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By Fabrice Balanche, associate professor and research director at the University of Lyon 2, visiting fellow at The Washington Institute
On January 5, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to close Incirlik Air Base to the international coalition against the Islamic State, citing the lack of U.S. support for his efforts to take the IS-held Syrian city of al-Bab. That battle will likely force Washington to make some hard choices about which ally is most important in the anti-IS campaign — Turkey or the Kurds.
AL-BAB PROVING MORE DIFFICULT THAN JARABULUS
Since November 14, the Turkish army and allied Syrian rebel forces have been advancing on al-Bab. By December 10, they had entered the city’s western suburbs, seizing Sheikh Aqil hill on December 20. Turkish forces likely assumed that this position would allow them to put IS under fire and compel the group to flee, much like it did during the battle for Jarabulus.
On December 22, however, IS retook the hill, inflicting heavy losses on Turkish and rebel forces. Fourteen Turkish soldiers were reportedly killed; IS also burned two Turkish military prisoners alive, and video of their grisly deaths was widely disseminated on social networks.
In response, Turkish jets heavily bombed al-Bab, reportedly causing the deaths of 72 civilians on December 23. In total, 173 civilians have been killed by Turkish-led operations against the city since November 14, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
On January 4, Erdogan announced that the battle would be finished quickly, deploying troop reinforcements and additional tanks to the area. Turkish press reports have noted that 8,000 army troops are participating in the campaign, and their latest movements suggest Erdogan now intends to encircle al-Bab and cut off its links with the IS “capital” of Raqqa.
Yet this approach raises the question of whether and how Turkey will prevent further harm to civilians. When the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) encircled and conquered Manbij in June-July 2016, they made careful attempts to minimize collateral damage against the city itself and its inhabitants, but they suffered heavy military losses in the process. The commander of the Turkish-backed militia Sultan Murad recently stated that only a few thousand civilians remain in al-Bab, but that claim rings false: before the Turkish campaign, the city had about 100,000 inhabitants, along with 50,000 more in the adjacent towns of Qabasin, Tadef, and Bzaa. And as in Mosul, Manbij, and Ramadi before, IS has prevented local civilians from fleeing, intending to use them as a human shields.
To avoid potential carnage, Erdogan will therefore need the precision of American airpower. The Russian air force has supported some Turkish operations around the city, but it is unclear if they have the local capability or willingness to conduct a comprehensive campaign of precision strikes.
ERDOGAN’S CREDIBILITY, WASHINGTON’S DILEMMA
The battle’s outcome will likely affect Erdogan’s credibility with the Turkish population. The main goal of his Syrian intervention is to prevent the unification of the two large Kurdish cantons along the northern border, and al-Bab is the key junction point between them. The campaign also plays to Turkish nationalism after the failed coup last July.
Moreover, Erdogan has warned that the Turkish army will retake Manbij from the Kurds after al-Bab. The SDF were supposed to leave the city last year, as Vice President Joe Biden promised Erdogan in August. Ankara may invoke this promise as the battle for al-Bab develops.
Yet telling the Kurds to leave Manbij could end their alliance with the United States — a troubling prospect given their proven efficiency against IS, seen most recently in the successful SDF offensive toward Thawra Dam, the key to capturing Raqqa. What are Washington’s options in this delicate situation?
Doing nothing means upsetting Erdogan, who would not hesitate to withdraw access to Incirlik Air Base. This would make the coalition’s task more complicated, but not impossible; allied forces could strike the Raqqa region from bases in Jordan, Iraq, the Gulf states, or Cyprus (albeit with extra hurdles related to distance and route security). Yet Turkey will eventually take al-Bab with or without U.S. help, likely by shelling the city and otherwise causing heavy civilian casualties. Erdogan might then apply the same technique to Manbij if the SDF has not withdrawn by then, leaving Washington with the prospect of major civilian carnage, direct Turkish-Kurdish military confrontation, and further interference by the Russians, who would likely insert themselves as arbiters between Ankara and the Kurds.
