Posted on 09/11/2003 9:47:00 AM PDT by meg70
Al Qaeda planned to hijack a Saudi F-15E fighter jet and crash it into a major office tower in Israel, the Israeli chief of staff said yesterday.
Israel officals said US Intelligence agencies relayed this information based on their interrogation of Al Qaeda suspects during the past 18 months.
They said Al Qaeda was trying to recruit a Saudi Air Force pilot to fly his F-15 from Tabuk air base and carry out a suicide attack in Israel about 200 kilometers away.
The Al Qaeda plot has been cited by Israel in its arguements to the United States for the immediate removal of Saudia Arabia's F-15E fleet from the King Faisal Air Base in Tabuk. About 50 F-15E's were flown to Tabuk in March 2003 and Riyad has refused to return them to their bases in Eastern adn Central Saudi Arabia.
On Tuesday, Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon became the first Isralei public figure to cite the F-15E's at Tabuk.
You can learn how to fly an F-16. We are training Dutch pilots at Melbourne airport. The flight school is being kicked out because the neighbors don't like the afterburner noise. But otherwise, the F-16's are right there guarded by the Dutch I believe. No drug problem in that army, right?
Any old Joe can go to school there, not military connected?
If so, what's the tuition?
True, but it's also one of the SMALLER airspaces in the world, which means that if anything starts happening, it's going to be over one way or another VERY quickly, and the Israelis are going to have to react quickly if they're to prevent this from happening.
How hard would it be for a lone fighter to escape visual or electronic detection?
The question is, "can it escape detection for a LONG ENOUGH time?"
If it penetrated Israeli airspace from Jordan, it could be almost all the way across Israel and over downtown Tel Aviv by the time Israeli fighters are getting airborne.
If it's an F-15E loaded out with FAST packs and drop tanks, it can actually fly across the Red Sea, across Egypt, into Libya, and out over the Mediterranean...and THEN step into a suicide run at Tel Aviv.
The plane wouldn't have the electronic warfare planes to provide cover and mitigate the radar.
It could use terrain masking, deceptive IFF emissions, and other techniques to delay detection or to slow down an Israeli response.
As for the kneejerk "weren't so many of the 911 hijackers Saudis, why not bomb Saudi Arabia" line of argument so often cited by folks, how about the fact that a large number of Islamic terrorists are students at western, even American, universities? This certainly includes a bunch of 911 hijackers. It would seem that if all of Saudi Arabia is to be blamed for terrorists, we may as well blame our own universities too. And a bunch of them were Florida residents, meaning that Florida must be overthrown, I suppose...
Seriously, if the Saudis were the country behind 911, you'd think they would have had the sense to use Iraqi terrorists.
;o)
The terrorists, that is the bad guys for you in Rio Linda, were going to steal war planes fron Tabuk and crash them similar to the way they did in America.
The Saudi's would have been innocent victims. To claim otherwise would be to claim that the leftists in Massachuttes were responsible for the hijackings of the jets that hit the world trade center.
No such animal. Saudies have F-15S (under , while Israelies have F-15I ( Thunder), both similar to USAF F-15E, but differing slightly in avionics equipment. Aparently F-15Is are equivalent or better than F-15E, while F-15S had degraded radar, LANTIRN, other avionics capabilities. See the FAS page and/or the Global Security page
We have no AWACS in that area, AFAIK. However the IDF has their own airborne radar systems. Both E-2 Hawkeyes and Phalcons, the later using an Israeli built phased array radar system on a 707 airframe. They are selling the same system to India, but on the Ilyushin IL-76 airframe. (Russia's A-50 AWACSkie is also based on the IL-76 as is China's attempt at an AWACS)
But you're correct. He'd be hog meat.
You're going to fly under the coverage of airborne surveilance radar? I suspect the Phalcon and maybe the E-2s also, can see planes taking off from the Saudi airfiled. I know that way back during the Bekka Valley Turkey Shoot, the E-2s could see the Syrian Migs as they started their takeoff roll on airfields near Damascas, but the IDF/AF fighters weren't allowed to pop 'em until they went wheels up.
They lied. They were Arab politicians, so they couldn't help themselves. :)
The Saud's are a large royal family. Each man has four wives, the son's have four wives, and they all have children... ...Can we stop the flow of terrorist money without accidentally handing the whole country over to the nuts who sponsor all the world's terrorism? Ideas?
It's your basic communist state that's going broke from having too little to share with too many. The Saudis not only have to buy off the imported labor and the jihadists, they don't have the dough to spread the extended family over Monaco baccarat tables and Vegas strippers. (A certain Jagger/Richards line comes to mind from "Some Girls.")
Worse, the biggest accounts are tied up in U.S. securites and treasury notes. They yank the chain that feeds 'em, the whole house of cards falls like, uh, two very tall buildings that collapsed and over which they'd rather not carry any blame.
No, these m-f's are more screwed than drywall. And so are the fools that try to take 'em over. The sad fact is that for the Islamicists to get what they want, they have to die first. Veiled Iran exists because the Saudis cover their backside. If the House of Saud goes, either Iran flips, or Iraq becomes the 51st state.
Try and think from the Arab point of view. No way out.
Not quite. 15 Saudis, 1 Egyptian, 1 Lebanese, 2 United Arab Emirates citizens.
Yes, you are right. I did not make it as clear as I should have. I think if Israel had to do it, they could. I was stationed at a UPT base for almost 10 years. We trained a lot of Middle Eastern pilots, mostly Iranians. The vast majority were hazards to air navigation, and could not fly to save their rear ends. We trained some Saudis also, and I think the Saudis are better, but Israelis are still the best pilots in the Middle East.
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