Iran and Israel two flags together textile cloth fabric texture

Iran and Israel flag together realtions textile cloth fabric texture (Getty images)

TEL AVIV — Israel is looking for ways to disrupt the re-launched air link between Iran and Syria that is used to fly shipments of Iranian weapon systems to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

According to defense sources here, in spite of the new situation “every measure” will be taken to stop the flights, as one of the sources said. Another said that the air link will “be dealt with” in the future. And both kinetic and non-kinetic means appear to be on the table.

Israel has for years worked to counter Iran’s effort to ship weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, including by using real-time intelligence to strike at the shipments. Following an increase in Israeli strikes against ground-based shipments, Iran has begun turning to the air to fly its supplies. It’s a tactic that had been used in the past but had fallen out of favor — but Iran’s increased relations with Russia appear to have emboldened Tehran to begin flights again.

For years in Syria, Russia has controlled the airspace — and wanted to make sure Damascus International was kept safe for its own purposes. As a result, the use of Iranian planes to move materiel into Syria was discouraged. But with Moscow more focused on Ukraine now, it has pulled forces out of Syria — and as a result its needs for the airport are less instrumental. Combined with greater ties between Tehran and Moscow, it appears Iran feels it has a freer hand to use Damascus International — and to accept the risk of Israel doing something to damage the airport’s usability.

Mordechai Kedar, an Israeli senior expert on Iranian and Middle Eastern issues, told Breaking Defense that the new relations between Iran and Russia has encouraged Tehran to restart the cargo flights from Iran to Syria. “They feel good with their new friend and that explains their recent moves,” he said.

It is hard to get exact figures on the number of transports going on from land and air, but Israeli sources say the number of ground convoys has dropped in recent months following an increased focus from Israel on striking them. In turn, the number of flights seem to be going up, with one source saying they are seeing “at least” three flights a week performed via an older 747.

According to a report from the Israeli Alma Research and Education Center, most of the flights between Iran and Syria are performed by Mahan Air, which operates under the auspices of the IRGC under the umbrella of the “Mola al-Movahedin Charitable Organization” (MMC). Mahan was sanctioned by the United States in 2011 for transporting weapons to Iranian proxies at the outset of the Syrian civil war.

“The Mahan air pilots are not publicly associated with the IRGC. It is highly likely that some of the pilots formally belong to the IRGC and are on ‘loan’ to the company. Their task is to ensure that the sensitive cargo on their plane reaches its destination safely,” according to the report. “It is also possible that some of the pilots do not belong to the IRGC, and they engage in their ‘innocent’ and civilian work while ‘turning a blind eye’ to the joint conduct of the company with the IRGC/Quds Force.”

At this stage Israel is closely following the cargo flights without taking action against the airlines, but the sources insisted there are plans being made.

The most direct approach, of course, would be to strike the planes while they are on the ground, but the sources acknowledged that attacking a civil cargo aircraft in a civil airport would have grave consequences for Israel. Instead, there was the suggestion of nebulous “other measures” that can be used without attacking the cargo aircraft.

In theory, that could include attacking the runway as opposed to the planes themselves. After all, Israel largely escaped reputational damage when in September it attacked the main runway at Damascus International. (Located 25 km from Damascus, the airport has two parallel runways, of which the longest is 11,811 feet long.) That attack also didn’t seem to have much impact, with the damage repaired after a few days and the airport made operational again; however, sources here told Breaking Defense that attack was designed to be more of a warning than to have actual tactical impact.

One of them said that if the cargo flights with Iranian-made weapon systems continue, Israel may attack the airport again, this time causing heavy damage to the runway but also to the airport navigation and communication systems.

“This will shut down the airport completely,” the source said.

A former high ranking officer in the Israeli Air Force, who talked on condition of anonymity, also noted that a cyber-attack could be used to ruin the flights, potentially by taking the airport navigation and control systems down. “Israel has all the tools for such an attack that will make the airport blind and deaf and will paralyze it,” the former officer said.

The Israeli defense forces has some very advanced cyber units, the best known of which is unit 8200. According to the Washington Institute, this unit was instrumental in the attack on the Iranian Natanz nuclear facility.

“Unit 8200, in collaboration with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), reportedly carried out an attack in 2009-2010. They were apparently able to introduce a computer virus—called Stuxnet—into the facility despite it having an air gap in place, meaning that the facility was physically disconnected from the wider internet. The virus targeted the operating system for Natanz’s uranium centrifuges, causing them to speed up wildly and break; the monitoring system was also apparently hacked so that the damage, when it happened, initially went unnoticed by the Iranians.”

To prove that Israel has very accurate intelligence on the arms shipments, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, disclosed on Tuesday that Israel was responsible for an airstrike on a truck convoy from Iraq to Syria on Nov. 8.

“We could’ve been unaware of the Syrian convoy moving from Iraq to Syria a few weeks ago,” Kochavi said. “We could’ve been unaware of what it was carrying, and that out of 25 trucks in the convoy, number eight was carrying military equipment. We then need to send pilots able to evade surface-to-air missiles,” he said.

This very unusual disclosure is explained by Israeli sources as a clear warning to Iran that Israel knows about every arms shipments.

According to Iran International, a website operated out of London by the Iranian regime’s opponents, Western intelligence sources say Caspian Air and Qeshm Fars Air both stopped flying to Syria after the Damascus attack, leaving Mahan Air as the only Iranian airline sending planes.

“According to information received by Iran International, Mahan Air flights have increased by 30 percent following the suspension of service by the other two companies. Aleppo is the destination of most Mahan flights. The same sources said Hamid Arabnejad the CEO of Mahan Air in a recent trip to Syria took part,” the site wrote in July.