Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

Edited that now. My bad. Thanks!

So, I would have made the right decision to try to get out of Korea the moment started. So I would be spending the rest of the war somewhere in central Tokyo. After all, the heart of a major city is the best place to be should there be a full nuclear exchange.

Back then I was a model. So the worst that could happen is that I get threatened by a giant monster. None of them will ever hurt me.

Oh. Wait. Japan. I guess I'd need a good stash of cyanide.

'Eastern Gamble' is the right name for this indeed.

Lehman Doctrine lives on! Hopefully it doesn’t get us all nuked.

One Hundred and Six

The Israeli Government had used the King of Jordan as a conduit to send a message to Bashar al-Assad up in Syria. In previous times, Turkey had been utilised in such a manner when Israel wanted to do such a thing. Israeli-Turkish were in the toilet though. Jordan delivered the message – an ultimatum it was – to Syria. Israel waited for a response, during which questions came as to how effective King Abdullah would be: doubts which came after the fact! In Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Barak, the two architects of this, had said to the Israeli Cabinet that they would wait forty-eight hours to see positive signs emerge. A reply wasn’t waited upon from Damascus. The Israelis wanted instead to see things with their own eyes. Patience ran out though when it was clear that Syria was going in the opposite direction: this occurred long before that two-day period was up.

What had been demanded of Syria was that the country at once turn its back on Russia. The support being shown for that country as it waged war against the Coalition – especially Israel’s backer the United States – was to be stopped. This would include Assad ejecting Russian military forces, their advisers & technicians, from his country. Military overflight rights including refuelling stops to cease was another demand that was made. Furthermore, not directly related to Russian actions, Israel called too for Syria to halt what were deemed as ‘aggressive military preparations’ which threatened ‘region stability’. None of this was happening. Israel saw with its satellites, its spies and its eavesdropping that instead of ceasing, things were increasing. At Tartus on the coast, Russian engineers there who had been expanding that Soviet-era naval anchorage to turn it into a fully-functioning military base starting last year carried on and were overnight aided by what appeared to be Syrian Army engineers too. Another Iluyshin-76 – a wide-body military air-freighter – landed in Syria after flying over Turkey for a refuelling stop outside Damascus (it must have been heavily-loaded to need that) and then went onwards to Libya; the Israelis told the Americans about it and watched with pleasure – also jealousy too – from afar as one of their naval fighters brought it down. Syrian SAMs and ballistic missile launchers were moving about, all which were regarded as into new positions ready to see action in a conflict. Then there was that ship, the MV Lvov. This was supposedly a civilian ship with Turkish ownership and flying a Ukrainian flag. It had sailed from Sevastopol a week ago and gone through the Turkish Straits with the Americans not stopping it, despite Israeli urging, due to its complicated status. Mossad was certain that it was carrying weapons to Syria (if it had been going to Libya, they would have) and those were a threat to Israel. If Syria had been about to rethink the dangerous allies it had sought, then it would have made sure that this ship turned around. An Israeli spy ship, a trawler outfitted with extensive surveillance equipment, had trailed it all around the top of Cyprus and maybe it could have docked in the northern part of that divided island… but instead it went to Syria. On the Sunday evening, Israel watched as the Lvov arrived in Latakia. Intelligence-led analysis of cargo – some said guesswork – was presented to the Israeli Government that it was bringing weapons such as S-300 SAMs and even Iskander ballistic missiles. Both of those systems were far more advanced than anything that the Syrians operated. Mossad believed that these would be in Russian hands once off that ship but many in the Israeli Government feared that Syria would use them against Israel.

This wasn’t going to be allowed to happen. Operation Orion commenced in response, long before the deadline which Tel Aviv had set itself to see Assad change course.


Israeli Air Force F-15s and F-16s swept over Syrian skies. These were excellent aircraft, in many ways better aircraft in Israeli hands due to equipment modifications than the ‘baseline’ versions which the Americans themselves operated. Like most Israeli weapons, these were only in service due to United States Government financing. The Americans were made aware of Orion. This was done late and it wasn’t a matter of permission being asked either. Israel was taking pre-emptive action in Syria, Netanyahu informed Biden (but no other Coalition leader), where Russian forces were being targeted as well. Ahead of those jets on strike missions, Orion saw an Israeli non-lethal action taken. Using electronic warfare equipment aboard an aircraft which remained back in Israeli skies, false information was fed into the Syrian air defence network. This had been done three years ago during the Israeli strike on a nuclear facility during Operation Orchard and was done again, though now on a far bigger scale. Lies were told on radar screens across Syria: there were no Israeli jets coming north! The US Air Force had recently tried to do similar things over Belarus and Central Asia where they met failure in the former and success in the later. Information from what was done here and how it was done was something that Israel intended to share with the Americans afterwards… for a price naturally. In the meantime, it worked. Syrian air defences stayed silent as close to a hundred aircraft on offensive missions entered their airspace as well as went above neighbouring Lebanon and over the Mediterranean too.

There were four targets for Orion.

