Necessity binds Syria to Iran for air defence equipment
News that Iran and Syria concluded a pact on 10 July to enhance the latter’s air defences has raised questions regarding the nature of this cooperation.
Neither side provided additional information on what this could entail but ground-based air defences in Syria have taken a battering in recent years. Except for the destruction of a single Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-16I combat aircraft on 10 February 2018, the Syrian integrated air defence system (IADS) has shown itself to be unable to prevent overflights of the country by IAF aircraft attacking Iranian and Hezbollah targets there, or US and allied aircraft
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