Tehran claims the advanced system has a range of nearly 186 miles and can shoot down Israel’s F-35I fighters

Iran has been spending “tens of millions of dollars” on the deployment of an advanced air defense system in Syria to counter alleged Israeli airstrikes, a report said on Tuesday.

An unnamed intelligence source told Newsweek that, over the last two years, Tehran invested in “promoting the deployment of aerial defense capabilities on its behalf in Syria” in order “to deal with the Israeli airstrikes.”

“The promotion of these capabilities is carried out as a project shared with the Syrian army and possibly even with the aim of enabling independent Iranian operation of the aerial defense systems from within parts of Syria,” he said.

According to the source, the project is led by the deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Aerospace Force, Brig. Gen. Fereydoun Mohammadi Saghaei. The intelligence official also shared that Iran intended to deploy the Bavar-373 surface-to-air missile system with the Sayyad 4B solid-fuel missile to Syria.Tehran claims the advanced system has a range of nearly 186 miles and can shoot down Israel’s F-35I fighters.

“In addition, the Iranians assisted the Syrians in upgrading their radar array, designed to aid in detection and prevention of Israeli attacks mainly against the Iranian establishment in Syria,” the source said.

He added that at least 10 Iranian officials who have been involved in deploying the air defense in Syria were assassinated by Israel. Some of these deaths have been acknowledged by Tehran, such as IRGC officers Ehsan Karbalaipour and Morteza Saidnejad, who were killed in Damascus last March, and Col. Davoud Jafari, who died in a bomb attack near the Syrian capital in November.

Source » i24news