Don’t miss the latest developments in business and finance.

Official: Iran has studied Israeli strike tactics

Image
AP Tehran
Last Updated : Feb 25 2014 | 7:18 PM IST
A senior Iranian military official said today that the Islamic Republic has analysed Israeli strikes during the 2006 war in Lebanon to boost its own defence capabilities against the US and Israel.
Iran sees Israel as its arch-nemesis. The Jewish state fought a 2006 war against Iran's ally, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Israel and the US have not ruled out a military option against Iranian nuclear facilities.
Gen Gholam Reza Jalali, who heads a unit in charge of civil defence, said Iran sent a team to Lebanon to study strikes during the 2006 war and changed its defence plans accordingly.
"After Hezbollah's 33-day war, we sent a team to Lebanon and probed the models of Israel's attack on Lebanese buildings and collected 5,000 photos of all the destroyed buildings," the daily Kayhan quoted Jalali as saying.
Jalali said Iranian military officials learned after analysing the package that tall buildings collapsed not because of a bomb's power, but the engineering technique used to bring it down.
Iran has employed what it calls "passive defence," measures to minimise the effects of damage caused by attacks.

More From This Section

It has built underground nuclear facilities, such as the Fordo uranium enrichment site, which it says is buried under 90 metres of rock for maximum protection from aerial attack.
Jalali told military officials that Iran has also adopted a new military doctrine to neutralise any possible plans by the US to attack the Islamic Republic.
"It took three years to develop the new doctrine to confront the US," he said. He says the new doctrine made Iran spread out its installations and combat forces to minimise damage in a possible war.
"We changed the deployment of military forces from a mass concentration to managed format," he said.

Also Read

First Published: Feb 25 2014 | 7:18 PM IST

Next Story