World
Israel’s advanced military technology on full display during Iran's attack
JERUSALEM — Some of Israel’s most advanced military technology was on display over the weekend when its multi-level aerial defense array led the way in striking down an estimated 99% of the more than 350 drones, rockets and missiles that were fired by Iran in an unprecedented attack on the Jewish state.
From the Iron Dome, which in its latest format uses artificial intelligence (AI) to improve accuracy when shooting short-range surface-to-surface rockets, to David’s Sling, which intercepts short- to medium-range and medium- to long-range surface-to-surface missiles, to the Arrow 2 and 3 systems, which is used for longer-range ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as AI-driven aircraft and other technology, Israel’s defensive operation proved it was far superior to the offensive capabilities of the Islamic Republic.
In a press briefing following the attack, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari hailed Israel’s defensive operation, which was carried out together with partners from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), as a “very significant strategic achievement.” He said it demonstrated the “exceptional professionalism” of Israel’s Aerial Defense Array and the “defensive abilities of the air force as well as the army’s military and technological superiority.”
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Tal Mimran, of the Cyber Security Research Center in the Faculty of Law at Hebrew University, told Fox News Digital that broader cyber methods and even AI technology were also likely used in the successful defense operation.
“AI-powered algorithms analyze radar and other sensor data to track incoming missiles and calculate the best time to intercept these more effectively and prioritize targets,” he said. “AI makes the system more effective against a wider range of threats, like drones and other small, low-flying objects.”
Mimran said the Iron Dome, which Israel has been using for more than a decade to thwart rocket attacks from Gaza and Lebanon, now uses a “significant application of AI to improve system accuracy.”
“Using AI increases the Iron Dome’s success rate to over 90% and reduces operating costs,” he said. “This is important because these threats are becoming increasingly common and pose a challenge to traditional air defense systems, as is evident in the Russia-Ukraine war.”
Rockets fired by Hamas terrorists from Gaza City are intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome defense missile system in the early hours of Oct. 8, 2023. (Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images)
Mimran also noted that over the past few months “IDF officials have acknowledged using AI-based tools for several purposes, including targeting support, intelligence analysis, proactive forecasting and streamlined command and control.”
According to Mimran, Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has spotlighted the IDF’s Habsora, or “the Gospel,” an AI-based system that is used to generate possible military targets for attack. However, he said, accusations that the IDF has been using AI systems to commit mass assassinations give too much credit to the AI-powered tools currently in use.
Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, played down the role of AI in the weekend operation, telling Fox News Digital that while the technology is incorporated in some air force systems, “a live event with 300 incoming projectiles cannot be left to AI; there needs to be responsible human in the loop making real-time decisions.”
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Dozens of Israeli Air Force planes were deployed to intercept UAVs and cruise missiles launched from Iran over the weekend. (IDF Spokesman’s Unit)
“I know that senior air force personnel were involved in controlling every aspect of this,” said Conricus, a former IDF spokesperson for the international media. “I find it hard to believe that any significant part of the targeting done [over the weekend] was done with AI.”
He said that over the past six months – since Oct. 7 when the Palestinian terror group Hamas carried out a brutal attack in southern Israel, sparking a full-blown war in Gaza and daily rocket fire by the militant Shiite terror group Hezbollah across Israel’s northern border, too – Israel has been forced to utilize its innovative missile defense technology.
“All of the systems have been fully operational since Oct. 7 and all have confirmed real-world hits,” Conricus said, adding that Israel’s newest layer of aerial defense, the Arrow 3 system, debuted just a few months ago by intercepting ballistic missiles fired by the Yemen-based Houthis, an extremist Islamist group that is supported and funded by the fundamentalist Islamist regime in Tehran. Both Hamas and Hezbollah are also Iranian proxies.
Israeli defense systems intercept an Iranian missile over Maale Adumim, near Jerusalem, in the early hours of April 14, 2024. (Matanya Reichman/TPS)
“I think that today what we have is a pretty solid and well-rounded air defense that deals with a very wide array and broad spectrum of incoming threats, from very small and fast projectiles like UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) to extremely large and lethal ballistic missiles, which are also very fast, tremendously big and carry a ton of explosives,” he said.
