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Syria – Israel’s Provocation Kills Russian Soldiers – Moscow Will Take Political Revenge
Yesterday Turkey and Russia agreed on a further de-escalation in Idelb province in Syria (see the update here). This agreement takes away the chance of an imminent wider war in which the U.S. and some of its allies would use a fake 'chemical attack' as a pretext to launch missiles against a large number of Syrian government targets and military positions.
A peaceful solution of the Idleb situation is unsatisfying for Israel. The successful Syrian defeat of the Jihadi enemy inside the country would allow Syria and its allies to concentrate their forces against Israel. Israel wants the Syrian government destroyed and the country in chaos.
On Sunday September 16 Israel tried to hit an Iranian Boeing 747 freight plane at Damascus airport. The plane allegedly carried an Iranian copy of the Russian S-300 long range air defense System for the Syrian army.
On Monday around 10:00pm local time 4 F-16 jets of the Israeli airforce, coming from the sea, launched missiles against at least three targets on Syria's coast. The strike came only hours after Israel released satellite images of what it called "strategic targets" in Syria. The integrated Syrian and Russian air-defenses responded.
The Israeli air force had warned the Russian forces in Syria only one minute before the strike. A Russian IL-20 electronic warfare airplane (red line) was preparing to land at the Russian airport near Latakia just as the Israeli attack (blue) happened.
Source: Russian defense Ministry – bigger
The IL-20 was hit 35 kilometers off the coast by a S-200 air-defense missile fired by the Syrian military towards the Israeli attack. There were 15 Russian soldiers on board of the plane which were likely all killed. Russian ships search for survivors. Some wreckage of the plane was found at sea 27 kilometers west of the village of Banias.
IL-20 electronic warfare version – bigger
The Israeli attack came out of the same direction as the Russian IL-20. The large 4 propeller plane creates a much bigger radar reflection than the small F-16s fighter jets. The S-200 missiles have a semi-active radar homing seeker. These are passive detectors of a radar signal which is provided by an external source, in this case the Syrian and Russian radars on the ground. While the missile was aimed at the F-16 its seeker likely mistook the larger radar reflection of IL-20 for the intended target.
At the same time as the Israeli air force attacked, a Russian frigate (red) near the coast detected missile launches from the French Frigate Auvergne (blue) nearby. The French frigate carries air, ship and land attack missiles. France denied "any involvement in the incident." But it seems that this only referred to the IL-20 incident and was not a denial of missile launches.
Even more was going on says Haaretz:
Not only Russian and (allegedly) Israeli and French aircraft and missiles were in the air. Civilian radar also tracked British Royal Air Force aircraft, which, unusually, had switched on their transponders and gone into holding patterns – most likely to avoid being somehow involved in the exchange of fire over Latakia.
The Russian Defense Ministry accuses the Israeli government of a deliberate set up:
"Israel did not warn the command of the Russian troops in Syria about the planned operation. We received a notification via a hotline less than a minute before the strike, which did not allow the Russian aircraft to be directed to a safe zone," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.
After the Israeli attack the Syrian state TV showed the headquarters of the Technical Industries Agency near Latakia on fire. Other targets were near Jableh, south of Latakia, and Homs. At least ten people were wounded due to these attacks.
The Russian military spokesman also accused Israel of "hostile action" against Russian forces:
"We see these provocative actions of Israel as hostile," Konashenkov said, adding that 15 Russian servicemen were killed as a result of the "irresponsible actions" of Israel's Defense Forces, which violated "the spirit of the Israeli-Russian partnership."
According to the spokesman, the Russian Defense Ministry reserves the right to an "adequate response" following the Israeli attack.
Israel (and France?) are deliberately provoking the Syrian and Russian forces. It hopes for a response that allows it to play the victim and to call on U.S. President Trump for help and protection. The help would come in the form of a U.S., British and French attack on the Syrian government and Syrian military targets.
Russia will certainly take revenge for the Israeli provocation, but will likely do so in the political arena. On Netanyahoo's personal request Russia had stopped the delivery of original Russian S-300 long range air-defense missiles to the Syrian military. These would have been less likely to veer off towards the wrong target. In consequence an Iranian 747 was damaged and 15 Russian soldiers were killed. Netanyahoo can forget about any further such 'favors' from Moscow.
oldenyoung @3
J. Flores @ FortRuss agrees with you in an article to be posted after the site he edits recovers from an attack:
Written within the context of the disinfo wars the author analyses more fully in the yet to be posted article:
Excerpted:
“Secondly, readers will take note of the inclusion of the French denial. This French denial is bizarre and entirely out of place, since no one accused France.
