Appearance Of Ballistic Tracks Over Mediterranean
Radar operators at Russia’s Armavir early warning station detected two ballistic tracks over the Mediterranean. This started a firestorm on Twitter. This firestorm wasn’t a well thought out one though. The Tomahawk does not fly on a ballistic trajectory.
Turns out the two ballistic objects were Israeli Ankor missiles. The Ankor is used to simulate surface to surface missiles, for tests of Israel’s Arrow system. These two Ankor’s were launched from an Israeli F-15.
Interestingly enough, both Ankor missiles were reported to have fallen into the Mediterranean, without an Arrow intercept attempted. It seems likely Syrian air defense capabilities were just observed, assuming Syria’s air defense network went active. Care to place any bets on whether French SIGINT aircraft were in the air at the time of the Ankor launch?
Arcturus Blog 