Iran’s attack on Sunday – the first ever directly from its soil – brought together all the different tiers of Israel’s defensive system, Conricus said.
“They are all interlinked and communicate with each other,” he said, describing how a central command office provided an overall picture of the attack as it unfolded, giving a threat assessment in real time and coordinating the entire operation with the U.S. and other CENTCOM partners.
WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?
Iran on April 14 urged Israel not to retaliate militarily to the Islamic Republic’s unprecedented attack over the weekend, which Tehran presented as a justified response to Israel’s recent deadly strike on Iran’s consulate building in Damascus, Syria. (Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
Conricus said that while many of the innovative defense systems were created by Israel, “a large part of the development was also carried out with the Americans,” allowing “the radar systems and the digital intercepting systems” to communicate with U.S. defense systems.”
“They were developed together with congressional funding and support,” he said, explaining that there were “a lot of plug-and-play capabilities” and, if needed, the U.S. systems can easily connect with the Israeli system.
According to Israeli army estimates, Iran fired some 30 cruise missiles, 120 ballistic missiles and 170 suicide drones that carried about 60 tons of warheads and explosives combined. While most of the projectiles were shot down before reaching Israel’s borders, two air force bases were lightly hit and a 7-year-old Israeli girl was seriously injured. Forces from the U.S., British and French militaries, as well as from several countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, participated in the operation.
“To coordinate such an attack is not an easy task because all three weapon systems have [different] velocities and performances,” said Tal Inbar, a senior research fellow at Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.
He said that the UAVs, mostly Iranian-produced Shahed 136s, would have been fired first because they move at the slowest pace; followed by the cruise missiles and finally the ballistic missiles, which have a relatively short flight time from Iran to Israel, depending on the launch site.
U.S. CENTCOM Gen. Michael Kurilla, left, meets with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant amid rising tensions with Iran. (Ariel Hermoni/IMoD/File)
Inbar noted that Iran’s decision to use drones gave Israel several hours to “prepare itself to the maximum.”
In addition to deploying advanced missile defense systems and scrambling fighter planes, he said Israel also put in place some levels of cyberprotection, including disrupting satellite navigation, which is effective in stopping some of the projectiles from reaching their targets.
“Ballistic missiles cannot be jammed because they use an internal navigation system, but this is not the case with drones,” Inbar said, noting that Israelis have become used to GPS disturbances over the past six months.
Recent media reports also suggest that Israel deployed its new $1 billion spy plane, the Oron, which provided vital information that was used to track and destroy the drones and missiles in flight. The high-tech jet, which Israel unveiled at last year’s Paris Air Show, is equipped with thousands of advanced sensors. The Oron has the ability to scan vast terrain and gather an unprecedented amount of information at a considerable distance from the targets being tracked. When asked about the Oron spy plane, the IDF did not comment.
World
Islamist rebels in Syria catch Assad, Putin, Iran regimes off guard giving US new mideast headache
JERUSALEM—Extremist Syrian Islamist forces have seized control over much of Aleppo, the second-largest city in the war-torn country, raising significant new questions for the U.S. government about its policy in the highly volatile Syrian Arab Republic.
“I think it is concerning if some elements of the anti-Assad forces get their hands on sensitive sites in Syria. There have been reports that they have seized the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center, which is where Assad’s chemical weapons program is housed among other military assets,” Jason Brodsky, policy director for United Against Nuclear Iran, told Fox News Digital.
He continued, “Given the background of some of these groups which were formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda, it raises serious questions and could have implications for Israeli national security.”
The government of Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly met on Friday night to discuss the latest news coming out of Syria.
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Vehicles burn after an airstrike against opposition fighters in Aleppo, Syria, late Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Former President Barack Obama cut a widely criticized deal with Syrian regime dictator Bashar Assad in 2013 to remove his chemical weapons program. U.S. officials later said that Assad likely retained part of his chemical warfare apparatus. Assad has repeatedly used poison gas on his population to dissolve the democratic revolt that unfolded against his regime in 2011.
