New Delhi: According to latest speculation, Iran may be using a Chinese satellite navigation system named the BeiDou to target Israel and United States military assets in the ongoing war. These speculations were first aired by former French foreign intelligence director Alain Juillet told to an independent Tocsin podcast recently. He said on the podcast how it is likely that Iran has been provided access to China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system because its targeting has become much more accurate since the 12-day war with Israel earlier in June.
New navigation system in place?
Although Israel and Gulf nations have intercepted many of the incoming missiles from Iran in recent days, several have breached defences and have caused significant damage and casualties. While the US can jam or deny access to the US government-owned Global Positioning System (GPS), which Iran’s military previously relied on, it cannot do much to interfere with China’s BeiDou system. Some are now speculating that Iran has switched to BieDou system seeing their current action.
“One of the surprises in this war is that Iranian missiles are more accurate compared to the war that took place eight months ago, raising many questions about the guidance systems of these missiles,” Juillet, who served as the director of intelligence for the General Directorate for External Security from 2002 to 2003, told Tocsin podcast.
China launched the latest version of the BieDou satellite navigation system in 2020. It is seen as a major contender to GPS systems. It was officially commissioned by the Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2020.
According to the Chinese government website for BeiDou, the aim of the system is to “serve the world and benefit mankind”. The website further adds that the system consists of three segments, namely a space segment, a ground segment and a “user” segment.
“The BDS ground segment consists of various ground stations, including master control stations, time synchronisation/uplink stations, monitoring stations, as well as operation and management facilities of the inter-satellite link,” the website said. “The BDS user segment consists of various kinds of BDS basic products, systems, and services as well as those compatible with other navigation systems, including basic products such as chips, modules and antennae, terminals, application systems and application services.”
Currently Iran has not confirmed that it is not using China’s BeiDou navigation system. It is also not clear whether such a swift switching to a different satellite navigation system would be possible in the current state of heightened hostility in Iran. Nonetheless speculations are rife seeing Iran’s relentless defence and military action in the Gulf region.