THE seemingly separate conflicts in the Middle East and Europe are in fact different parts of a single global war, experts said last night.
It follows Israel’s recent and successful attack on Iran, which has neutralised Tehran’s ability to deliver new missiles and drones to Russia for use in Ukraine, and threatened its ability to export large quantities of oil to China.
Israel’s sophisticated 25 October attack was “without question the most sophisticated use of air power in the history of air warfare”, and Prof Gwythian Prins, a former advisor to Nato and the UK’s chiefs of staff.
With sophisticated intelligence assets on the ground, Israel’s air force “obliterated the eyes and teeth” of Iran’s air defence capabilities including radar systems as far afield as Iraq, Abadan and the Indian Ocean coast.
Though Israel kept within the “red lines” laid out by former US President Joe Biden and avoided the destruction of major oil refineries and pipelines, the IAF neutralised all air defence systems – including the sophisticated Russian S-300 air defence batteries which were much lauded by Moscow for their capabilities – without a single loss among the 100 IAF F35is fighter jets that took part. (Continues…)
But its main targets were facilities in Parchin, a military complex near Tehran, where Iran has now lost the ability to manufacture the solid fuel needed to fly its missiles.
Also destroyed was the facility which mates together warheads and missiles, as well as factories used to manufacture Iran’s Shahed-136 drone.
In a pointed message to the Islamic regime, the IAF squadrons which took part boasted four female pilots who graduated from Israel’s “Top Gun” Flight Academy’s 182nd class in 2021.
“The October 25 attacks have greatly affected Iran’s ability to supply both ballistic missiles and drones“, said Pro Prins.
“It simply cannot manufacture any more missiles with warheads for the time being, and this has severely clipped Russia’s wings in Ukraine.”
He added:”Because these two theatres of war – the Middle east and Ukraine – and interlinked we must acknowledge that what we have is a general world war confrontation between the free world and the so-called Crick nations of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea .”
