Days into America and Israel's latest war on Iran, the US has started deploying laser weaponry as part of Operation Epic Fury. Made in America satellites, military-grade malware and radar-jamming software are being used to target Iranian weapons, The New York Post reported.
Videos released by the US Central Command show that the new weapon that remains fitted on a US Navy destroyer vessel off the coast of the Middle East nation could be the High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system.
Having a steerable head, this device is capable of concentrating an “intense, tightly focused beam” of energy and taking out drones. Visuals also showed rockets launched over the Israel-Lebanon border and exploding a few seconds later.
Established in 2019, the US Space Force remains critical for air and sea forces to have an idea about where and when to attack. Brent David Ziarnick, a former professor in the Space Force program at Johns Hopkins University, said they were doing it through "satellites that have infrared sensors for finding where rockets are being fired".
“They can spot the missiles and pinpoint where the launchers are. The missiles can be intercepted and destroyed (often with Patriot Missiles). Field forces get notified that an attack is coming, so they can go to shelters or bunkers," The New York Post quoted Ziarnick as saying.
The infrared beams of the Space Force are able to track the missiles soon after launch through the heat they create. Using this technology, hundreds of Iranian missiles have been destroyed, ABC News reported.
Since most of the Space Force's work is centered in the US, the crew members work inside radar domes, named Radomes. They get real-time information, calculate the trajectory of missiles and act accordingly.
Sam Eckhome, host of 'Access Granted' on YouTube, said: "The system is built to ensure, if a missile is ever launched, the United States will be the first to know about it".
Neither the US nor Israel has confirmed or denied the use of lasers in the ongoing war, which started on February 28 when the two countries carried out strikes to assassinate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In the beginning of February, the US Navy said it was able to take down four drones in a test of HELIOS.
Also Read | NDTV Explainer: The US Navy's HELIOS Laser Weapon Test
US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said over 1,000 civilians were killed during the first five days of US-Israeli bombings of Iran. Among those killed were 181 children under the age of 10. The rights group has aggregated reports of 1,097 civilian deaths along with more than 5,000 injuries in the region.
About 1,700 targets were struck by the US forces during the first 72 hours of the war, The New York Post reported. More than 200 of Iran's ballistic missile launchers have been destroyed, and dozens more have been made inoperable.