Alternatively, if Washington supports Erdogan in al-Bab, it could help limit the death toll by precluding indiscriminate bombardment of civilians. Turkish soldiers and rebels would be assured of quality air support that hits the right targets, encouraging them to make progress in the ground battle against IS.
To be sure, this approach runs the risk of Erdogan building on a victory in al-Bab by attacking Manbij or even the SDF stronghold of Tal Abyad. The latter scenario could foreclose the possibility of Kurdish autonomy in Syria once and for all, even in divided cantons. Convincing the Kurds to leave Manbij voluntarily could avoid that outcome. And while the wider Kurdish goal of unifying their Syrian cantons could die with the fall of al-Bab, U.S. officials need to carefully consider whether supporting that Kurdish political dream is more important than maintaining the U.S. military alliance with Erdogan. Whatever the case, avoiding a Turkish-Kurdish confrontation in Syria is crucial to liberating Raqqa sooner rather than later, particularly if the United States wants to do so without being obliged to cooperate closely with Russia.
The views expressed in opinion articles published on euronews do not represent our editorial position.
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Kurdish fighters at a training camp in northern Syrian town of Rmeilane in March 2016 (AFP)
Although the announcement of a fragile ceasefire on 30 December brought some respite to the majority of people across Syria, the tides have been turning in a different direction for some groups in the war-torn country.
The truce, backed by Turkey and Russia acting as guarantors, involves the return of the warring sides to negotiations in Astana, after nearly six years of fighting and before the revival of the Geneva peace process on 8 February.
The ceasefire also involves a deal that was struck between Russia and Turkey, and a tightening of ties that has meant that rebel groups have lost out on support from Ankara. Yet the biggest loss seems to lie among the Kurds in northern Syria.
Turkish-Russian rapprochement
Since June 2016, Turkey and Russia have worked to normalise ties as Russia sought to increase its influence in the region, while Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, searched for an alternative policy more in line with his country's primary strategic interest in Syria: containing Kurdish demands for a separate state and influence along Turkey's borders.
Russia and Turkey have until recently sat on opposite sides of the conflict. Russia backs the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and Turkey wants him gone. While Russia provided Assad with military support, Turkey coordinated with Gulf states to provide rebels with weapons and support.
ANALYSIS: The Kurdish 'frenemies' aiding Assad in Aleppo
But recent developments, most importantly the ceasefire, have changed the game.
“The ceasefire means a deal between Russia and Turkey was struck. Turkey would close its borders to the rebels and not provide them support. In exchange, Russia would help break up the unification of Kurdish territories,” said Fabrice Balanche, an associate professor and research director at the University of Lyon 2.
In the aftermath of the Syrian uprisings in 2011, the Kurds set up three federal entities in the northern corners of the country which together make up a political enclave called Rojava. The three cantons of Cizre, Kobane and Afrin are predominantly Kurdish in population but also have Arab and Assyrian communities.
The Democratic Union Party (PYD), the main Kurdish party in Syria, declared in mid-March that the region was a federal entity within the borders of Syria. Rebel groups, Damascus, Washington and Turkey rejected the declaration. The US demanded the Kurdish YPG militia withdraw from positions west of the Euphrates, while Assad said the move was an “unlawful action” which "jeopardises the country’s territorial integrity".
But the Kurds have a complicated relationship with Assad. The Syrian opposition has continuously accused the Kurds of cooperating with the Syrian government through its ally Russia, where the PYD opened offices in February to forge diplomatic relations with Moscow.
Russia replaces the US
The strengthening of ties between Russia and Turkey and the recent ceasefire has weakened the US as a key player in the region.
Ignoring the White House in the truce has been interpreted as a sign of the US’s regional marginalisation with outgoing US President Barack Obama being portrayed as a "loser" after doing too little to aid the anti-Assad rebels.
Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has been increasingly portrayed as the victor in Syria after dispatching his air force to support Assad in September 2015 and enabling the recapture of eastern Aleppo from rebels in December.
Analysts say it leaves the Kurds navigating a new political map and rethinking their plans for a federalised Syria.
“The Kurds have tried to maintain good relations with the US and Russia. But today, they are afraid of working with Russia, because they don’t trust Assad. At the same time however, they are not sure the US can protect them against Erdogan anymore,” said Balanche, who is also a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute.
The Kurdish YPG militia is an extension of the Kurdish PKK militant group, which has been at war with Turkey for decades and has been responsible for several attacks in the country, the latest of which targeted Izmir last week.
Without a strong ally in the US, which has supported the PYD's armed wing, the Kurdish Project Units (YPG), the Kurds are in a weaker position.
“There is a huge debate today about this issue inside the PYD now. The Kurds might choose to move closer to Russia, because after the fall of Aleppo everyone has understood that Putin is the master and the US is no longer there,” said Balanche.
‘A privileged position’
But according to Sihanok Dibo, an adviser to the leadership of the PYD, the situation hasn’t dramatically changed.
“The current vacuum in the US administration cannot be interpreted that the US has been sidelined,” said Dibo. “We are sure that both the US and Moscow will continue to be involved as guarantors to resolve the crisis.”
On 31 December, Syrian Kurdish groups and their allies approved a blueprint, known as the social contract, at a meeting of a 151-member council in the city of Rmeilan. The contract aims to cement the autonomy of Kurdish areas of northern Syria - although Kurdish leaders say an independent state is not the goal.
“The Kurds are in a privileged position,” Dibo told MEE. “This is due to five years of hard work; our project [for establishing a federal Syrian state] is becoming increasingly popular among Syrians with many more seeing it as the only solution to the crisis.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), of which the YPG is a major contributor, took control of the Jabar Castle in the western countryside of the Raqqa Governorate on Friday, after swiftly advancing along the western bank of the Euphrates River near Lake al-Assad in western Raqqa.
Dibo believes the self-governing Kurdish regions in northern Syria and their fight against IS will not be affected by the Russian-Turkish rapprochement because “the Kurds have good relations with Russia.”
'The real victims'
But according to Ahmed Araj from the Syrian Democratic Council, the political arm of the SDF, the reconciliation between Turkey and Russia may be an agreement to prevent the Kurds advancing their control over northern Syria.
Balanche agrees that the situation for the Kurds in northern Syria after the ceasefire is grim and quite similar to the aftermath of Turkey’s intervention in Manbij in August 2016.
"The real victims of the ceasefire are the Kurds,” Balanche told MEE.
'The real victims of the ceasefire are the Kurds' - Syria expert Fabrice Balanche
“The official narrative of the PYD is everything is fine, but just like in Manbij, the fighters on the ground feel a deep sense of betrayal by the US and a sense of fear of what is to come,” explained Balanche.
Syrian military officials announced in December that Kurdish-controlled areas should return under government control as the fight against rebel and Islamic State group forces enters new phases.
The news came amid reports that the Syrian army had requested that the YPG evacuate the Sheikh Maqsoud enclave in Aleppo by the end of this month following the government's recapture of the city from rebels in December.
On 21 December, the Turkish military also announced that Turkey-backed Syrian rebels had gained full control of the highway linking al-Bab to Aleppo amid intense ground and air fire support.
The town, which is 25km from the Turkish border, is the main target of the now four-month-long operation Euphrates Shield, which is intended to push Islamic State and Kurdish fighters away from the Turkish-Syria border area.
“If Turkish-backed rebels manage to take over al-Bab, they will move into Manbij which will completely eliminate any possibility for the Kurds to link the areas between Afrin and Kobane,” explained Balanche.
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Istanbul (AFP) - If the United States wants to invite Kurds to the upcoming Syrian peace talks it might as well invite the Islamic State jihadist group too, said Turkey's foreign minister Saturday whose country views Kurdish fighters in Syria as extremists.
The Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG), have been Western allies in the Syrian conflict but are condemned by Turkey, which will co-host the peace talks in Kazakhstan with Russia set for January 23.
Turkey calls the PYD a "terror group" for its links to Kurdish separatist militants in Turkey and has blasted the US repeatedly for working with the group on the ground in Syria.
A comment by a US State Department spokesman this week that Washington believes the PYD would "have to be a part of this process... at some point" infuriated Ankara.
"If you are going to invite a terror group to the table then you might as well invite Al Nusra and Daesh," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters, referring to the former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front, known previously as Al-Nusra Front, and the so-called Islamic State (IS).
"We do not deny the US role and contribution (to the talks), but we expect the following from the new US administration: it must stop co-operating with terror groups," he said.
"The current (US) administration is making serious mistakes," he said.
It was not the first diplomatic spat over the heated Kurdish issue this week.
A US Central Command tweet insisting its Kurdish allies were not linked to outlawed militants whipped up a storm Thursday, with Ankara asking if Washington had "lost its senses".
Relations between the US and Turkey have become increasingly bitter in the last month, with Ankara expressing hope of a "new chapter" under President-elect Donald Trump.
While Washington has played a key role in attempts to bring Syria's warring parties to the negotiating table in the past, it has been notably absent from the cooperation between Ankara and Moscow to broker a nationwide ceasefire that is meant to pave the way for the January 23 peace talks.
Despite backing opposite sides in the Syrian conflict, Russia and Turkey are keen for a deal to end the conflict and both sides appear to think Trump's administration could help.
The Astana talks are scheduled to begin just three days after Trump is inaugurated.
Turkey said this week that Russia had agreed the incoming US administration should be present at the upcoming talks, though there was no confirmation from Moscow.
A representative for the Syrian Kurds said that they had not been invited to take part.
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The White House declined to disclose what decision Mr. Obama had reached, but some administration officials believe it is unlikely that he will resolve the contentious issue in the waning moments of his presidency.
That such a pivotal decision has been left to Mr. Obama’s final weeks in office reflects the complexity of the debate about working with the Y.P.G., as the Syrian Kurdish militia is known, as well as the caution the president has displayed about sending American forces to fight in the region.
Mr. Obama has vowed to deal the Islamic State crippling blows in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa before he steps down on Friday. Allied airstrikes have increased in and around Raqqa in recent weeks as thousands of Syrian Kurdish and Syrian Arab fighters encircle the city, isolating it from the resupply of arms, fighters and fuel. Last month, Mr. Obama ordered 200 more American Special Operations forces to Syria to help these local fighters advancing on Raqqa, nearly doubling the number of American troops on the ground there.
But the American military believes that Raqqa cannot be seized unless the Y.P.G. is equipped for urban warfare. It is unclear what level of support President-elect Donald J. Trump will maintain for opposition groups in Syria combating the Islamic State, especially those groups that are bitterly opposed by the Turks.
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter stressed Raqqa’s importance during a visit to Fort Campbell, Ky., in January 2016. “The ISIL parent tumor has two centers: Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq,” Mr. Carter said. “That’s why our campaign plan’s got big arrows pointing at both Mosul and Raqqa.”
American officials requested anonymity in order to describe the administration’s internal deliberations.
About 250,000 civilians are in Raqqa, and the Islamic State has fortified the city with trenches and mines and would defend it with suicide bombers. Because the Obama administration has ruled out the use of American combat troops, the United States has to rely on mobilizing local Arab forces to join battle-hardened Syrian Kurdish fighters.
“Raqqa is very difficult because unlike Iraq, we’re not working with a government,” Brett McGurk, the American envoy to the coalition that is fighting the Islamic State, said at a seminar last week. “We’re not working with an army. We have to work with local actors and organize them into a military force.”
