Syria pwned.

Marc Schulman:

Assuming the information in this article is accurate, Israel did more than attack Syria: it also sent a message to Tehran.

OpFor:

Ahhh makes me think of Patton: "Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man." Integrated anti-air defenses haven't really been all that effective since the Vietnam era, and I'm starting to think that they're obsolete technology.

They're talking about this article in Aviation Week:

The big mystery of the strike is how did the non-stealthy F-15s and F-16s get through the Syrian air defense radars without being detected? Some U.S. officials say they have the answer.

U.S. aerospace industry and retired military officials indicated today that a technology like the U.S.-developed “Suter” airborne network attack system developed by BAE Systems and integrated into U.S. unmanned aircraft by L-3 Communications was used by the Israelis. The system has been used or at least tested operationally in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last year.

The technology allows users to invade communications networks, see what enemy sensors see and even take over as systems administrator so sensors can be manipulated into positions so that approaching aircraft can’t be seen, they say. The process involves locating enemy emitters with great precision and then directing data streams into them that can include false targets and misleading messages algorithms that allow a number of activities including control.

A Kuwaiti newspaper wrote that "Russian experts are studying why the two state-of-the art Russian-built radar systems in Syria did not detect the Israeli jets entering Syrian territory. Iran reportedly has asked the same question, since it is buying the same systems and might have paid for the Syrian acquisitions."

No kidding. I'll bet the Iranian regime thugs are crapping their pants, and the Russians too. "The process involves locating enemy emitters with great precision and then directing data streams into them that can include false targets and misleading messages algorithms that allow a number of activities including control." Sounds like Star Trek stuff, don't it?

The system in question is thought to be the new Tor-M1 launchers which carries eight missiles as well as two of the Pachora-2A system. Iran bought 29 of the Tor launchers from Russia for $750 million to guard its nuclear sites,

and I'll bet they want their money back. Oh well. Caveat emperor, or whatever.

Debka seems to believe there's a dirty bomb in the works. For whatever it's worth (and yeah, I know, it's Debka, the guys who breathlessly reported a nonexistent Turkish-Iraqi war last summer), their latest DNW [paid subscription service] claims:

Iran, Syria and North Korea are believed to be the first nations in history to have acquired dirty bombs as operational weapons, stowing their main stock in northern Syria. This discovery has injected fresh urgency into the Bush administration’s approach to the nuclear issue. Policy-makers have been running around in circles for a strategy and options to scotch the new threat at source.

The Sept. 6 air strike over Syria was the first result; it also carried a warning to Tehran, Pyongyang and Damascus that they had better hurry up and do away with any stocks of such weapons they may have or else incur the treatment meted out to Damascus at its “agricultural research center.”

Syria was targeted for the air strike both as the hiding place of the bulk of the RDD stock and because there is no way its presence could be hidden unbeknownst to the ruler. The buck clearly stopped at the presidential palace in Damascus. No one therefore believed President Bashar Assad’s hasty message to Washington through undercover back doors denying he had any personal knowledge of the nefarious operation at the Beir al Harj site and had ordered it investigated.

I'm not going to excerpt any more lest I bring down the wrath of the Debka Copyright Mossad, but you get the idea.

Anyway, that about sums it up. So who do you think is gonna win this thing - the guys who can barely manage to put their toxic waste on a rocket or plane, or the guys who can "include false targets and misleading messages algorithms that allow a number of activities including control"?

Yeah, that's what I thought.