Qatar: Reason for Failure
On 9 September, at 3:46PM local time, Israel attacked a residential building in central Doha; targeting Hamas team negotiating ceasefire in Gaza with Qatari leadership—who was in contact with the US and Israeli leadership. Reports suggest that Qatari leadership was trying to impress upon few hard demands for ceasefire forwarded by President Donald Trump. Subsequent to latest session, which reportedly continued the whole night to finish around 5AM local time, Hamas team promised to reply after 12 hours. Attack came few hours before deadline, killing five members of Hamas and a Qatari guard at the site; Hamas leadership undertaking the negotiations, however, survived.
Israel had two plausible options to undertake the attack: long-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles and air-to-surface weapons carried by Israel Air Force (IAF) fighter aircraft. Formidable air defence system of Qatar Air Defence Force (QADF) and Qatar Emiri Air Force (QAF) did not challenge the Israeli attack; for two possible reasons. Firstly, Qatar lacked the political will to resist; secondly, they did not have the capacity to do so. This article will analyse IAF’s offensive options vis-à-vis QADF and QAF operational capability with an aim to examine the later.
Israel has a comprehensive surface-to-surface ballistic missile inventory. On higher end, Jerico-series missiles having range of 1700km to over 11000km seem relevant to the attack Israel undertook; however, its inertial and active-radar guidance do not offer required accuracy in a populated area such as central Doha. Therefore, IAF probably rejected this option.
In air-to-surface category missiles also Israel has multiple options. Below 400km range category IAF maintains weapons such as AGM-142, Rampage, Air LoRA, Wind Demon, Ice Breaker and Sky Sniper; with circular error of probability (CEP) less than 3m; and are carried by all the fighter aircraft on IAF inventory such as F-15, F-16 and F-35. The range, however, requires getting less than 400km close to the target, necessitating airspace violation of other sovereign countries enroute. F-35 carrying weapons on internal bays enables stealthy flight to the target; but even the shortest distance to the target through Jordan and Saudi Arabia is more than the operational range of F-35, necessitating air-to-air refuelling enroute, compromising stealthy approach to weapons launch point.
Rock and Sparrow-series weapons offer much greater ranges. Black-Sparrow and Rock have 800km, Blue-Sparrow has 1000km and Silver-Sparrow has a range of 1500km. F-35 cannot carry these weapons, due to more weight. F-15 could carry only Black and Blue Sparrow, but attack profile will certainly require violation of sovereign airspaces enroute due to less stand-off range. The fact that stealthy approach by the F-35 was not possible, IAF probably employed F-15s, due to greater stand-off range. Moreover, considering the range of air-to-surface weapons onboard F-15s, they could not deliver the loads without violating airspace of other regional countries; because F-15 is not a stealth platform, radars deployed in the area must have picked the attacking formation.
To defend a territory of less than 200km long and 100km wide, QADF owns a comprehensive inventory of Terminal High Altitude Air Defence (THAAD), Patriots and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS). THAAD includes an early-warning radar with 1000km range, and missiles that can hit up to 200km range and 150km altitude. The system, however, is optimised to target short to medium range ballistic missiles. With available assets, QADF could effectively cover its entire airspace. Patriot, a US made surface-to-air missile system, can intercept aircraft, cruise missiles, and tactical ballistic missiles. With 35-50km kill range, QADF has sufficient assets to effectively cover its entire airspace with this system as well. The NASAMS is again a US made short to medium range system that provides point defence against manned aircraft, drones and cruise missiles. In addition to QADF multi-layered assets, QAF has high-tech fighter aircraft such as F-15, Rafale and Eurofighters.
In an air-to-air engagement, Meteors onboard Rafale should provide an effective match to long range BVRs carried by IAF jets. To direct these potent assets against incoming threat, a robust surveillance system is essentially required. Single, UHF band AN/FPS-132 radar, worth $ 1.1B, optimised for space surveillance, provides early warning and detection against ballistic missiles and situational awareness against satellites in the orbit. Open-source information confirms that the single surveillance radar on QADF inventory is operated by the US personnel.
Comprehensive inventory of defensive systems notwithstanding, QADF and QAR failed to defend their sovereignty. To deter such recurrence, they failed to put up any response. For air operations, each link of the sequence of find, fix, track, target, engage and assess, called a “kill-chain” is critical. Fundamental mistake made by the Qatar was to sublet the very first step of the sequence to an external player; consequently, state of the art multilayered defence mechanism built over decades at enormous cost failed to challenge the IAF attack.