American military officials say it is urgent to retake Raqqa because it is the capital of the Islamic State’s caliphate, a sanctuary for many of its top leaders and the hub for the extremist group’s plots against the West.
The Pentagon has been urging Mr. Obama to equip the Syrian Kurds, whom American commanders view as their most effective ground partner, with armored vehicles, rocket-propelled-grenade launchers, machine guns and other heavy equipment so that the American-supported Raqqa attack can begin in February.
The weaponry is needed, American military officials say, because the Iraqi push to capture Mosul has demonstrated that retaking a city occupied by Islamic State fighters, armed with suicide car bombs, is a difficult and bloody operation.
To buttress the Raqqa mission, the Pentagon is also urging that the White House authorize the use of United States Army Apache attack helicopters, which are equipped with Hellfire missiles. Apaches are supporting Iraqi troops in the fight for Mosul.
But arming the Kurds would also aggravate Mr. Obama’s tense relations with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has contended that the Y.P.G. is linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which Turkey and the United States regard as a terrorist group.
The administration has been considering ways to ease Turkey’s anxiety, such as making arrangements to monitor the weapons given to the Syrian Kurds for the Raqqa offensive and thus prevent the weapons from being used elsewhere by the Kurds. In addition, Arab forces would occupy Raqqa after the city is taken, and Kurdish fighters would be withdrawn.
The United States also recently began carrying out airstrikes near Al Bab, a town in northern Syria that Turkey has been struggling to take from the Islamic State.
But American diplomats in Ankara, the Turkish capital, have warned that providing weapons to the Y.P.G. could provoke a Turkish backlash, officials say. Not only might it cause a deep breach in the United States’ relations with Mr. Erdogan, but the Turks might take actions against the Y.P.G. in northern Syria that could ultimately undermine the offensive to retake Raqqa.
Anticipating Mr. Obama’s decision, the Turks have been quietly increasing the pressure by delaying approval for American air missions that are flown from the Turkish air base at Incirlik and supplies going in and out of the base. Incirlik has been a major hub for carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
Turkey’s sensitivity on the issue was clear last week when the United States Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, posted a statement on Twitter by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the umbrella group that includes Syrian Kurds as well as Syrian Arab fighters, affirming that it is not part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party as “some regional governments” have claimed.
“Is this a joke or @CENTCOM has lost its senses,” Ibrahim Kalin, Mr. Erdogan’s spokesman, responded on Twitter.
Faced with the dilemma, some administration officials have suggested that American officials go back to the drawing board and try to cobble together a more diverse force to take Raqqa that would include Turkish Special Forces as well as Turkish-supported Syrian opposition groups. American commanders say about 20,000 troops will be needed to seize the city. By contrast, Turkey has been able to muster only about 2,000 Arab fighters in its battle to reclaim Al Bab, and that campaign has been bogged down by fierce resistance.
During a visit to Washington last month, Masrour Barzani, a top security official in the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq, pressed American officials to work with Syrian Kurds who are separate from the Y.P.G. and are operating in Iraq, a group known as Pesh Merga of Rojava, or Roj Pesh. Aides to Mr. Barzani assert that the Roj Pesh are trained by the pesh merga, would be politically acceptable to the Turks and number about 3,300.
“Roj Pesh are the most efficient and politically diverse force,” Mr. Barzani said. “They can be the bridge to lessen regional tensions and a force multiplier in the campaign.”
But Pentagon officials say that the Y.P.G. has the most effective fighters, is already closing in on Raqqa, and that trying to assemble, train and equip an alternative force could be difficult and at best would take many months.
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USA Today Network WFAA-TV, Dallas-Fort Worth Published 6:57 p.m. ET Jan. 17, 2017 | Updated 5 hours ago
Police stage outside a home where a suspected shooter remained in Little Elm, Texas, Jan. 17, 2017.(Photo: WFAA-TV)
DALLAS — A Little Elm, Texas, police officer was shot and killed Tuesday afternoon after police approached a man carrying a gun in a residential area, according to authorities. The suspected shooter was later killed after an hours-long standoff.
