[NationalInterest] Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) commander Brigadier General Farzad Ismaili, who had been in office since 2010, has been fired by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after he kept secret that Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-35 stealth fighters had violated Iran’s airspace, the Kuwaiti daily Al Jarida reported on Saturday.Well at least he wasn't executed with an AA gun.
The newspaper emphasized that it was the original media source that exposed the Israeli raids, which had taken place in March 2018. Al Jarida cited senior Iranian military who said that only following its March report did the intelligence services of the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian intelligence ministry begin to investigate the case, under Khamenei's direct orders.
According to the newspaper's investigation, "the IAF F-35 "Adir" planes penetrated Iran's airspace, circled high above Tehran, Karajrak, Isfahan, Shiraz and Bandar Abbas ‐ and photographed Iran's air defense system."
Talk about extreme and deep penetration... of enemy air defense!
One of the sources reported that Iran's air defense system, including its Russian radar, did not detect the entry and exit of the fighter planes, and that Ismaili hid this information from the supreme leader to cover his service failure. However Iranian intelligence discovered that the Israeli fighter jets had carried out this sortie as a test of the possibility of an undetected attack on Iranian outposts and bases, during which they photographed those sensitive bases, evading the Russian S-300 missile system's radar.
More egg on Russia's face over their supposed awesome air defense system.
According to Al Jarida, Iranian intelligence received top secret information that the Israeli fighter planes even managed to photograph Iran's underground bases. Khamenei, who received this information, now suspects a cooperation between Russia and Israel, and that the Russians gave Israel the secret code of the Russian radar in Iran ‐ according to the Kuwaiti newspaper.
Khamenei fired the commander of Iran's air defense system on May 29, replacing him with his deputy, General Alireza Sabahi-Fard.
I'll guarantee the US and Israel are trading tactical data over the air defense systems hot and heavy. I remember how the S-300/400/500 series were supposed to rendering everything we had obsolete and keep us from hitting anything. Looks like it was just more Russian/Iranian bluster than anything else.
