Brig. Gen. Alireza Sabahi-Fard. Click to see full-size image. (Islamic Republic News Agency)
Iran on December 15 appointed a new commander for its air defense forces as a part of wider efforts to rebuild the military capabilities badly hit during the 12-day June war with Israel.
State media identified the new commander of the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Defense Force as Brig. Gen. Alireza Elhami. He replaced Brig. Gen. Alireza Sabahi-Fard, who had been in charge of the force. The state media did not provide any reason as to why the change was made.
Elhami, who served as the force’s deputy commander since 2019, previously headed the Khatam al-Anbia Air Defense Academy. He also held the position of deputy operations commander at the Khatam al-Anbia Air Defense Headquarters, the unified combatant command headquarters of the Iranian Armed Forces.
In February, then Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces Brig. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, with the approval of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, appointed Sabahi-Fard to head the the Khatam al-Anbia Air Defense Headquarters while he retained his role as the army’s air defense chief.
Bagheri was among around 30 senior Iranian military commanders who were assassinated by Israel during the 12-day war.
Iran’s air defense network was badly hit during the war. Most of the damage was not done by the Israeli Air Force, but by commandos of the Mossad spy agency, who attacked air defense systems and radars from within Iranian territories with loitering munitions and guided missiles.
Israel claimed aerial supremacy over western Iran and most of the Islamic Republic’s central region, including the capital of Tehran, within a few days.
After the end of the war, the Israeli military said that over 80 air defense systems and 70 radars were destroyed in the Islamic Republic.
Since then, Iran has been working hard to rebuild its air defenses. Despite multiple reports alleging that Russia and China shipped air defenses to Tehran, evidence suggests that the Islamic Republic has been rebuilding its air defense network with domestic capabilities.
The Iranian military received a batch of newly-built Sevom Khordad medium-range air defense systems in November, in the first documented delivery since the end of the war.
The military’s chief of staff on December 15 said that permanently improving the country’s air defenses is among Tehran’s top “priorities,” noting that significant steps have been taken to boost military capabilities in the Islamic Republic’s south and west.
“The continuous and permanent improvement of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s air defense capability is one of the country’s priorities,” Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi told reporters, as cited by the state-owned Islamic Republic News Agency.
In the past few months, “significant steps” have been taken to enhance Tehran’s air defense capabilities, the senior commander added.
Others in Iran are, however, skepticable of the ongoing efforts to rebuild air defenses. One of them is former President Hassan Rouhani.
“The skies over Iran have become completely safe for the enemy,” the former president earlier this month. “We no longer have real deterrence. Our neighboring countries – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan – all have airspace controlled by the United States and Israel.”
Rouhani knows a thing or two about the Islamic Republic’s air defense network. He served as the commander of the force from 1986 to 1991.
This suspicion is rightful for many reasons. Iran’s air defense network was not badly structured, or ill equipped when the war broke out. Even during the war, Iranian air defense officers fought bravely to death in most cases, as revealed by footage released recently. It was the catastrophic failure of the security apparatus that led to the near complete collapse of the network, as most of the damage was done by Mossad commandos.
Rebuilding the air defense network, acquiring new air defense systems, and appointing a new command won’t solve everything. Without work to improve counter-intelligence and operational security, Israel will likely manage to repeat what it did in June even if Iran rebuilt its air defenses to the highest standards.
Iran also needs to address its decision making problem. The Islamic Republic should have imposed very strict security measures the moment the war broke out, including shutting down civilian communications and imposing a temporary curfew. Instead, it took days to restrict internet access and the movements of trucks. These half measures likely had no effect on Mossad operations.
It is impossible to know if Iran is also working on resolving these problems, but without addressing them what happened during the 12-day war is deemed to happen again if Israel decide to launch another attack.
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that poor fellow is a dead man walking. the idf is just waiting for the green light.
oh grow up what do you think this is? primary school and your watching hogan’s heroes?
the zionists were really counting on the iranian people to revolt against their government with that element of surprise attack which in the end utterly failed. i can’t see the zionists being able to pull that off again.
you don’t even know what a zionist is and you don’t even know it.
unless security and equipment improves, this guy won’t make any difference.
as if anyone except possibly a president of america or a pope ever even could possibly, if they’re very persuasive and very inteligent and very capable of exerting an awful lot of influence. against a conspiracy from the”forces of darkness ” as jfk said.
the saying goes: “when the cat’s away the mice play”
iranians are dumber than rodents.
you’d know being so easily deceived yourself.
zionist evil has gone global and must be destroyed to save humanity. they are killing people from australia to europe under false flags and fanning lies while they commit more false flags.