The suspected gunman was found dead around 10 p.m, The Dallas Morning News reported. He had holed up in a house in the 1400 block of Turtle Cove Tuesday evening, surrounded by police and SWAT. A Twitter account for the City of Little Elm called it an "active shooter situation in the area of Lobo and Eldorado."
Officers responded to the home around 3 p.m. CT after residents reported seeing a man with a gun, officials said. After being told to drop the weapon, the suspect began shooting at officers from inside the house, Lt. Orlando Hinojosa said. Detective Jerry Walker was hit, officials said at a news conference.
Other officers were able to drive a squad car to Walker's aid and move him to another area where he was airlifted to the Denton Regional Medical Center, where he later died.
Detective Jerry Walker (Photo: Little Elm Police Department)
No other injuries were reported.
Walker, 48, was a father of four and an 18-year veteran of the force, said Rodney Harrison, Little Elm chief of police. Walker was promoted to detective in 2013.
Police poured into the residential area in the far-north Dallas suburb, causing school bus delays at multiple nearby Little Elm schools. The Little Elm Independent School District released a statement saying some students who walk home were being held at school until parents could come get them.
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LITTLE ELM, Texas- Little Elm detective, Jerry Walker, was shot and killed after responding to an incident on Tuesday.
Fire Chief Brian Roach named Jerry Walker as the officer shot during a press conference Tuesday evening, it was then confirmed later in the evening that he did not survive his injuries.
Rodney Harrison, Little Elm chief of police, says Walker was 48 years old and joined the department in September of 1998. Walker was a father of four.
Little Elm police officer shot and killed
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Officers responded to a report of an individual with a gun in the 1400 block of Turtle Cove just after 3 p.m. Tuesday, officials said. After police told the suspect to drop the gun, he ran inside the home and began shooting at officers, DCSO Lt. Orlando Hinojosa said.
A man claiming to have witnessed the encounter said he heard one initial gunshot, and then a flurry of three or four gunshots with an officer hiding behind a truck in a driveway.
Walker was shot in the upper body and was careflighted to Denton Regional Hospital where he was surrounded by family, friends and fellow officers. Police were trying to make contact with the suspect, who was barricaded inside a home near Waterview and Turtle Cove.
Little Elm Fire Chief addressed the media at 10:25 p.m. Tuesday evening stating the barricaded suspect was dead. No further information was available at the time.
A Twitter account for the City of Little Elm called it an "active shooter situation in the area of Lobo and Eldorado."
Officers gather at Denton hospital
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Police activity unfolding in that area caused school bus delays at multiple nearby Little Elm ISD schools. As a precaution, students were being held at Lakeside, Powell and Zellars until the situation was cleared.
Little Elm ISD later tweeted it was releasing buses from Lakeside and Powell, but students who walk home were still being held at the school.
Little Elm neighbors evacuated
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Schools are no longer on lockdown at this time. The students who typically walk home had to be picked up by parents.The district issued the following statement on their website:
We have been notified by police of an incident in the neighborhood near Waterview and Turtle Cove that is preventing traffic flow from around that area. We are keeping the students at Lakeside Middle School, Powell, and Zellars until we hear from police that the area is cleared and safe to enter. Students who are bus riders and even students who walk home will be getting home late today due to this event. This will cause delays in buses at the High School.
Authorities were able to extract an elderly, female relative of the suspect through a window, leaving the suspect alone in the home.
Residents of the area that were evacuated have been taken to the Little Elm Senior Citizen Center.
Authorities from The Colony, Denton County and Frisco Police assisted with the situation.
(© 2017 WFAA)
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- Если вы начинаете вязать с центральной полосы, то ее нужно укрепить парой рядов столбиков без накида, далее продолжаете вязать арочки или столбики с накидом, но без прибавлений.