69 (Hammers) Squadron from Hatzerim Airbase flew the longest strike. Their twenty-four F-15I strike-bombers – Israeli versions of the F-15E – went over the Med. and past both the Lebanese & Syrian coastlines all the way to Latakia. They bombed that ship in rather an overkill to blow the Lvov to smithereens as well as targeting the harbour facility there where on the quayside there were stores from a second ship (a smaller freighter which had come from the Ukraine the day before and this time with Yemeni registry) were sitting in several warehouses. 69 squadron preformed the strike, fighter and defence suppression here with their many aircraft. They met no Syrian fighters though did engage an air defence battery which fired on them despite radar screens showing nothing there. The battery operators could see and hear the jets overhead! Their interlinked connection was pulled, they went over to solo operations, and on their display screens they saw many enemy aircraft. One of the F-15Is was hit before that missile battery was wiped out and this aircraft was brought down. The pilot was lost when he was unable to eject before hitting the water though his navigator did. He swam to shore and found a friendly welcome: there were Israeli commandos who’d stayed silent but guided-in the bombs with laser designators and they would be taking this pilot out with them when they left Syria.

F-16I strike-fighters – advanced versions of the two-seat F-16D – flew a similar route to hit Tartus. These were assigned to 119 (Bat) Squadron from Ramon Airbase. Part of the squadron overflew Lebanon on the last leg, turning inland to do so, to be behind Syrian air defences from hopefully an unexpected direction. Fighter-rolled and defence suppression tasks for F-16Is not on strike missions occurred here like they did with Latakia. Several ships of Syrian registry at the anchorage as well as Russian unarmed vessels which had remained here throughout the war rather than run the gauntlet of American naval power in the Med. Laser-guided bombs again blew the selected targets to pieces though this time no commandos were used here as the aircraft did this themselves. A Syrian air defence battery copied the behaviour of the one at Latakia and junked the ‘false sky’ image to see the Israeli aircraft with its own systems. Before it could fire though, it was blown apart. 69 Squadron flew home with all aircraft accounted for.

The third target was a battery of Scud missile-launchers. Israel had watched the trucks leave their barracks and start to deploy on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, down in the lower ground. These Scuds were actually North Korean manufactured (with Iranian funding to boot) of the same weapons which had recently brought misery to Warsaw. That wasn’t going to be allowed to happen to Tel Aviv. Israeli drones were following them during their deployment and so too were commandos who’d come over the disputed frontier. 109 (Valley) Squadron with F-16Ds took their time in locating and hitting them. Some of their bombs and short-range missiles hit decoy trucks but the majority hit home. They blew those missiles to pieces long before they could be unleashed against Israel. One F-16D was hit by a shoulder-mounted SAM and would make it back to Ramat David Airbase but another Israeli aircraft was blown apart in mid-air with no one ejecting. Coming from some distance away and through Israeli jamming – also ignoring the lies told on radar screens – a Syrian air defence battery took it out. This was a S-300 system, one already here on-the-ground and unnoticed by Israel. It was crewed by Russian operators too instead of Syrians. The hard kill was a good success though it was only one jet out of more than twenty used in the skies against the Scuds.

Lastly, Damascus International Airport was targeted. 253 (Negev) Squadron had moved up from its Ramon home base to Ramat David. They used their F-16Is to strike here. Only six of the aircraft were engaged on strike missions with six more for defence suppression; the final twelve with 253 Squadron were all rolled for fighter tasks. The runways and military transports present were hit and many spectacular explosions occurred. Real damage done wasn’t that much though despite the fireworks. SAMs were fired and failed to inflict any real impact especially since the batteries involved were quickly smothered with targeted (rather than area) jamming as well as missiles directed against them. Syrian fighters made a bigger impact. They put many MiGs up including older MiG-21s and new-ish MiG-29s. These fought the Israelis near to Damascus and on the way home. The F-16Is fired on them and so too did F-15Cs which were orbiting over Israel and too entered Syria to join in the fight. Five MiG-21s and two MiG-29s were downed. However, in a serious upset for the Israeli Air Force, one of those MiG-29s which was brought down by 106 (Spearhead) Squadron flying F-15Cs had moments before got a kill on a retreating F-16I. It blew up in the sky just after the two aircrew ejected. Both men floated to the ground beneath their parachutes, deep inside the desert.


Once Orion was completed, the Israeli Government had hoped that they had done enough. They would evacuate their special forces teams and had standing plans to get out any downed pilots too. With the latter, that was done within hours as low-flying helicopters – AH-64D gunships and UH-60L – located the two men, pulled them out and also engaged Syrian Army personnel in a vastly one-sided fight with that. Orion was over. Assad would this time receive a message from Tel Aviv directly where he would be told that should he chose to retaliate, Israel would strike again and do much worse than already had been done. Reconsider your alliance, Assad was to be urged, because no one, not even your distant Russian allies, can stop us from doing this again: ten times stronger too. However, before that could occur, missiles filled the skies once more.

Syria fired more of their Scuds and sent them southwards. Not with direct cooperation, but fighting the same fight, Hezbollah launched long-range rockets from Lebanon against Israel as well. Arrow-2 anti-missile missiles engaged those Syrian missiles. This was another American-supplied piece of equipment, something themselves that the United States didn’t operate. Many European countries were at the minute wishing they had taken the political decision in recent years to do what Israel had done and bring such a defensive system into service. It was like 1991 with missiles crashing into Israel. They couldn’t get all of them but did eliminate the ones heading for Tel Aviv and Haifa. This unfortunately meant that smaller towns were in the way of these missiles: the Syrians fired on populated areas rather than military sites. Thankfully, the warheads were only conventional yet that didn’t mean matters would stay that way.

Assad hadn’t backed off. He hadn’t been cowed by Israeli air strikes. Instead, he hit back. Israel and Syria were at war and this was only going to widen.

I fully agree James G