Syrian army may use kamikaze pilots against west, Assad officer claims

[Fozzledick]

At least 8,000 suicide 'martyrs' ready to foil US warplanes hand-in-hand with Hezbollah and Iran, says regime loyalist

Mona Mahmood and Robert Booth
The Guardian, Wednesday 28 August 2013 14.32 EDT

The Syrian air force is considering using kamikaze pilots against attacks by western forces, a Syrian army officer operating air defences near Damascus has claimed in an interview with the Guardian.

The officer said 13 pilots had signed a pledge this week saying they would form "a crew of suicide martyrs to foil the US warplanes".
...
"If we are unable to shoot down their warplanes with artillery, we have military pilots who are ready to attack these foreign warplanes by their own warplanes and blow them up in the air."

The Guardian has been unable to verify the information. The officer has been in contact with the paper on several occasions over the last 12 months during which time he provided reliable information about battles between the troops of Bashar al-Assad and rebel groups. He has declined to provide accounts of events where he has not served.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/28/syrian-army-kamikaze-against-west-assad?CMP=twt_gu

[Rex]

1. So...two planes traveling at 700mph

at different vectors, yet one if going to get close enough to the other and then blow them both up? Have I got that about right? Wouldn't it be easier to use a SAM?

Artillery? They stuck with vintage WWII weapons? Ancient flak cannons?

[railsback]

2. The reincarnation of Baghdad Bob

When the no-fly zone went into effect over Iraq, Saddam could barely get a jet off the ground before it was blasted to smithereens. There will be no difference here. Wet dreams.

[HardTimes99]

4. AKA: Imperial Hubris. Syria has highly advanced anti-aircraft defenses and

Russian SAM installations. Keep on whistling past that graveyard.

[hack89]

5. Israel has been bombing Syria with impunity lately

I don't think those air defenses are as effective as you think they are.

[Bluenorthwest]

6. Link please.

nt

[NuclearDem]

8. Operation Orchard back in 2007. I guess they've done some bombing recently too.

Their jamming systems are pretty good, and they're fairly accurate when it comes to simply blowing up radar sites.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. 2007 is 'lately, with impunity'? Not so much. 6 years ago, with a huge international

reaction is not really 'lately, with impunity'. So I ask again for a link to support that assertion not some unrelated story from more than half a decade ago. Lately. Thanks.

[Fozzledick]

10. Report: Israel Bombs Another Syrian Weapons Convoy

By Gil Ronen
First Publish: 7/28/2013, 7:22 PM

Israeli air force jets bombed trucks carrying Syrian missiles bound for Hizbullah's warehouses in Lebanon, according to Syrian opposition sources. The sources, were cited Sunday by Voice of Israel radio's Arabic-language service, which was quoted by i24 News.

The Friday night bombing reportedly targeted a Syrian military base near the town of Quneitra, not far from the Golan Heights cease-fire line.

This was the fifth known Israeli attack this year on Syrian weapons bound for Hizbullah. Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad reportedly wants to send the weapons to Hizbullah for safekeeping, out of fears they will fall into the hands of the rebels forces fighting him inside Syria, whilst the Iranian-backed terrorist group seeks "game changing weapons" - such as anti-aircraft missiles - in exchange for its costly intervention in the Syrian civil war on behalf of the Syrian regime.

In the most recent such reported attack, a series of explosions rocked the Syrian port of Latakia, on July 5.

The explosions were the result of strikes by Israeli warplanes, multiple U.S. officials told CNN.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/170350

[NuclearDem]

7. Because Israel's pretty good at staying below radar.

Syria's air defense systems are some of the best in the Middle East. There's a reason they trained Arabic linguists like me so extensively on Syria AD.

[hack89]

16. They have decent hardware

what they have never shown is any competency in operating it in a high threat environment against an experienced and high tech opponent.

And the reason for that is simple - they do not have the resources to adequately train their operators. Syria cannot provide a modern opfor to train against - they cannot put together a training scenario involving multiple high speed targets, a sophisticated SEAD threat and a complex ECM environment. I doubt that many of their operators have even fired a missile in a realistic operational environment.

If the US plans to put manned aircraft over Syria, you can bet that just like in Iraq, the air defenses will be rolled back with cruise missiles and other SEAD assets.

[HardTimes99]

11. Hmm. That's definitely a good point and one I had failed to

consider. The impression I had from reading from various sources was that Syria was not going to be the push-over that Iraq proved to be. But their air defense capabilities may be almost as poor as Iraq's were pre-2003.

[railsback]

13. Yeah, you can't pinpoint any of that hardware with satellite imaging

and destroy all that shit within the first couple of hours. What was I thinking.

[benld74]

3. Reminds me of Cheech and Chongs Kamakazi School Routing.

[cali]

12. silly shit. they're almost certainly going to use Cruise missiles

and not warplanes and if they use warplanes they'll be using Stealth Bombers.

[Autumn]

14. Good luck to your kamikaze pilots, they gonna need it against missiles and drones.

How silly.

[Vinnie From Indy]

15. Is this Damascus Dave?

Besides the impossibility of being able to ram one of our planes out of the air, we will use cruise missiles.

These guys would go down in flames before even laying eyes on our planes.

[treestar]

17. "The guardian has been unable to verify the information."

Wow that's great reportage!