Operation Mole Cricket 19

Operation Mole Cricket 19, was a surface-to-air missile (SAM) suppression campaign launched by the Israeli Air Force against Syrian targets on June 9, 1982, at the third day of Operation Peace for Galilee (later became known as the First Lebanon War).
The background to the operation was the rising tensions between Israel and Syria over Lebanon, which had escalated in the early 1980s and culminated in Syria deploying the Soviet made SAM batteries in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley.

At 2:00 PM of June 9, 1982 the Israeli and Syrian presence on Lebanese soil, turned into one of the biggest air battles since World War II, as IAF launched its strikes on the Syrian SAM batteries.



Syria's first reaction to the Israeli strike was avoiding from scrambling their aircrafts and allowing the surface-to - air system to respond. Twenty minutes into the strike, as it became evident that the SAM batteries had collapsed, Syria ordered its MiGs to intervene.
Two days later, by the end of the operation, the IAF had destroyed seventeen of the nineteen SAM batteries deployed in the Beqaa Valley and shot down 82 enemy aircrafts, without any losses of Israeli aircrafts.
The operation was the first time in history that a Western air force successfully destroyed a Soviet-built surface-to-air missile network.

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