ISIS's own air force: Why India, US should be very concerned

The world has seen how coldly brutal the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), simply known as IS or Islamic State, is. Now the ISIS is getting super ambitious and seems intent on acquiring its own air force, a development that should be a cause of concern for not just India but the entire international community led by the United States. Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, was quoted by Reuters as saying on 17 October that the ISIS is training fighters to fly three fighter aircrafts it had captured from the Syrian Arab Air Force and ominously added that the ISIS was “flying the planes over the captured Al-Jarrah military airport east of Aleppo”. Abdulrahman also said that “Saddam-era Iraqi pilots” were acting as trainers for the ISIS. Informatively, the ISIS had snatched the Syrian airbase Al-Jirah from the Syrian forces in May 2013. The ISIS wrested this airbase from Al-Jirah in January 2014. The Syrian planes in custody of ISIS are believed to be Aero L-39ZA Albatross trainer, light attack jets, the first of the second-generation jet trainers. More than 2800 such types of planes are known to have been used by the air forces of some 30 nations around the world so far since they appeared about half a century ago. The Albatross is normally equipped with guns, bombs, rockets and air-to-air missiles. It is suspected that the three Albatrosses now in control of ISIS are equipped with all these lethal weapons. This is a scary development for the world. India has to be concerned because of the fact that the ISIS has threatened to India too on its radar screens and there have been many instances when the ISIS foot soldiers’ strength has been augmented from India, something that did not happen even with al-Qaeda when the Osama bin Laden-fathered outfit was at its peak. [caption id=“attachment_1728833” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AP[/caption] The development is a chilling warning to the US which has already pumped in over one billion dollars in the fight against the ISIS. The cost of US military action against ISIS per hour is a formidable $312,500. Now compare this with the per hour cost of US war in Iraq ($365,297) and the US war in Afghanistan ($10.17 million). Those interested in computing the real time costs of the US in these war theaters can see this. ISIS can use these three captured Syrian planes for multiplying their fire-power in their ongoing fight against Iraq and Syria and escalating the war with the US-led international community in these areas. It can also use these planes for wreaking havoc against the enemy in the region as well as the sole international superpower, the US. Then there is another thing that the ISIS fighter pilots who are trying to master the art of flying these planes can do. They don’t have to learn the take-off to touch-down art of flying. They can merely learn how to take off with these planes and then crash them against a high-profile target, much like the 9/11 horror. In other words, the ISIS pilots simply don’t have to learn how to land these planes. They can use these planes as bombs and crash these at select targets at will. The most immediate danger from the Sunni ISIS looms large for the Shia Iran. It is well known that Iran happens to be the most immediate target of the ISIS and it is because of this outfit that strange bedfellows like the US, Iran and Saudia Arabia have come together on the same page. If ISIS plans to use these captured planes to form its own fledgling air force, then also it poses a serious military threat to all its opponents. After all, it has not been very often when terror outfits boast of their own air force. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) boasted of this capability two decades ago. The LTTE had used its airpower against the Sri Lankan forces successfully several times during its struggle for Eelam before the outfit was militarily defeated and vanquished in May 2009. Even the Taliban had bared the fangs of its fledgling air power when it had successfully flown a captured fleet of MiG-21 ‘Fishbed’, Sukhoi Su-22 ‘Fitter’, and even L-39 fighters, two decades ago while using pilots and maintainers that had once been in the service of the previous communist government. Clearly, a dangerous situation is fast developing in India’s near-abroad. India cannot remain unscathed from these developments for long. The writer is Firstpost Consulting Editor and a strategic analyst who tweets @Kishkindha.