IAF Commander, Major General Amir Eshel, spoke Wednesday about the IAF’s preparedness for a surprise war scenario with Syria, and said that the S-300 anti-aircraft system is on its way to Syria.
“A surprise war can come about through many scenarios at present,” he said at a conference of the Fisher Institute for National Security in Herzliya. Isolated incidents can escalate very quickly, he explained, and added that “we are committed to being ready in a matter of hours and to operate up to the end of the spectrum.”
“The Assad regime has invested a lot in order to attain the best aerial defense capabilities that it could buy,” he said. “We are talking about weapons from a completely different generation, nothing like what was there before.”
He noted, however, that, “There is no system that does not have a solution. The question is only — at what cost.”
“From the little money he has,” Maj. Gen. Eshel explained, “Assad has invested billions in buying the best weapons systems Russia can offer, including the S-300, which is en route to Syria. And he is not the only one; everybody is busy acquiring such capabilities.”