http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=713307&C=mideast
Posted 03/28/05 10:04 Israel Air Force Seeks Expanded Anti-Terror Role By CHRISTIAN LOWE, WASHINGTON And BARBARA OPALL-ROME, TEL AVIV The Israel Air Force is looking to improve its ability to strike terrorists, their weapon labs and rocket launchers from the air through quieter, more capable unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), better target detection systems and improved information technologies, senior service officials said. In interviews in Washington and Tel Aviv, officials said air power — when impeccably coordinated with Israel's Shin Bet security service, Military Intelligence and regional command authorities — can assume the lion's share of urban, counterterror operations traditionally entrusted to ground forces, who are more vulnerable to guerrilla ambushes, snipers and suicide attacks. "Urban warfare for the ground soldier is ... one of the most difficult missions," a senior Air Force officer said March 9. "We can operate from the air and avoid the clashes with soldiers on the ground." Israeli air power, while highly capable, could use an injection of technology to help make its control of the ground more effective, the officer told reporters in a background briefing in Washington. To this end, he said, his forces need increased networking capabilities for aircraft and ground command centers, better intelligence dissemination technologies and more capable UAVs. "We need platforms and missiles that terrorists won't see or hear," Maj. Gen. Ely Shkedy, commander of the Israel Air Force, said March 3 in Tel Aviv. According to Shkedy, the Air Force already has demonstrated its ability to keep terrorists on the run through exploitation of information technologies and precision targeting and strike capabilities. "Exploitation of the air dimension in combination with the information revolution has allowed us to develop new and extremely effective uses for air power," he said. "Through command and control in real time, we can plan, understand and deliver air power to the right place at the right time. It has caused the other side to understand that if you are a terrorist, we're going to find you, we're going to hit you and we won't give up." Strong Signal The strong advocacy of air power to fight terrorism comes less than a month after Israel Air Force Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz was selected over a veteran infantry officer to be the next chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Halutz, whose nomination to Israel's highest military post was confirmed at a March 13 Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, is a proponent of what he calls environmental air control, which envisions air dominance as a lever for urban combat, anti-infiltration and other missions usually handled by ground forces. The senior Air Force officer said the key to effective air operations in an urban environment is long loiter time. This puts a premium on UAVs since it would not be possible for a pilot to fly for the 24 hours or more needed to maintain surveillance on an area to spot an emerging target. And much like the U.S. Air Force, the Israelis want to decrease the time between acquiring a target and striking it — shortening the "kill chain," as military officials call it. The senior officer said his goal is to be able to strike emerging targets in 50 seconds or less. In many cases, he said, terrorist leaders know they're being watched and seldom move in the open. When an opportunity does present itself, he argued, it is fleeting. "We need to be present at all times; continuous presence is essential," the officer said, citing the March 22, 2004, precision air strike against Ahmed Yassin, the former spiritual leader of Hamas, as a prime example of how he hopes to execute urban strikes in the future. In the strike, Israeli AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships launched three missiles at Yassin as he was escorted out of a Gaza mosque in his wheelchair. Seven people were killed in the strike, including Yassin and an unknown number of his bodyguards, according to a report from Agence France-Presse Sparing the Innocent The senior Air Force officer emphasized, however, that avoiding civilian casualties in such strikes remains crucial. "The key is to close many loops in minutes or seconds. If we can't do it in such a short time, we've got no target and the terrorist goes free," Shkedy added. Even when the terrorist is firmly within the crosshairs of Israel Air Force precision weaponry, Shkedy insisted that operations are routinely canceled at the last minute if there is a high likelihood that innocents will be killed along with the targeted terrorist. "Regrettably, we still haven't found a way to completely eliminate the unintentional killing of innocents. But we're constantly adding more and more precision in our weaponry to avoid collateral damage," Shkedy said. "Philosophically, the difference between me and the terrorist is that he wants to hurt me and my children and my wife while I want to hit him and spare his children and his wife ... and that's why we will continue to work this problem, because even the killing of one innocent person is unfortunate and should be avoided." Shkedy credited nearly seamless coordination between the Air Force, Israeli intelligence arms and regional commanders for compressed planning cycles and the rapid closing of the so-called sensor-to-shooter loop. "Our first targeted killing from the air was in Lebanon about eight years ago, and that operation took nearly three months to plan. Now, it can take us less than one day to create the conditions for an effective strike operation," Shkedy said. "Once the decision is made and we have the intelligence, we can do the planning and execution of an operation in one day." Shkedy also credited the Israeli Ministry of Defense's research and development directorate and local industry with responding rapidly to emerging Air Force requirements. "Often, it's only a matter of a few short months from the time we conceive a new operational concept to the time that we have the capabilities in hand to implement the concept." The senior Air Force officer said the Israel Air Force would continue to hone new concepts and acquire new capabilities to improve air power's contribution to the urban, counterterror war. "The trouble is, we are fighting an adaptive enemy," the senior official said. "The whole idea is to be responsive to what's going on." The Air Force "wish list" includes: • Increased network-centric capability. • The ability to control and transfer intelligence in real time. • More capable UAVs. • Better ability to control damage from precision-guided munitions. • Aircraft survivability • Systems to better defeat or evade man-portable air defense weapons. • Launch detection systems that can pinpoint missile and mortar attacks more rapidly from the air. • Technology and tactics to control aircraft visual and audio signatures. • E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/_OLuKD/8WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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