Israeli jets reportedly flew over Iran. Illustrative image of F-35. Image courtesy of the Department of Defense website. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.
Israeli stealth fighter jets reportedly flew over Iran in the last month, including locations thought to be part of Iran’s nuclear program, avoiding detection by Russian radar in Syria in their path from the Jewish State to the Islamic Republic. The Jerusalem Post last week cited the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida as the source of the claims, which also alleged that the Israeli F-35 jets can fly to and from Iran twice without refueling—addressing a critical component to any potential Israeli missions in Iranian airspace.
However, a source in the Russian Ministry of Defense refuted the report that the Israeli jets could have evaded Russian air defense systems. In comments to the Russian news outlet Sputnik and published in the outlet’s English website, the defense source called that idea “total stupidity.”
If the Israeli flyover claims are true, they would come just months ahead of a deadline imposed by the United States on the Europeans to upgrade the Iranian nuclear deal or the Americans will pull out of the accord. If the US were to exit the deal and reinstate sanctions on Iran, the Iranians may choose to cancel the deal as well and push forward on their nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, Iran is already back to its old rhetoric of predicting the destruction of Israel.
In response to the Gaza riots in which Israel killed a number of Palestinian terrorists, Iran’s powerful paramilitary Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) was quoted by the Iranian PressTV outlet as predicting that events in the region would lead to the speeding up of the removing of the “cancerous tumor of Israel.”
The IRGC also pledged to “spare no effort” to support the Palestinians and would “further activate” their capabilities in that goal. Over the years, the IRGC is believed to have been involved in planning terror attacks around the world to target Israelis and Jews.
The harsh rhetoric and the report of Israeli flyovers come just over a month after an Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down over Israeli airspace in an unusual escalation.
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, April 1, 2018)