercepting the Iranian drones before they reach Israel, according to reports.
Early reports said “over 50,” now it’s “over 100,” and some Iranian sources say “500.”
According to a Denys Davydov livestream, U.S. planes in Iraq have scrambled to shoot them down.
It’s one thing to get drones past spread out Russian SAM systems, and quite another to get them past modern U.S. and Israeli aircraft, AWACS and Iron Dome.
Iran claims ballistic missiles are on the way. We’ll see. Nazi Germany hit London with V2s back in 1944, so it’s not like the basics are out of Iran’s technological reach. Still, I wouldn’t expect anything more sophisticated than a SCUD, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Iron Dome could shoot those down as well.
If it is just drones, it strikes me as more a performative strike than anything that will actually damage Israel. This was Iran gets to say “We struck back!” without actually committing serious assets.
Livemap says “dozens” of rockets have been fired from Lebanon, which is honestly pretty by the standards of Hezbollah rocket attacks.
Of course, Hamas isn’t launching any rockets, because they’ve contracted a terminal case of IDF.
Developing…
Update: Jordan has gotten in on the intercepting action.
Update 2: Explosions in Damascus. It’s possible Israel has struck back before the drone even got there…
Update 3: One missile hit the Negev and over 100 drones have been intercepted.
Update 4: Boom!
Footage of an Israeli ABM (likely Arrow 2 or 3) achieving an exoatmospheric (space) kill on an Iranian ballistic missile somewhere east of Israel tonight. pic.twitter.com/jKihty4GR0
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) April 14, 2024
Update 5: Israel says that 99% of some 300 Iranian drones were intercepted. At least that’s 300 they can’t sell to Russia…
Tags: Damascus, Denys Davydov, drones, Hezbollah, Iran, Iron Dome, Israel, Jihad, Military, Syria
How many Tamir interceptors does Israeli have? They shot every Tamir they had on 07 October. We returned two Iron Dome systems on 19 October, but the only Tamirs they got were in process at Rafael after fleshing out basic RTX chassis.
This is how the Russians get overwhelmed. And how the Ukrainians got overwhelmed on 11 April.
If Iran wanted war with Israel, they would deploy short-range Fetah-110 (250-300 km) ballistic missiles, launched by their their Lebanese proxy. These would be much harder to intercept than a slow moving drone and they carry a potent warhead.
The drone attacks are a pro forma response to the successful bombing of Iranian Generals who were deployed to Syria.
The most urgent threat to Israel’s security is to be found in neighboring Jordan, where a restive Palestinian population chafes under the yoke of minority Hashemite rule. Recent demonstrations suggest that there is deep discontent over the war in Gaza. This provides Iran with with an opportunity to topple the government and set up a theocratic state.
Such a scenario would be far more destabilizing than having a Hizzbullah militia embedded in Lebanon.
Iran will launch a few drones to assuage their wounded dignity but use the greater part of their resources to subvert the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan.
Early days, yet.
The idiots we have running things, there’s no telling where this will end. It’s rather like watching the late summer of 1914, as the various genius “statesmen” did their thing. Only, this is like the Idiocracy version…
I think the most significant point, out of all of this? That Portuguese container ship seized in the Straits of Hormuz. The Iranians are pushing, pushing, pushing… And, without anyone on our side pushing back? They’re filling a power vacuum. Or, so they’ll sense… They might be right. On the other hand, the adults in the room have to know that something must be done, or they’re going to lose all that nice Saudi and Gulf oil. On that basis alone, China ought to be shitting their pants, but since they’re working with Iran, who the hell knows what’s going on.
Again, thank Jimmy Carter for this cluster-fuck. Had he not done what he did with the Shah, we’d still have Iran as an ally, and millions of people would still be alive.
UN denunciation of Iran coming in 3.. 2.. 1. Millenia, that is.
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