. . .
The French ‘early denial’ when no accusation was made, means that the West had planned for France to be blamed, the French authorities were prepared to carry out their script and deny the accusations that the Russians were ‘obviously’ going to make.
Then something happened, and Russia didn’t make that accusation. But there were the French authorities, going forward with the script, and in an incoherent way which really exposes what they were up to, and tells us all quite clearly what was planned, and yet all the while Russia doesn’t at all blame France. Ridiculous, brilliant, absurd.
. . .
The aim of the Atlanticists is to have France do it, have France be blamed, and to cause a massive public relations problem, that Putin would have to respond to, by naming, blaming, the French, and seeking to hold them accountable. How will the French and Russian publics, respectively, take this? Not well, and it doesn’t work well for the Eurasia project either. Macron will eventually be out, and it’s politically near-impossible to hold the leader of a country, although temporary, responsible without blaming a whole people for something. Once you throw in the work of French media spin-doctors, they will absolutely succeed in twisting it not as a Macron problem but a problem that Russia has with blaming France and all the French by extension.
. . .
The IFF system, and the situation in Syria, is not at all like the situation in the Georgian war ten years ago, when at the time there were some official Russian reports of there being difficulties separating Georgian from Russian aircraft. This is because MiGs are identical to MiGs. IFF systems at the time are not the same as today, with integrated transponders which make auto-locking impossible from the start. The Syrian Army at Lattakia does not, in reality, operate as a separate army. There, they have what is known as an integrated command, at least insofar as these issues are concerned. So the SAA couldn’t have attacked or locked onto a Russian plane, because the transponder data in real time that is part of newer IFF systems actually would mean there would have to be an intentional manual override over the computerated ‘no-lock possible’ response the S-200’s computer system would have automatically generated for a Russian plane of any kind.
The S-200 has an extremely high accuracy, not more than a bit different from the S-400 for a single target, and specifically a target of this size and speed, it would have had to ‘miss’ the Israeli plane in question, which only has a 10-15% chance of doing, but then proceed to then actually hit the Russian plane. But not only hit the Russian plane, but critically so. This is all we can ascertain once we realize that auto-locking without manual override onto the Russian plane with the IFF transponder in direct connection with the SAA (Russian joint command) at Lattakia, is practically impossible unless we say there was an American asset working at the controls of the SAA’s Lattakia computer.
. . .
The Putin-Erdogan deal reached yesterday indeed offers the strong probability for Syria to win without engaging in a needless conflict, and the promises of FUKUS attacks to be realized. Still, though they were anyhow, for no discernible reason given. Israel and France simply attacked in response to Turkey’s cunning move. So time is on Russia’s side.
That the aim of yesterday’s surprise attack is punishment for the Turkish ‘about face’, which FRN stated as a very likely possible outcome, (for the record), is evident in that stories from RT and Sputnik reporting on the event had official statements, and not randomly so, saying that these attacks will not deter or reverse the Turkish-Russian agreement on the final resolution of Idlib.
What’s needed now for the Atlanticists of FUKUS is to damage these relations as much as possible, Turkey vs. Russia, and Russia vs. France, and to cause Russia to blame France instead of blaming Israel.
This was a calculation, that Russia would not blame Israel due to the successful media hologram that Russia created that Israel has an inviolable special relationship (they do not, to this extent), and that instead that Russia will blame France. They did not expect Russia to accept the Western MSM Atlanticist narrative that the SAA had shot down the Russian plane either.
Between blaming France or Israel, the US expected Russia to blame France. Between blaming Syria or France, the US expected Russia to blame France. Between blaming Syria or Israel, the US expected Israel to be blamed.
They did not expect this hybrid of ‘somewhat’ blaming Israel for doing ‘tricky stuff’ in the air, the motives being hard to prove or qualify.
If Russia was to avoid an MH-17 situation in reverse, they had to think with agility. Russia has the physical evidence, the flight data, and the missile launch data. If they were going to blame France, which was mostly expected, it would have been a UNSC charade, a General Assembly charade, and a media charade with ‘Putin blaming France’ and Russia being accused of having possession of the evidence from which their case is made, and therefore the evidence being dodgy or even manufactured entirely.
The crash remains of the IL-20 are going to absolutely show that it was hit with a missile, any fragments etc. required to establish that, will show that’s an Aster missile, or similar, like the missiles used in the S-200’s. But they aren’t going to show that the impact is consistent with a small missile carried by Israeli planes, or by gun strafing from an attack plane.
This is why Russia could not blame Israel,
Posted by: pogohere | Sep 18 2018 21:28 utc | 171
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