There are currently about 900 American soldiers in Syria as part of a mission to defeat the Islamic State. The U.S. military presence in Syria, according to Mideast experts, also helps to blunt the Iranian regime’s attempts to absorb of parts of Syria.
The seizure of most of the two million-person populated city of Aleppo is a stunning military defeat for Assad and his allies, the U.S-designated terrorist movement, Hezbollah, Russia, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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Yet, Brodsky warned that Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an amalgam of radical Islamist groups that secured the victory in Aleppo, is also a highly dangerous organization for the U.S.
“We can’t forget that one of these groups, HTS has been designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization. I think Israel’s degradation of Hezbollah emboldened the anti-Assad forces as they smelled blood in the water with this assault on Aleppo. It’s not only Hezbollah’s losses, but also the IRGC’s [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] losses which are testing the Quds Force’s structures in Syria.
A Syrian opposition fighter takes a picture of a comrade stepping on a portrait of Syrian President Bashar Assad in Aleppo, early Saturday Nov. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed) (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
“Let’s not forget that Israel decapitated the IRGC Quds Force Department 2000, which oversees operations in the Levant, twice in the last year alone, not to mention other key commanders in the Syrian theater. That is a loss of relationships, skills and networks that have placed the IRGC at a disadvantage, especially when Hezbollah has been under such strain,” he said.
The United States government has designated both Iran’s regime and the Syrian Arab Republic as state-sponsors of terrorism.
Phillip Smyth, an expert on Iranian regime proxy groups and Syria, who is with the Atlantic Council, told Fox News Digital, “If you were thinking Assad was sending out or had anything elite and functional for fighting forces, recall that nearly every successful offensive for pro-Assad side was executed by Iran and Iran proxies and or Russia since 2013 and 2015, respectively.”
Smyth said that “HTS is a group that is an outgrowth of Al-Qaeda and has connections to Turkey. Their endgame is to create a Talibanesque society with a few tweaks.”
Anti-regime groups take control of some villages western countryside as the clashes between the Bashar al-Assad regime and the opposition armed group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) continue in Aleppo, Syria on November 27, 2024. (Kasim Rammah/Anadolu via Getty Images)
He said, “I doubt the U.S. will be in a position to say we’re hunky-dory with this. They attacked us on 9/11, “in reference to the Al-Qaeda origin of HTS. Smyth, however, noted that Assad’s is the other side of the same dangerous coin for U.S interests. He said regarding Assad and HTS, “I don’t think either is a good case. Assad has been very Anti-American. He has allowed Lebanese Hezbollah to metastasize and utilized Sunni Jihad groups” Smith added that “Assad allowed Al-Qaeda to go to Iraq to kill Americans.”
The U.S. allied group, a coalition of Kurdish forces called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), is also present in Aleppo. The SDF played a critical role in defeating the Islamic State in Syria.
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Fighters enter the Rashidin district on the outskirts of Aleppo on their motorbikes with smoke billowing in the background during fighting on November 29, 2024, as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadists and allied factions continue their offensive in the Aleppo province against government forces. (Photo by Bakr Alkasem/AFP via Getty Images)
Wladimir van Wilgenburg, a Kurdish studies expert, discussed the SDF and the Kurdish force YPG (The People’s Defense Units) with Fox News Digital. He said “The city of Aleppo is home to two Kurdish-dominated neighborhoods under the control of the Kurdish-led SDF/YPG and a significant number of displaced people from Afrin (which is under Turkish control) living in Til Rifaat in northern Aleppo. It is unlikely the HTS will accept the YPG from controlling the airport. Russia, for the first time, has also carried out airstrikes in Aleppo, killing several civilians and rebel fighters.”
Van Wilgenburg, the co-author of the 2021 book with Dr. Michael Knights on the SDF-U.S. partnership against the Islamic State, continued that “The rising influence of HTS also poses a threat to the YPG’s presence in northern Aleppo. Notably, the YPG/SDF withdrew from Nubl and Zahra without a fight, having moved in after regime and Iran-backed militias previously took control of those towns.”
