Iran claims to have jammed Western fighter radar emissions

Iran claims it “some time ago” jammed the radar of a Western fighter jet.

The fighter jet was near the borders of Iran and began gathering information by emitting radar waves, Bulgarianmilitary.com reports.

Brigadier General Amir Restegari, head of Iran Electronics Industries [IEI] said this, quoted by Military Watch Magazine. However, the Iranian general did not say the model of the fighter jet, nor the country that operates it.

General Restegari says his office has a radio exchange between the pilot and his base saying “my systems encountered a problem, I’m returning.” According to the Iranian general, the incident happened again the next day. This time, however, two fighter jets flew towards Iran’s air border. Restegari says the radar emitters on both fighters were also jammed. “A jammer is working here” was the radio communication between the pilots and their base.

Iran’s electronic warfare capabilities remain unknown. There are claims that Tehran is investing heavily in developing its own Russian-based radars. According to these claims, the country’s anti-aircraft system is built on the basis of the Russian Rezonans-NE radar.

Rezonans-NE is believed by experts to be able to intercept and track the F-35. Of course, not everyone thinks this way, so it’s hard to take this radar’s capabilities for granted. In 2020, director of the Rezonans research center Alexander Stuchilin said that the F-35 was intercepted and tracked by Rezonans-NE.

Although General Restegari did not mention the F-35 fighter in the case he cited, but he claimed that Iran already had the “radar fingerprints” of the stealth fighter. “The enemy’s electronic equipment is detectable,” Restegari said of the F-35, claiming Iran has made progress in developing the technology.

Restegari says the F-35 emits radio waves radically different from other fighter jets. It is these radio waves that are capable of being identified as F-35 radio waves. In this way, Iran can not only identify the plane, but also detect it.

Israel claims that last year, during a regular Israeli Air Force exercise, an F-35 Adir fighter jet entered Iranian airspace. The plane was not noticed by the Iranian air defense at all and collected the necessary intelligence information. Tel Aviv says this is not the first entry of the F-35 into Iran.