Узор арочки можно заменить простыми столбиками с накидами, провязанными с пропуском между ними по одной петле предыдущего ряда. Авоська получится не такая ажурная, но будет также отлично держать форму.
Когда вы увидите, что высота вашей сумочки идеальна, пора начинать оформление. Для этого, последний ряд авоськи обвяжите простыми столбиками без накида. Визуально разделите кольцо входа в сумку на 4 части, отметьте все четыре точки булавками и начните вязать ручки. Это просто: дойдя до булавки, свяжите цепочку воздушных петель, она должна быть чуть длиннее расстояния, до следующей булавки. Затем соединительным столбиком привяжите цепочку к отметке на сумке и продолжайте вязать ряд столбиками без накида до следующей булавки. Аналогично свяжите вторую ручку.
Следующий ряд — столбики без накида. Ниточку в конце вязания закрепите, обрежьте и спрячьте.
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David's Sling (Hebrew: קלע דוד, translit. Kelah Da'vid), also formerly known as Magic Wand (Hebrew: שרביט קסמים, translit. Sharvit Ksamim), is an Israel Defense Forces military system being jointly developed by the Israeli defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and the American defense contractor Raytheon, designed to intercept tactical ballistic missiles, medium- to long-range rockets and cruise missiles, fired at ranges from 40 km (24.85 miles) to 300 km (186.41 miles).[1] David's Sling is meant to replace the MIM-23 Hawk and MIM-104 Patriot in the Israeli arsenal.[2] It is designed to intercept the newest generation of tactical ballistic missiles, such as Iskander, using an on-board dual CCD/IR seekers to distinguish between decoys and the actual warhead of the missile
Iron Dome (Hebrew: כִּפַּת בַּרְזֶל, kippat barzel) is a mobile all-weather air defense system[8] developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aircraft Industries.[7] The system is designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells fired from distances of 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) to 70 kilometres (43 mi) away and whose trajectory would take them to a populated area.[9][10] Israel hopes to increase the range of Iron Dome's interceptions, from the current maximum of 70 kilometres (43 mi) to 250 kilometres (160 mi) and make it more versatile so that it could intercept rockets coming from two directions simultaneously.[11]
Iron Dome was declared operational and initially deployed on 27 March 2011 near Beersheba.[12] On 7 April 2011, the system successfully intercepted a Grad rocket launched from Gaza for the first time.[13] On 10 March 2012, The Jerusalem Post reported that the system shot down 90% of rockets launched from Gaza that would have landed in populated areas.[10] By November 2012, official statements indicated that it had intercepted 400+ rockets.[14][15] By late October 2014, the Iron Dome systems had intercepted over 1,200 rockets.[16]
Iron Dome is part of a future multi-tiered missile defense system that Israel is developing, which will also include Arrow 2, Arrow 3, Iron Beam and David's Sling as early as 2018.
Iron Beam (Hebrew: קֶרֶן בַּרְזֶל, keren barzel) is an air defense system which as of 2016 is in post-production development and upgrades by Israeli defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.[1] Unveiled at the 2014 Singapore Air Show on February 11[2] and expected to enter service with the Israel Defense Forces in 2015,[needs update] the system is designed to destroy short-range rockets, artillery, and mortars with a range of up to 7 km (4.3 mi), too small for the Iron Dome system to intercept effectively.[1] In addition, the system could also intercept unmanned aerial vehicles.[3] Iron Beam will use a "directed high energy laser beam" to destroy hostile targets with ranges of up to 7 kilometres (4.3 mi).[1][4] Iron Beam will constitute the fifth element of Israel's integrated air defense system,[1] in addition to Arrow 2, Arrow 3, David's Sling and Iron Dome.[5] However, Iron Beam is also a stand-alone system.[3]
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a news conference in Moscow, Russia, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin.
