Global Security Newswire

Israel acquired from Russia sensitive control information for Iran’s Tor-M1 air-defense system in exchange for similar data on Israeli-built drone aircraft provided to Georgia, according to a report Wednesday that cited an e-mail obtained from the geopolitical research firm Stratfor (see GSN, Dec. 19, 2011).

The swap took place before Russia’s 2008 military intervention in Georgia, a Stratfor worker quoted a source as saying in the electronic communication released by the transparency organization WikiLeaks.

The source, referred to as a “former Mexican cop,” elaborated on apparent steps taken by Moscow against the Georgian unmanned aerial vehicles in advance of the conflict, Arutz Sheva reported.

“Israel and Russia made a swap -- Israel gave Russia the 'data link' code for those specific UAVs; in return, Russia gave Israel the codes for Iran's Tor-M1s (missile defense system),” the source said in comments included in the e-mail.

There has been increasing speculation that Israel is preparing to conduct airstrikes against nuclear facilities in Iran (see GSN, Feb. 28). Jerusalem says Tehran's atomic program is aimed at producing a weapons capability, an allegation vehemently denied by Iran.

Georgia this month announced it would replace the aircraft, supplied by the Israeli firm Elbit in 2007 (Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, Arutz Sheva, Feb. 29).

Meanwhile, Israeli experts said the nation is prepared to counter Iranian misslie attacks that might follow a move by Jerusalem against its longtime foe, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Wednesday (see GSN, Feb. 28).

"I can say it with assurance: we built those abilities into the Arrow warhead," Uzi Rubin, who led development of the Arrow antiballistic missile system.

"The Arrow missile defense system -- not the single Arrow missile, the system -- was developed to deal with missiles coming from distances of more than 1,000 kilometers," he said, continuing that the technology "can handle multiple missiles in parallel."

"There is no such thing as 100 percent defense, but the Arrow is capable of providing an adequate defense against Iran's Shahab and Sajil ballistic missiles," added Arieh Herzog, former head of the Israeli Defense Ministry's Homa Missile Defense Authority (Xinhua News Agency/CRIEnglish.com, Feb. 29).