WarSclerotic

Fearing Israeli strike, skittish Iranians fired on their own aircraft | The Times of Israel.

Classified US report shows Iran’s air defense teams mistakenly targeted civilian airliners in 2007-8, while its air force practiced for attacks on Haifa and Dimona

An Iranian military passenger jet which crashed near Tehran in 2009. A newly leaked US report described air defense mishaps in the country in 2007 and 2008 (photo credit: AP)

Iranian air defense units were so fearful of an Israeli airstrike that they fired on their own aircraft and civilian airliners, according to classified information from US intelligence services.

The American intelligence assessment, reported Wednesday by the New York Times, details a series of incidents in 2007 and 2008 that caused mayhem in the skies over Tehran, as well as drills by Iran’s air force for strikes against the Israeli port of Haifa and the nuclear reactor at Dimona.

Surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft batteries targeted civilian airliners on at least two occasions, and in other incidents, batteries fired on a reconnaissance drone and an Iranian F-14 fighter. Military jets were also scrambled to intercept civilian airliners because of concerns they were Israeli aircraft heading towards Iran’s nuclear sites.

It was unclear if aircraft were downed or damaged in any of the incidents.

“Iranian air defense units have taken inappropriate actions dozens of times, including firing antiaircraft artillery and scrambling aircraft against unidentified or misidentified targets,” according to a quote in the Times article from a 2008 Pentagon report titled “Operational Mishaps by Air Defense Units.”

The incidents were the result of an inadequate command-and-control structure, according to the report, which noted that Iran’s military communications and training methods are poor and as a result “misidentification of aircraft will continue.”

In 2009, two passenger jets belonging to the Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards crashed mysteriously outside Tehran within months of each other. It is unclear if those crashes were related to the failures detailed in the Pentagon report.

A suspected nuclear facility in Syria before and after it was destroyed in a 2007 airstrike (photo credit: US Government)

Iranian fears were reportedly spurred by Israel’s September 2007 bombing of a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor, as well as by threats from Jerusalem and Washington over Iran’s nuclear program.

In 2008, Israel conducted a large exercise in the skies over the Mediterranean that was seen by some observers as a practice run for a strike on Iran. In response, Iran’s air force practiced strikes on targets in Israel, including Haifa and Dimona, according to the report.

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