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A railgun is an electromagnetic projectile launcher based on principles similar to those of the homopolar motor. A railgun uses a pair of parallel conductors, or rails, along which a sliding armature is accelerated by the electromagnetic effects of a current that flows down one rail, into the armature and then back along the other rail.[2]
Railguns are being researched as weapons that would use neither explosives nor propellant, but rather rely on electromagnetic forces to impart a very high kinetic energy to a projectile. While explosive-powered military guns cannot readily achieve a muzzle velocity of more than about 2 km/s, railguns can readily exceed 3 km/s, and thus far exceed conventionally delivered munitions in range and destructive force. The absence of explosive propellants or warheads to store and handle, as well as the low cost of projectiles compared to conventional weaponry come as additional advantages.[3]
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A directed-energy weapon (DEW) emits highly focused energy, transferring that energy to a target to damage it.
Potential applications of this technology include anti-personnel weapon systems, potential missile defense system, and the disabling of lightly armored vehicles such as cars, drones, watercraft, and electronic devices such as mobile phones.[1][2]
The Pentagon and DARPA are researching technologies like directed-energy weapon and railguns to counter maturing threats posed by missile and hypersonic glide vehicles. These systems of missile defense are expected to come online in the mid to late-2020s.[3]
The AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System or XN-1 LaWS[1] is a directed-energy weapon developed by the United States Navy. The weapon was installed on USS Ponce for field testing in 2014. In December 2014, the United States Navy reported that the LaWS system worked perfectly, and that the commander of the Ponce is authorized to use the system as a defensive weapon.[2]
The death ray or death beam was a theoretical particle beam or electromagnetic weapon of the 1920s through the 1930s that was claimed to have been invented independently by Guglielmo Marconi,[1] Nikola Tesla, Harry Grindell Matthews, Edwin R. Scott, and Graichen,[2] as well as others.[3] In 1957, the National Inventors Council was still issuing lists of needed military inventions that included a death ray.[4]
While based in Star Wars, research into energy-based weapons inspired by past speculation has ibuted to real-life weapons in use by modern militaries sometimes called a sort of "death ray", such as the United States Navy and its Laser Weapon System (LaWS) deployed in mid-2014.[5][6] Such armaments are technically known as directed-energy weapons.
The Heat-Ray is the primary offensive weapon used by the Martians in H. G. Wells' classic science fiction novel The War of the Worlds and its offshoots.[1]
The Active Denial System (ADS) is a non-lethal, directed-energy weapon developed by the U.S. military,[2] designed for area denial, perimeter security and crowd control.[3] Informally, the weapon is also called the heat ray[4] since it works by heating the surface of targets, such as the skin of targeted human subjects. Raytheon is currently marketing a reduced-range version of this technology.[5] The ADS was deployed in 2010 with the United States military in the Afghanistan War, but was withdrawn without seeing combat.[6] On August 20, 2010, the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department announced its intent to use this technology on prisoners in the Pitchess Detention Center in Los Angeles, stating its intent to use it in "operational evaluation" in situations such as breaking up prisoner fights.[7] The ADS is currently only a vehicle-mounted weapon, though U.S. Marines and police are both working on portable versions.[8] ADS was developed under the sponsorship of the DoD Non-Lethal Weapons Program with the Air Force Research Laboratory as the lead agency.[9][10] There are reports that Russia[11] and China are developing their own versions of the Active Denial System.[12]
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Space weapons are weapons used in space warfare. They include weapons that can attack space systems in orbit (i.e. anti-satellite weapons), attack targets on the earth from space or disable missiles travelling through space. In the course of the militarisation of space, such weapons were developed mainly by the contesting superpowers during the Cold War, and some remain under development today. Space weapons are also a central theme in military science fiction and sci-fi video games.
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Russia to Field Hypersonic Weapons by 2020
The Diplomat-Sep 28, 2016
Russia is hoping to develop a hypersonic weapon system capable of penetrating advanced missile defense systems by the early 2020s, ...
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Abdulkadir Masharipov, Istanbul nightclub attack suspect, reportedly ...
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