Iran claims advances in radar that it says can reach Israel

Part of the claims of Iran’s defense officials is that its radar can also track hundreds of threats.

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
Radar [Illustrative] (photo credit: ING IMAGE/ASAP)
Radar [Illustrative]
(photo credit: ING IMAGE/ASAP)
Iranian media claimed this week that it has developed better long-range radar that has a range of thousands of miles. It came as the regime has boasted it has long-range drones with precision weapons and as it is continues to build ballistic missiles and precision guided munitions.
Overall the concept of the regime is to show that it is building more sophisticated military technology which will make it one of the top producers in the world. Iran recently put a satellite into orbit as well.
The articles at Fars News are not the first time Iran said it would be able to create radar with a range of up to 3,000 kilometers. It has made this claim before, dating back to 2015. It hasn’t shown any evidence that the radar it has built has this range. Nevertheless radar technology does exist that could give Iran the ability to produce long-range radar, whether it could reach so far seems unlikely.
However, the reports persist that it accomplished this “over the horizon” radar system in the last years, adding to a variety of radars it already had which had ranges of several hundred kilometers. Part of the claims of Iran’s defense officials is that its radar can also track hundreds of threats. This is also designed to show that Iran has built radar that is similar to the latest models in Russia, the US, Israel or elsewhere, which have capabilities to track threats at long ranges. Israel is around 1,500 km from Iran.
Of interest is Iran’s report about how this all came about. Fars News looks back to the period before 1979 and quotes Brig.-Gen. Mohammad Shirazi, the head of the military office of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution as noting that he had served with Americans in Iran prior to 1979. He says he once served in the “same barracks” as Americans when he was in the pro-revolution army and that he recalls how Iranians felt humiliated because they couldn’t approach certain areas the US managed, not even to do maintenance. The premise of this conversation is to show that now Iran has its own indigenous technology and doesn’t rely on others. 
The Iranian officer also discusses the war with Iraq in the 1980s and Iraqi air raids. He says at the time the radar the Iranians had was limited, reaching only 25 kilometers or more. The point here it so to show how Iran can now project power throughout the region. Iran today has been exporting technology to allies in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. It also wants to threaten the US, Israel, the Gulf states and dissident groups, such as Kurds.
Radar can help Iran monitor aircraft over the Persian Gulf or further away. Iran shot down a US drone last year over the Gulf of Oman. Iran’s discussion of its new radar capabilities comes days after Iranian media also reported Israeli airstrikes on Syria. This could mean Iran is sending a message about deploying radar to Syria. Iran allegedly deployed a 3rd Khordad air defense system to Syria in 2018. Iran has sent radar to Syria before, in 2010. It has defense agreements with Syria as well. In July US jets intercepted an Iranian aircraft over Syria. In January Iran shot down a Ukrainian airliner by mistake. 
A foreign report in the summer of 2019 indicated Iran had sent radar installations to Syria but that they had actually not been compatible with Syrian air defense. May reports said that Syria was using Chinese-made radar after Russian radar were not successfully detecting Israeli airstrikes. Israel has said it struck more than 1,000 Iranian targets in Syria as of 2019. An August 13, 2020 report in Haaretz said that airstrikes on “Syrian anti-air systems also struck about a fifth of the country’s radar systems.”


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