FILE – In this Feb. 25, 2019 file photo, released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, greets Syrian President Bashar Assad, in Tehran, Iran. On Nov. 13, 1970, Hafez Assad, a young career air force officer, launched a bloodless coup. Fifty years later, his family still rules Syria. The country is in ruins from a decade of civil war that killed around a half million people, displaced half the population and virtually wiped out the economy. But Hafez’s son, Bashar Assad, has an unquestioned grip on what remains. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP, File)
General Hossein Daghighi, Advisor to the Commander of the IRGC, said on Saturday, according to Iran International, “The enemy is incapable of taking any effective action, as the resistance networks have been systematically organized. Their attempts to meddle in Syria will result in their hand being decisively severed, leaving a mark on history that will not be forgotten.”
A destroyed Syrian army tank sits in the village of Anjara, western outskirts of Aleppo, Syria, Thursday Nov. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)
The Syrian regime’s military announced their “redeployment operation” in Aleppo. “The large numbers of terrorists and the multiplicity of battlefronts prompted our armed forces to carry out a redeployment operation aimed at strengthening the defense lines in order to absorb the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers, and prepare for a counterattack,” said Syria’s military.
According to Syria’s military, “Dozens of men from our armed forces were killed and others wounded” as “terrorist organizations were able over the past hours to enter large parts of neighborhoods of Aleppo city.”
Assad’s regime has slaughtered over 500,000 people in Syria since 2011. The U.N. has since stopped tracking the death toll there.
Ukraine is facing increasing pressure along its roughly 1,000-kilometre frontline, analysts have stated.
In its latest report, the Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War said on Saturday that Russian forces had recently advanced near Kupiansk, in Toretsk, and near Pokrovsk and Velyka Novosilka, a key logistics route for the Ukrainian military.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air force announced on Saturday that there were ten Russian drone attacks, of which eight were shot down over the Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kherson regions. One drone returned to Russian-occupied territory, while the final drone disappeared from radar, often a sign of the use of electronic defences.
And Russia’s defence ministry said that 11 Ukrainian drones had been shot down by the country’s air defence systems. Both the mayor of Sochi, Andrey Proshunin, and the head of Russia’s Dagestan region, Sergey Melikov, both in Russia’s southwest, said that drones had been destroyed in their regions overnight. No casualties were reported.
Earlier this week, NATO’s new Secretary General Mark Rutte said that the alliance “needs to go further” to support Ukraine in its fight against a Russian invasion. Military aid to Kyiv and steps toward ending the war are expected to be high on the agenda when NATO members’ foreign ministers meet in Brussels for a two-day gathering starting on December 3rd.
The Trump Factor
There is also uncertainty as to the foreign policy stance of President-elect Donald Trump. While Trump vowed on the campaign trail to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a single day, he has not publicly discussed how this could happen. Trump also announced Wednesday that Keith Kellogg, an 80-year-old, highly decorated retired three-star general, would serve as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.
In April, Kellog wrote that “bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to a close will require strong, America First leadership to deliver a peace deal and immediately end the hostilities between the two warring parties.”
Meanwhile, during his only campaign debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump twice refused to directly answer a question about whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war — raising concerns that Kyiv could be forced to accept unfavourable terms in any negotiations.
New head of Ukraine’s Ground Forces
On Friday, the Ukrainian president announced a number of changes to military leadership, saying that changes in personnel management were needed to improve the situation on the battlefield.
General Mykhailo Drapatyi, who led the defence of Kharkiv during Russia’s new offensive on Ukraine’s second-largest city this year, was appointed the new head of Ukraine’s Ground Forces. Oleh Apostol was named as the new Deputy Commander-in-Chief responsible for improving military training.
Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi also announced on Friday that he would bolster units in Donetsk, Pokrovsk and Kurakhove with additional reserves, ammunition, weapons and military equipment.
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