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Hezbollah may have surface-to-air missiles that could threaten Israeli aircraft.
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A recent Israeli strike appears to have damaged an Iranian-made Sayyad-2 missile.
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The possibility of missiles will ‘force’ the IDF to be more cautious towards Lebanon, an expert said.
Much has been written about Hezbollah’s vast arsenal of surface-to-surface missiles and rockets and the devastation they could wreak against Israel. However, a recent incident briefly put the spotlight on Hezbollah’s lesser-known air defenses.
After the Israeli Air Force attacked Hezbollah sites south of the Lebanese city of Sidon, images emerged purporting to show the remains of an Iranian-built Sayyad-2 surface-to-air missile. The Israeli military stated that the targeted Hezbollah locations “posed a threat to Israeli aircraft.”
Israeli media reported that the images were “apparently the first public evidence indicating that Hezbollah possesses such missiles,” as previously claimed. Hezbollah has traded tit-for-tat strikes with Israel since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks, but air defenses suggest the Israeli air force faces a much greater threat over southern Lebanon than in Gaza’s airspace.
The Sayyad-2 is a medium-range anti-aircraft missile that Iran developed by reverse engineering the American RIM-66 Standard Missile, SM-1, which Tehran acquired before the 1979 revolution. The Sayyad-2 has a shorter range than its successors. The most advanced, the Sayyad-4B, which Iran developed for its Bavar-373 air defense system, has an estimated range of 186 miles.
In October, a Hezbollah-appointed guide demonstrated some of the group’s firepower to visiting journalists and hinted that they have long-range air defenses such as the Russian S-300. “You think we don’t have an S-300?” he said. “If Iran has the S-300, Hezbollah will absolutely take the S-300.”
It is unclear whether Iran attempted to transfer the Bavar-373, the domestically developed equivalent of the S-300, to Hezbollah with its Sayyad 4/4B missiles.
“Hezbollah’s air defense capabilities are highly opaque,” Nicholas Blanford, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of the 2011 book “Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah’s Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel,” told Business Insider. “More is known about other systems in their arsenal than air defense because Hezbollah uses them very rarely.”
“Nevertheless, if Iran possesses or can acquire an air defense system that meets Hezbollah’s needs, then it is safe to assume that Hezbollah likely will have it,” Blanford said.
The Hezbollah expert also noted that possessing missiles such as the Sayyad-2 “certainly increases the threat level” to Israeli aircraft compared to shoulder-fired missiles. He also pointed out that Israel has “always maintained” that any acquisition by Hezbollah of advanced air defense systems amounts to a “red line.”
Since 2013, Israel has been conducting an air campaign in Syria targeting Iranian arms shipments to Lebanon to prevent Hezbollah from acquiring advanced systems. Since the 10/7 Hamas attacks, the country has intensified this campaign, likely making it more difficult than ever for Iran to transfer weapons to Hezbollah through Syria. During this campaign, Israeli fighter jets evaded and sometimes destroyed Syria’s Russian-built Tor and Pantsir short- and medium-range air defenses.
The discovery of the Sayyad-2 suggests that Iran has transferred at least some anti-aircraft missiles to its most prized regional proxy.
“It has been reported that Hezbollah previously possesses Sayyad-2 anti-aircraft missiles, and Friday’s Israeli attack confirmed these claims,” Freddy Khoueiry, a global security analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at risk intelligence firm RANE, told me. BI. “Hezbollah was suspected to have used the Sayyad-2 to shoot down some of Israel’s advanced Hermes 900 drones over Lebanon.”
“Hezbollah has prided itself on the advancement of its air defense capabilities in recent years, and the discovery of Hezbollah’s possession of Sayyad-2 shows how much they have advanced anti-aircraft systems,” Khoueiry said.
Israel has experience destroying Lebanon’s formidable air defenses. When it invaded in 1982, it launched a coordinated, large-scale suppression of the enemy air defense operation against a series of Soviet-built surface-to-air missile batteries that Syria had deployed in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
Operation Mole Cricket 19 destroyed Syria’s missiles and saw Israel’s new F-15 and F-16 fighters dogfight the Syrian air force, shooting them down 82 Syrian aircraft without losing a single fighter.
While it is unlikely that Hezbollah will ever deploy such a large network of anti-aircraft missiles, some of its air defense systems could still have an impact on Israeli air operations over Lebanon.
“Overall, this is unlikely to stop the Israeli Air Force from operating over Lebanon, but it will likely force the Israelis to become more cautious amid Hezbollah’s changing tactics and their more advanced capabilities, such as flying their fighter jets at higher altitudes or using stealthy fighter jets such as the F-35,” Khoueiry said.
“The Israeli Air Force is much more advanced and can evade these air defenses and maintain its immense air superiority, but Israeli drones and helicopters operating over Lebanon could be at greater risk, especially if the IDF expands its operations in Lebanon.”
Khoueiry doubts whether Iran will transfer strategic systems such as the Bavar-373 to Lebanon.
“It is more likely that Iran could transfer medium and large defense systems to Hezbollah,” Khoueiry said. “Larger anti-aircraft systems like the Bavar-373 are more difficult to transfer given their size, but also given that Lebanon’s geography is small and Hezbollah would not be able to properly operate them there.”
The RANE analyst believes that if Iran were to deploy the Bavar-373 in the region, it would send it somewhere like Syria, although he estimates this is unlikely at this point.
“The discovery of the Sayyad-2 likely indicates that Iran has been able to transfer more similarly advanced defense systems that Hezbollah is likely to use in a progressive manner as the conflict escalates or in the event of a broader war, especially given the probably limited number that they own,” Khoueiry said.
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