Iran announces Air Force war games, with focus on combat
(Worthy News) – Iran will launch war games Saturday involving a range of aircraft, in which the primary functions are air combat and destroying targets in the air and on the ground, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Friday.
The report attributed the announcement of the drill to Iranian Air Force Brigadier General Alireza Barkhor, who said that the exercise will involve three stages: reconnaissance and intelligence; striking targets; and “passive air defense.”
He said that the objective of the drill was to boost the skills of the Air Force commanders, conduct operations in simulated combat zone, test defense achievements and display “the combat might of the Iranian Armed Forces.”
“The exercises will be held tomorrow in Isfahan and all fighter jets, bomber jets, transport planes, reconnaissance aircraft, refueling planes and different kinds of drones will take part in these war games,” Barkhor said. [ Source ]
Iran’s elite military is entangled in regional wars. Mission creep?
Never before has the Revolutionary Guard, whose 120,000-strong force is much smaller than Iran’s regular 425,000-strong armed forces, been engaged so deeply and widely abroad – yet with increasingly mixed and entangling results.
There is no shortage of commitment: at least seven IRGC generals have died on the frontlines, primarily in Syria but also in Iraq, taken down by snipers’ bullets, bombs, and even an Israeli airstrike. The Guards are relatively top heavy with generals due to their origins as an ideological militia. Still, such high-ranking losses are highly uncommon in modern warfare.
In Syria, the IRGC and its Lebanese Shiite ally Hezbollah are bolstering the regime of President Bashar al-Assad against an array of rebels and jihadists. In Iraq, Iran has mobilized Shiite militias to take on the self-described Islamic State, but at a cost of stoking more sectarian strife. While in Yemen, Iran has played a much lesser role in aiding Houthi militiamen against Saudi-backed forces.
Each conflict has now devolved largely along sectarian lines that pit Shiite Iran against its regional Sunni rivals, Saudi Arabia and Persian Gulf states allied with the US and Israel. [ Source ]