Iranian Fighter Jet, ‘Kowsar,’ Not Decades-old American F-5 Bombed U.S. Base in Kuwait

The fighter jet that bombed the U.S. base in Kuwait was not a 50-year old Northrop F-5 but its modern clone called ‘Kowsar,’ equipped with 4^th generation equivalent radar, avionics and fire control systems.

According to a report in Iranian news agency, PressTV, the Kowsar successfully evaded layered American and Kuwaiti air defense systems to strike the highly fortified US military base in Kuwait on in the first week of March, around time when U.S. and Israel were engaged in a massive air assault on Iran.

An Iranian fighter jet – an advanced derivative of the Northrop F-5 platform – took off from a base in  Iran, likely from southern Khuzestan province. It then flew at extremely low altitude across the Persian Gulf toward Kuwait.

The aircraft, carrying a payload of bombs, penetrated the air defense network protecting Camp Buehring, a major American military installation located just a short distance from the Iraqi border.

The pilot released the ordnance successfully. The bombs struck the base destroying several aircraft, radars and fortified bunkers with 500 pound bombs, PressTV said quoting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sources.

Later confirmed by US officials speaking to US media, it represented the first time a fixed-wing aircraft had bombed a major American military base since the Korean War. The damage to the base was not highlighted in subsequent U.S. media briefings.

“The Kowsar attack demonstrated that Iran’s air force – long written off by Western analysts as a relic – remains a potent  force,” the report said.

The Iranian strike on Camp Buehring was not a matter of luck or coincidence but the result of meticulous planning, technical skill, and an intimate understanding of American air defense vulnerabilities, according to Iranian military experts.

The Iranian pilot flew the jet at an altitude of only a few dozen meters above the terrain or water surface, the aircraft remained below the radar horizon of Patriot missile batteries and other ground-based interception systems.

These systems, designed to detect and track targets at higher altitudes, could not lock onto an aircraft flying so low, as the curvature of the earth and ground clutter masked its approach.

The distance from southwestern Iran to Kuwait is relatively short, making the mission feasible for the fighter jet’s range without requiring external fuel tanks.

The aircraft likely carried a payload of unguided bombs, estimated at between 250 and 500 kilograms each, with a total ordnance load of approximately 3,000 kilograms.

The Iranian pilot knew that American AWACS aircraft would detect his takeoff, even at low altitude, but he was confident that no US F-15s were patrolling in that specific sector at that moment.

More sophisticated still, the attack pattern was designed to complement Iranian drone operations.

The fighter’s approach was masked by Iranian drones and missiles that were flying towards several U.S. targets scattered all across the Gulf region that consumed U.S. and Gulf surveillance resources. The Shahed-136 one-way attack drones could fly at low altitudes, potentially appearing on radar screens as additional aircraft and probably confused the Americans about the true nature of the threat.